one more miracle

I HAS A MICHELLE!!!!!!!

Michelle is my most bestest in the WHOLE WORLD and I adore her to absolute tiny bits and I CAN HAS HER!! :D :D :D When she walked out of the arrivals door I actually TACKLED her, and in my joy I dropped my phone and sent it scattering in tiny bits, WHOOPS. But I put it back together and it is fine. AND I HAVE A MICHELLE. EVERYTHING IS WORTH A MICHELLE. YAY.

Then, straight from the airport, we went to Niall's house for his birthday! And lo, it was joyous! We had soooo much fun, I can't even. I brought the boys (Niall and Paddy) Desperados beer, their favorite, and they were happy, and there were singalongs at the piano and Niall's mom making us eat nummy food, and all my darlingsl ike Sinead and Lou etc there, and Michelle had a great time with my darlings TOO, and BAAAASICALLY I am very happy with life, the universe, and everything. <33333333333333

The taxi driver we had back from Niall's was hilarious and lovely. He apparently used to be both a hearse driver and the valet for U2. !!!! Bono is apparetly "a bit bollocks" but alright, and The Edge is an alright guy too, but he didn't like Adam very much, and never met Larry. I Loled. I can't wait to tell my mom that story. He asked me if I liked Irish boys, and hardcore metal. He was, honestly, the best taxi driver ever. AND his taxi was a Mercedes.

GOOD TIMES ALL ROUND.

*BEAMSHINES*

So tonight I got all gussied up (who SAYS that? Apparently I do!) and went to see the DIT Symphonic Orchestra perform at the National Concert Hall, because Niall (yes, THE Niall) plays oboe in it! The performance was called A Night Of American Music, and they played a bunch of John Williams (Empire Strikes Back! Superman! it was AWESOME!), then whole sets from Porgy and Bess and West Side Story, complete with singers, and it was really cool because it was beautiful orchestral music but I also knew some of it, so I was kept entertained. I also may have watched Niall a bit more than was strictly necessary. He's so adorable you guys, what the hell. He even had at least two solo-ish moments, at least where his oboe was the most prominent instrument, and he was so good, I was so proud of him :D He seemed really pleased that Sinead and Louise and I came to see his show. And I met his parents afterwards! It was a really lovely night.

Random bits from the night: a senator of Ireland, David Norris, was sitting in the same row as us! He said excuse me to us as he went in to his seats, Sinead was very excited, haha. Apparently he is gay, vocally in favor of gay marriage, and just a lovely fun man. So that was nifty! \o/

Also, there was a piano soloist who was fucking talented but who was, hi, BRENDON. I mean. He looked about 18, and was a bit twitchy and spazzy. He had a red vest and bowtie on under his tux, and I think they had to hunt him down when it was time for his song because there was an awkwardly long pause beforehand, and he had long shaggy hair that got in his eyes, and he OWNED that piano. So yes. Because all things come back to bandom \o/

I'm really really really fond of Niall. If that wasn't clear.

Moving on!

crystal_lily!! I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!! Bweeeeee BOOSH! And RUSSELL! And a beautiful letter in your beautiful handwriting! YAYE! *twirls you* Thank you so much, sweetiepie! It totally made my day <33333

I paused in writing this post to call my dad, and, like, I know I say this all the time, but I love my dad so much. I had refrained from calling him for a while because he was super sick with the flu (he was in bed for TWELVE DAYS *boggles*) but he's finally feeling almost better so I wasn't as worried about tiring him out. And I swear I need my weekly doses of my daddy like I need oxygen, or sunshine. He just lifts my spirits, even if they don't need lifting. We talked about how even though I might be dreading leaving this place, it's pretty dumb to worry about losing something awesome WHILE I am experiencing said awesomeness. We also talked about what it will be like for me to go home, and how it will probably be different than I'm expecting, because *I* am so different. And I really, really am. When I went home in December, we spent Christmas dinner with my godparents, and my dad told me that they remarked to him, astonished, about how superconfident I had become. And I really hadn't thought about it in that way, but it's true - I am so much more sure of myself, more pleased and comfortable with who I am, and much more easy with interacting with people. It feels wonderful. We also talked about his upcoming visit (SQUEE! Two weeks!!!) and how ridiculously excited we both are, and all the amazing things we're going to do, and YOU GUYS I GET MY DADDY AND MY LITTLE SIS :D:D:D I get to show them my beautiful city, and my beautiful country, and basically have this experience none of us will forget. Yaaaaaay.

