Panchero's

Here's a picture of what P's looks like from the inside. Most of my sightings were on the deck outside...you can sort of see the garnet and gold umbrellas through the window...that would be the porch where I sit and try to do my homework!

The third booth from the back of the picture is basically Katie and I's claimed spot every T/R.

If you were to look to the left you would see the Boca Cafe and behind you is the menu and the crazy, crazy front line...seriously your food is manhandled by like fifteen people before it even gets to the cash register!! It's completely bizarre! The stop signs I talk about are right behind the corner of the building you see in this picture. So the porch is the place to hang out especially since we've been having such pleasant weather this autumn! :)

A view from Panchero's

A list of the oddities around this find establishment after a month of observations:

*Before I even begin, there are 5 items that must be said.

1. Panchero's is near the music school
2. Panchero's is near the English and Religion departments
3. There are Greek houses (both sororities and fraternities) in the vicinity
4. There are two stop signs in plain sight from the porch of Panchero's
5. There is a coffee shot (Boca Cafe) inside Panchero's

Now to the list...

-Apparently the field across from P's is a great place for you to train your dog to do tricks. But not just any old tricks, like sit or roll over...no, no...intense tricks like jumping through hoops!

-The sidewalk around P's is now an exclusive motorcycle roadway. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you can now walk in fear on the sidewalks around this place...because not only can you get hit by sixteen trucks crossing the street in a ten-minute span...but now you can even get hit by the motorcycles driving up your walkway!

-Late one evening, I spotted a whole pack of fraternity boys, dressed in suits--matching of course-- running down the hill, in a line...why? I do not know--perhaps it was for a pleasant midnight jog to increase blood circulation and work off all the alcohol calories they ingest.

-Between 6:10pm and 6:20pm...a ten minute span of time...sixteen trucks passed Panchero's...Sixteen! That is crazy!

-Katie and I saw this girl from the back who had pulled all her hair up on top of her head. It seriously looked like some bushy animal had decided to sit and live on top of her head. Well, after a few minutes of complete shock, we turned around and kept doing our homework. Well ten minutes go by and sure enough, this same girl is walking back to P's, except something is wrong...she is a he! And he has the bushy hair animal on his head and his face painted like someone from the cover of a Marilyn Manson CD. Yeah...Katie and I averted our eyes pretty quickly after that revelation.

-Wescott fountain, as many students know, is a beloved spot on the FSU campus. Usually a picturesque spot for graduates or pamphlets promoting our fine school...it is also used as a dumping ground for birthday people. So this next observation is quite hilarious in light of these facts. My coworker Jimmy and I were sitting out on the porch and saw three women running towards the fountain...not really strange considering the time of night...but these ladies were wearing life jackets. Bright orange life jackets. Apparently the fountain is deep and safety apparatuses should be worn. So what did I learn? That future birthday plungers should heed this warning and prepare themselves accordingly before it's too late and the dark, chilling waters of the fountain swallow them up forever.

-With the continuing trend of large cover-all-of-your-cheekbones sunglasses, it's no surprise that Elvis has visited Panchero's. No lie! This guy had long sideburns, huge glasses, and a white shirt. I secretly had to tell Carly, my grand-little #2, he was here so as not to alarm her...but alas, after she saw him we both broke into a fit of giggles. Much to our dismay, after a few minutes, Elvis left the building.

-What do you think of when you hear the words "pimped out car?" Do you think, old man listening to an 80's song in a sports car? I do now! This guy randomly pulls up to the stop sign and blares his 80's while resting his hand on the steering wheel which he put a blue light under...I didn't know that was even possible! One of the other students at P's, who, after this incident, introduced himself as Brenden, the cheese-faced taco-eater (FYI, we became friends on account of the old 80s dude! I think that is hilarious!) was definitely laughing with me on this one and said, "He wasn't gonna let that song die! That was awesome!" [Oh and if your wondering why he called himself that, it's because he found out that I was people-watching and basically told me while he was eating, he got cheese all over his face...but honestly...I wasn't paying attention to him and his eating, so he basically shared info and landed on my list!]

