On the Tree House.

Sometimes I live in a cabin.

Sometimes I live in a ski chalet.

Sometimes I live in a charming wooden town house.

Yes, I live at 824 West Emerson Street, in a home that has fondly become known as the Tree House. It is charming and warm, full of wood trimming and plush carpet, and we can't quite decide what it most looks like.

But we do know that we love to cook ethnic food on a regular basis (thus far, we have had Ethiopian, Sri Lankan, Iraqi, Hungarian, Romanian, Thai and Italian...among others), we like to snuggle with our house boyfriend Shirkhan (He is a massive blanket that was a hand-me-down from Tasha's grandma - fondly known as Boona - and has stolen all our hearts as well as the hearts of others. He is the reason some of our friends remain our friends.), and we like to do the crossword over tea and toast. We also drink many bottles of good man Charlie (thank you Trader Joe's), clink glasses over many a dinner party, and love, more than anything, that we have a home that people enjoy coming to.

Ps. I get my own room this year. This is an exciting new phenomenon and I don't think I'm ever going to get out of the honeymoon stage with it. I got to decorate how I've always wanted to decorate, I met my Snow-White desk and it was love at first sight, I have cream sheer curtains and windows that look out through the tops of branches onto our little street and trinkets from across the globe to help me never forget all the places I come from.

On Hallow-Scream

Dear readers, let me tell you, I am not a huge fan of scary things. Or things that make me afraid, or things that cause my emotional cheerfulness to dwindle or sense of control to be debunked. In fact, I flee from these things much like squirrels scamper from oncoming traffic. I have watched a grand total of two and a half poorly filmed, awfully directed and even more awfully acted horror movies and I have no immediate plans to expand that repertoire. So naturally it fell upon me to chair what turned out to be our first colossal event: Hallow Scream - The Curse of the Library.

"How many people do you think we'll have Steph?"

"Oh I dunno...200, 300 maybe..."

Being a first time event and all that, my co-chair person Trevor White and I were feeling confident in our ideas and co-leading ability, which was a plus as this nicely balanced out our feelings about the actual event itself - "foggy" is the word that comes to mind.

Turns out t'was a roaring success (imagine a nonchalant wave of the hand, maybe a cigarette in the other).

We had epic guides.

We had forty five of SPU's most talented and brave actors be ghouls and ghosts and beasts of all shapes and sizes at various levels of disgusting.

We had a line that went up stairs, past cafeterias, up hills and past residence halls.

We had to turn about four to five hundred people away after letting in about, what I guesstimated to be about eight hundred shrieking, screaming, yowling individuals.

There was no serious damage, clean up was a bz but got done in due time with no temper combustion, no broken necks, no broken friendships. Never has a chair been so proud!

Yes it was dressy weekend in general.

This whole shindig was quickly followed by Saturday night, during which Al and I decided to dress up as mice...naturally to complete herd that was begun by Stephan and Clint who were a coon and a sheep respectively. Our little pack moved to party the night away (party animals that we were) with superman, Adam and Eve, a cumolonimbus cloud, several loofas and the big bad wolf complete in it's grandma gear.

All encompassing, it was a hallow-f a time.

Ps. and Tommy was a president. Naturally.

A Hum for a Blustery Day

Oh the wind is lashing lustily

And the trees are thrashing thrustily

And the leaves are rustling gustily

So it's rather safe to say

That it seems that it may turn out to be

a rather blustery day today.

~ Courtesy of Pooh Bear :

A Hum for a Blustery Day

I woke up last night, all but eyes and nose buried in my featherbed, to wind beating branches on my window panes and rain tipping down about the house like a fervid, tropical cataract. Not a thought went through my head, but a sleepy smile sufficed to express that wholehearted contentment one feels when stormy nights make nesting that much more enjoyable.

Today was the blustery day of days and every lashing, thrashing, rustling bluster that Pooh and Christopher experienced that one literary-changing day, was experienced by Queen Anne herself. We huddled to school wrapped like little balls of yarn, we squinted and laughed into the onrush of wind and we drank tea.

On Discovery Park

Discovery park is glorious on a sunny day. On any day really, but there is just something about blue sky and blue water and green and gold in between.

One trips about with a feeling that magic may happen. And whether it's the sudden impulse for adventure that sailing ships stir up, or the feeling of being breathless and brimming at the same when the sun touches the sea and everything turns gold, or the discovery of foggy sea glass when you're least expecting it; it does happen.

Especially when there's a wonderful boy to hold your hand and skip rocks with (I got 3 skips and felt pretty confident about myself as a person until he went ahead and got 7).

It was a good Saturday.

On STUB (More bad ass than you remember)

I have an office now.

Also a personal voice mail and letter box.

I am capable of using Outlook and Sharepoint.

I have never felt so legit in my life.

Yep, I am, by the grace of God, on STUB this year, the Student Union Board, the event programming team of SPU, in charge of pretty much every big social event that happens on campus. After the first few months of working together, I have come to the imminent conclusion that we are, in fact, a sizable collection of rubber bands: there are eight of us in various shapes and colors and sizes, we are going to be doing a lot of stretching this year and we are capable of doing cool things. STUB is going to provide me with a significant percentage of this years laughs and adventures and is going to teach me how to be an efficient, organized, punctual event planner (Hark! Are those snorts of disbelief sounding from across the globe?). I felt like it deserved a special mention.

Allow me to introduce the team:

Josh Norquist (director) and Trevor White, Gina Ogazi and Shane Pech, Alyssa Sutherland and Steph Rubesh (thats me), Kristina Ingles and Mandy Hough.

The Team (Emily kindly stood in for me)

I thank the Lord for such an incredible opportunity, because really, when I said "grace of God" earlier I was far from joking. He has worked overtime for this girl here and I say that with utmost, grateful, shame-faced confidence. I will never miss an interview again.

Thus far, we've had retreats - camping, hiking in the rain, sessions etc. The first, we cooked hobo dinners, I got to practice my mad jungle girl skillz on the high ropes and of course we had red robin to top it off. It was a song. The second was a lot of soccer and s'mores and story time. I know, it's rough.

We also had our first event, Big Party which was a blast! It was nautical themed this year, complete with starfish, sailors and clam chowder.

And next....

Coming to you this Fall...

At a campus near you...

Hallow-Scream

The Curse of the Library.

It'll be a thumbs-up kind of thing.

P.s. You see this face?

That is the face of Lingua. Beware. That is all.

(We're just jealous of those eyes, lets be real.)