Holli Rausch

It’s 4:00 AM. I wake up to the flashing lights and loud buzzing of the fire alarm. Being the duty RA, I grab my glasses, cell phone, and keys and run to the first floor. I know that there are no other RA’s in the building, so I begin looking for the alarm box key to silence the sound for at least a little while. As I search, I begin to look up my RD’s (Mandy’s) phone number in my cell because I thought she was out of town. I turn around and she’s standing there. I say, “Thank God you’re here!” She hands me the master key and I go knocking and unlocking doors on 1st floor. At this point, we can’t do anything but assume this is real. Girls (and their guy friends) are coming out of their rooms and down the stairs grumpily as I think, “Your lives may be in danger right now and all you can do is whine?!”

I get half-way through knocking and unlocking my floor (2nd floor) when Mandy comes up and says, “It’s on this floor!” We check all of the pull alarms, but none have been triggered. Mandy then says, “We need to check the discs in the ceiling of every room.” We don’t know what we’re looking for, because we’ve never had it happen from a room before. We start checking and finally find a room that has a disc missing. The resident and her boyfriend were still in the room, which is in violation of fire alarm policy, but they helped us a lot so I guess it was kind of a blessing. We found something that looked like it might be the disc. It was bent, but the guy bent it back and stuck it in the ceiling. He twisted it and it seemed to lock in place.

Mandy went downstairs and silenced the alarm, sending girls back to bed. It never went off again. One and a half hours later, I finally fall back to sleep. That’s what I call a great Saturday night!

At the Senate meeting Wednesday, I announced my plans for not running for another year. It felt nice to get it out there so they know. I think a couple expected me to be running for an office, but….they were wrong. That night I had a floor program which was a movie night. We watched Elizabethtown. Well, I didn’t really. I was in the room, but I had so much writing to do for two classes that I did that instead of watch the movie. So I can’t give a review on it. There were 6 girls from my floor in the room…which is what I expected. I would have to say it was even successful…which is sad for less than 1/5 of my floor participating.

Miles and I rented Love Actually and Multiplicity last night. I had not given Love Actually a fair chance when I first watched it two summers ago. I only gave it 10 minutes and I wasn’t in the right mood for a romantic movie. Miles really liked it when he saw it, so I gave it another go. Turns out, I really enjoyed the movie. And I was glad that I saw it, technically for the first time, with him. He has never seen Multiplicity, and I thought it was very funny. Especially the 4th Michael Keaton character. We’ll watch that sometime between now and Thursday.

I received my Comedy Bytes embroidered shirt today; it looks awesome! I’m pretty excited. It’s a blue and black bowling shirt, with my name embroidered on the left side above the pocket, “Comedy Bytes Improv” embroidered on the right sleeve, and DSU’s logo on the left sleeve. Miles and I put ours on and we instantly felt professional. Miles described the moment as, “I feel like we know what we’re doing.” Which is funny…because with improv, we rarely know what we’re doing…! Anyway, thanks to Dr. Knowlton, we will look good onstage.

The casting was announced today for the two spring plays. Miles was cast in the role I expected him to be, which is a good fit. I was cast in both plays, as characters I didn’t audition as. But Sue knows me pretty well and how I act, or nact as some would say. So I trust her judgement. I’m a little disappointed I was cast in both productions, just because my time for rehearsing is so limited…but I’ll be OK. It’s only for one month. And March should be my least busiest month.

I will be updating my bulletin board this weekend, so hopefully I’ll get a picture taken before my next post. Sorry this one doesn’t have any eyecandy along with it.

Hopefully you have all realized that my last post was completely sarcastic. I had a great weekend and look forward to future endeavors with Bryce and Lindsey. *thumbs up*

I had a busy Valentine’s Day. (No, not The Honorable’s special day, sillies.) It was full of laughter and love and pain and African drums and tears and a guitar. Intrigued? You should be.

I went to Web Publishing II, where I was informed that there was no class. I was so excited, since this was the second day in a row that my 1st class of the day had been canceled. I came back to work on an assignment for the class and felt horribly sick. I was in so much pain that it was hard to walk. But I made it to my 11:00 class where Miles and I had an emailed conversation and decided to have lunch together afterward. We ate while the Kudzida cultural musical performance occurred, which seemed highly out of place for the day and location. Miles surprised me with some candy turtles his mom bought while we were in Big Stone City. Awwwwwh!

We headed to my room, where he had earlier placed on my door a CD case and a sheet of paper turned around. I was very surprised to see it. They were two CDs he had made for me. The paper actually had a poem on it that Miles had written for me. It was very sweet and romantic and it made me tear up! I need to figure out where to display it yet. He also created a desktop wallpaper to go along with it.

All of the above paragraph happened in a matter of five minutes because I had to meet up with Lisa and Ben and David to deliver Love Out Loud cards from the Drama Club. We delivered about 15 in two hours; it was a lot of fun, especially when we delivered to DSU faculty. I had my guitar and played chords and soft songs while the others read the Valentines. David got two LOL cards from Chuck Norris, Tony and Miles, believe it or not. And Miles got one from Chuck Norris’ lover, David, which is gross. We delivered his while he was in class. He got two, the other being from me. I was too chicken to read it to him myself though, so I just played the guitar while Ben read it. The most awkward delivery was to a mechanic in the body shop. All of his mechanic buddies were cat calling at him and laughing at him. When we left David said, “Someone’s going to get beat tonight.” True story.