Well that concludes my adventures on the porch of P's. Tune in next time to hear more stories on the life and times of the strange students sighted around Panchero's...

Ladies of the 80s

Wow. I cannot believe what weird things went on during the 80s in this country! It makes me glad that I was a small child and did not have to witness them.

I just got back from our "80s workout" social and let me tell ya', it was ridiculously hilarious! The club put up a screen so we could watch all the videos that go along with the music...and man oh man...the way some of these people dance is unbelievable. I tried to mimic it. It was awesome. Apparently, doing one jumping jack is a dance move, holding your arms out at shoulder length, slightly in front of you, and swaying is a dance move, and even hugging yourself and slowly unlocking your arms and putting them down at your sides is a dance move. How fantastic is that? :) I seriously did get a workout dancing to these songs.

Oh and this picture is of the "A Ha" band. Yes, you read that right, their BAND name is A-Ha. As if they were sitting around a table trying to come up with a name for themselves and one of them said, a-ha! and for some reason they liked it?! sure. But anyways...I heard a song of theirs...strange, let me tell you. The music video had NOTHING to do with the song, but it was very fascinating.

Quick synopsis: Lady gets seduced by a newspaper cartoon. Newspaper cartoon man pulls her into his cartoon and they dance and sing to each other. Random woman throws away newspaper while they are in the cartoon. Woman gets out of cartoon and runs with the crumpled newspaper to her house. Smoothes it out, cries on it, cartoon man comes out and bangs himself against the walls to become a real person. Then they hug. The End.

R-I-G-H-T. Whatever that means. But hey, they named themselves A-Ha...ya gotta love 'em! So yeah, I definitely gained an appreciation for 80s music only because now I have some pretty sweet dance moves! ;) I just have to say that Kate is fantastic and cracks me up to no end! We rock these socials man...we rock them out! Especially when it's 80s night and all you have to do is dance ridiculously and it works! YES! Bring it on!

sights and sounds of a Williams building student

The Williams Building: center for some of the funniest people you will ever meet at FSU--> The English majors! These are the people who read for class and read for fun. Who find nothing wrong with highlighting or underlining in a book, or even writing notes in the margins. They can discuss a piece of literature from every possible angle and not get sick of the book. They write probably more essays that any other student on campus and can BS with the best of them! Sadly, they also have a major that not many people consider to be difficult and one that doesn't have much job security...and yet here we are...lovers of books, studing the thoughts of past centuries, and enjoying every minute of it! Even when your teachers ask you to do some of the most random things to get 'in-tune' with what you are reading...aka Transcendental walks...

But, I absolutely adore them! It's incredible to see the pleasure on their faces when they read, the excitement of sharing their treasures of insight with a friend, the respect they feel for the writings of great authors. You see them randomly on campus...
the student who
-reads while walking
-finds a nook somewhere in a coffee shop to sit and enjoy a good book
-reads aloud an important passage to his friend and explains what it means
- stays after class to continue the discussion of a book with fellow students or the professor
-writes about her love for literature in her blog!

It's neat to me how God has gifted human beings in different areas. The fact that I can get the same pleasure out of reading Thoreau that another student gets by creating ethenol in a lab is wonderful! The human mind is so vast!

There is something addicting about unlocking the key to a piece of literature and seeing beyond the surface of the words to the person behind them. It's like stepping into a mirror and finding a whole new world seen through the eyes of the person who lived there. The words are just the road that leads the reader to the country beyond. Almost like Mary Poppin's paintings she jumps through...the painting itself was just a portal through which they explored the new demention of reality.

Literature shows struggle, pain, life, risks, fears, joys, discoveries that others before us felt and went through. What a unique way to learn about humanity, history, and ourselves. Reading helps me see that the emotional struggles I have were shared by others in the past as well, and shows me how they managed them... lived and learned through them.