There are a bunch of other random things I could talk about, but I am exhausted and I think I have rambled on plenty. Goodnight, my lovelies! <3

Today was randomly fabtastic! I totally didn't expect that! I had my first class at noon (statistical thermodynamics, ew ew ew) and then I went to meet Sinead and the biochem kids at Java. Sinead and most of them had to leave really soon though, but Niall didn't! So it ended up just being me and Niall hanging out and chatting for 45 minutes. He's so sweet. He makes me laugh and I make him laugh and it's good times :D Then we sat together in our next lecture, went to the library for our free hour together, then sat together again for our last lecture! It was pretty much unmitigated awesome - I adore him.

Then I texted Dara asking if he and Paul were up in sci fi, and they were! So I headed in that direction, and they were up there with a couple other people. We played Guitar Hero for an hour - the only songs I played were two co-ops with Paul, hee. We are a rockin' team \o/ In between songs, we had pillow fights and poking fights and we totally have the pigtail-pulling kind of mutual crush, it's actually ridiculously fun, idek. I love hanging out with him and Dara, they're just made of puppies and rainbows!

Then everyone showed up and we had our sci fi committee meeting. Good craic, as usual! I loff everybody <3

Thennnnn I went out to dinner at a delicious Thai place with Kate, her brother Adam, Cary, Emily, and Megan, all American girls on the Butler program. We were sending Adam off, as he is leaving tomorrow, tear! He's a really cool guy, he's been fun to have around :)

THEN we came back up to sci fi because I was going to go out to a movie with the sci fi boys, and I brought the American kids along with me for a round of Guitar Hero and just to say hello, because everyone I know is awesome and gets along swimmingly \o/ I played yet another song with Paul, and had more tickling and poking fights, I SWEAR WE ARE TWELVE. He even picked me up and twirled me at one point! *hands* I don't even know, I just know it's fun :P

So then the American contingent headed off to a pub, and I set off with a passel of boys (plus one girl!) to see Cloverfield! There was Bren, Mark, Barry, Colin, Niall, Justin2, and Megan. I spent the whole walk there talking to Bren, which was so lovely because I adore him but I really only ever see him briefly in the sci fi room. He's the head of the society and always really busy with that or schoolwork. We sat together for the movie, and talked on the walk back too, I loved that :) It had been a long time since I'd been out with the group of them like that, it was really nice. Cloverfield was pretty awesome - there was lots of covering of the eyes, because hey, gross! But awesome! I liked it. The guys LOVED it, of course. ♥

Only two moments of sourness today - first, Bren told me that Andy broke up with that girl Jean 3 weeks after they got together. In like. November. Um. DO YOU REMEMBER HOW MUCH I WAS EMOING ABOUT HIM? How I was completely head over heels but he was taken?? HE WASN'T TAKEN. HE DIDN'T TELL US. I am really quite baffled and kind of hurt and just. Blegh. I don't want to think about it. But I think I'm cured of my crush because while I still adore him, I realize that he really does have issues and I don't think it would be healthy to get tangled with that. The other moment of meh was when I asked Niall why he and Colin and Andy didn't make it on Friday (he told me he was trying to convince them to come) and he kind of made a face and said he didn't want to talk about it just then. So either Colin or Andy was being weird about coming to hang out with me. Awesome. Meh, whatever.

Let's finally have some visual aids for all these names I'm dropping everywhere! I didn't take too many pictures last Friday, but once I got quite drunk and the camera got in my hands, I got some awesome ones, so - sharing! There's also a video of a group a capella rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, that was AWESOME. Hee.

( Galileo GALILEO Galileo GALILEO Figaro magnifico-o-oooo! )

Well that's that! It was a good night indeed. And today was a good day. I'm so pleased. :) Now my toes are cold and I have class in 8 hours so I'm gonna hit the sack! Gnight my dears!