September 24th, 2007
Distractions. For a college student, distractions are EVERYWHERE. For me, last week was no exception. Yet again, I find myself staying up way too late working on a project I should have finished (wait, started) a week ago. Well, let’s start with the good distraction.
I finally have it—the thing that I have been waiting for since I came to Aggieland—no, not my diploma, my Fightin’ Texas Aggie Ring! WHOOP!! It’s so pretty…as I type, I keep getting distracted by my bling. It happens when I drive too, which probably isn’t the safest thing in the world. Perhaps I should take my beautiful ring off while driving in order to best serve the greater good of road safety….nope, I don’t think so! Here’s a tip, gals—the same thing happens when you get an engagement ring—lesson: getting engaged is not conducive to safe driving!
Last week I told ya’ll about the pleasant after-effects of anesthesia due to wisdom tooth surgery. Well, let me tell you, some of the side effects of the surgery are not so pleasant. Last Wednesday, I had the great fortune of developing a dry socket—basically, the hole where my tooth used to be went all the way down to my bone and nerve endings. As fun as that sounds, it’s nowhere near as fun as the cure to dry sockets—having it packed with medicated gauze. For those of you who have not had your wisdom teeth out, be very careful afterwards! Dry sockets are awful! Luckily, last week was one of my few low stress weeks, and now there is no pain at all! Hooray!
Since the whole “worst mouth pain I’ve ever had” happened during last week, I planned on getting a lot of work done this weekend. Unfortunately for me, my roommates picked this weekend to purchase one of the greatest distractions of my time: Guitar Hero II. Not only did they buy the regular Guitar Hero II, but also Guitar Hero Rocks the 80’s. Wow. Instead of getting ahead in my honors Finance 341 class or studying for my first upper level history test on Tuesday, I spent the weekend “slamming hot guitar riffs” all over the house. I can now whammy, strum, and generally rock out better than I ever thought I could. For those of you not acquainted with the time waster extraordinaire, “whammy” is when you play a long note and, for lack of a more technical term, make the note wobble by moving the whammy bar up and down. Oh yes, I can now whammy. I even mastered “Freebird”! (On the medium setting, that is!) My roommate Michelle is the master, though. She can hit notes that I can’t even see! One day, my friends, one day…
My roommates also bought SingStar, a karaoke game for Play Station 2. I know what you’re thinking, “A karaoke game? Really? That’s pretty lame.” I know, because I thought the same thing when Michelle called and told me about it. However, when I came home to discover my neighbor and Michelle blaring out “Material Girl” by Madonna, I have to say, my opinion was changed. I am a sucker for all things 80’s, and of course, my roommates had bought the 80’s disc. As I sang my way through the disc, I realized that I, Erika Schmidt, do in fact love me the SingStar karaoke game. I mean, come on, look at the title list for the 80’s disc:
Billy Ocean “Caribbean Queen”
Billy Joel “Uptown Girl”
Blondie “Heart of Glass”
Culture Club “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time”
Dead or Alive “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)”
Dexys Midnight Runners “Come on Eileen”
Duran Duran “Rio”
Erasure “A Little Respect”
Europe “The Final Countdown”
A Flock of Seagulls “I Ran (So Far Away)”
Foreigner “I Want to Know What Love Is”
Kim Wilde “Kids in America”
Madness “Our House”
Madonna “Material Girl”
Men at Work “Who Can It Be Now?”
Nena “99 Red Balloons”
The Pretenders “Brass in Pocket”
R.E.M. “Stand”
Run D.M.C. “It’s Tricky”
Simple Minds “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”
Soft Cell “Tainted Love”
Squeeze “Tempted”
Starship “We Built This City”
Survivor “Eye of the Tiger”
Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
Thompson Twins “Hold Me Now”
Tina Turner “Simply the Best”
Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
Wham! “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”
Not only are there great songs on this disc, but as you sing the song, the music video plays in the background. Sweet!
The whole point of today’s blog, kiddos, is that there were WAY too many distractions for me to get enough work done over the weekend. If you want to get ahead, don’t, by any means, buy a Play Station 2, Guitar Hero, and SingStar. After blistered hands, a sore throat, and a late paper, you will regret it.
Peace out, friends, and have a productive week!