I went to visit Miles at the library while he tutored. There he read me the LOL card he made for me. Enjoyable? Of course. Ridiculous? Nothing less. I also gave him one of his gifts, Season 2 of Arrested Development. Dad, if you’re lucky, maybe he can be coaxed into bringing it to Hawarden when we visit! He had no clue he was getting it. Even though when he’d say, “I think I’m going to buy Season Two of AD” I would respond with, “I think it would be best if you didn’t.” He never saw it coming. Then I went to class. I skipped band because I didn’t feel well and lied down in my room. Miles came to visit when he got off work and we went to eat at Common Grounds. We decided we weren’t impressed with the new location and atmosphere of the place. But it was still a great dinner and a wonderful time with Miles. I went to work at KJAM – because I’m dumb and never asked for it off. Then Miles and I broke in the first two episodes of his gift.

Check out Miles’ Valentine’s day pictures here. I received valentines from fellow RA Megan, Emry President Crystal, and friends Danielle/Carrie/Kensi/Sara. I gave none. I’m a horrible friend.

Biggest news from yesterday, friends Bob Davidson and Holly Smith got engaged! When she showed me the ring in class, I screamed and then started crying and laughing. – A typical response from me. I’m very excited for them. Cheers!

This morning on DSU’s newest campus internet radio station, KDSU, Dr. Berman played Metallica’s Enter Sandman. (Ironically, Miles had just mentioned the song last night.) It got me thinking of sleep. More so, thinking of my dreams. Often, my dreams good or bad are of things that can actually happen. A friend’s death, working at camp, doing RA rounds, going to class, DJing at KJAM, and everyday things. One dream I had close to five years ago still seems as ridiculous today as it did the morning after.

Dream background: I had a classmate in High School who was born with a hand that had not fully developed. We’ll call him Tom. Eric and Katie dated in High School for a little while.

A bunch of us were at a drive-in movie theater. In the car other than myself are Tom, Eric, and Katie. We were on a double date. Tom’s hands were both of normal size. We were enjoying the movie, when the giant Stay Puft marshmallow man tore through the screen! This monster began detroying everything. He walked on cars, on people, and ate trees. Then he stepped on our car. Katie and Eric were crushed to death -their relationship didn’t last long in real life either. I survived with no real injuries. Tom wasn’t so lucky. He survived yes, but was in a lot of pain. I came to his aid and soon found out that his pain was coming from his left hand. Stay Puft had crushed it when he stepped on the car. Unfortunately, it healed as a shrivled hand. I wake up here.

The other day, I had woken up and fell back asleep for a few minutes before getting ready for class. I started to dream. I dreamt that I had turned my alarm clock off and fallen back asleep and was sleeping through my morning classes. Then, in my dream I start yelling, “No! You aren’t dreaming that you’ve overslept. This really is happening! You’ve gotta get up NOW!” I woke up with a start and looked at my clock. It was 9:34…Web Publishing II starts at 9:30. I remembered that my clock is five minutes fast. I put on my glasses, threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed my computer, and headed to class. Turns out, my professor was running late as well and I arrived before he took attendance. Lucky me.

Dreams are strange.

Currently reading: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown; The Book of Galatians

It’s not good for a worrier to need to be at work at 5:00 AM. I’ve basically been awake since 2:33, afraid I will not hear my alarm go off. Then I come to KJAM and have to keep the front door locked until its daylight, just because who knows who could be out there.

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This may come as a shock to all, but until this weekend, I had never seen any Lord of the Rings movies. Starting Friday, Miles and I ventured into the unknown to watch all three extended versions. As you can tell by my title, the first two really have just blurred into one seriously long film. But one seriously good film. Today at some point, we will be watching the third and final. I tend to find things funny in the movie that apparently aren’t meant to be comedic. I think I just see the lighter side of everything. I foresee us also watching the special features DVDs in the very near future.

I’m not sure how long these extended versions are supposed to be, but for us they tend to be darn near 5 hours. Because of many unexpected distractions, it makes watching these movies very difficult. I will name a few of these disturbances: eating, me asking lots of questions and Miles pausing the movie and explaining everything (if you know Miles, you know how long that could take), and random visits from two of my future roommates Kensi and Sara.

Sara, Kensi, and Danielle. Those girls. If you check out the picture I’ve posted, you’ll see what I have to look forward to. They can’t even spell “disturb”. Oh, but as much as I like to poke fun, we’re going to have a good time next year. Who else would play London Bridge is Falling Down incorrectly? Who else would spend a significant amount of time brainstorming ideas on how to transport objects with a slinky? Who else would obsess about swoop bangs? I tell you, no one.

Big week ahead of me. I’ll be finishing up my first Daktronics project, bidding on the Angels and Demons audiobook (there’s no way I’ll ever find time to read it), writing my first paper for the semester, attending a scholarship banquet, celebrating Groundhog Day, and heading to Miles’ hometown; all while saving the world. Good news: I’m not on weekend duty again until March 17th.

OK, bye bye!