November 16, 2006

Giggle fits
Farlas

Annatar, you sent me into peals of laughter!

Yes, twas indeed the ol' "help with the bulletin board" ploy.

Here is an account of it as full as I can remember.

oh, but first, do note that a good deal of things was just talking and laughing and him laughing at me. And, do note that this is copied and pasted from a letter to a friend, so I may have a few notes thrown in here and there.

This is a narrative of the events that occured from Thursday and onward. It's going to be a little choppy, but you know how I am. Feel free to take notes and ask questions! :o)

Wednesday.
Through either divine intervention or I know not what, I managed to sit next to Jonathan at dinner Wednesday night. usually I'm across the table, which makes talking a little... hard. But this night, I was right smack next to him. The table started to clear out a little, and we got to talking, and he asked me what sewing stuff I had up here. I said I had a pair of scissors, three colors of thread that I will never use, probably a thimble, but that was all. Then he started asking me about how I cut fabric in straight lines. Then, in a classic Jonathan way, he asks me if I would be willing ot help him cut out the boarder for his bulletin board. I told him yes, and then he said he would tell me where and when on Friday.

Thursday.
I forget exactely when, but I do believe it was at lunch Thursday afternoon that he said 2:30 on Saturday and asked if I preferred the dining hall or the Educational Lab in the library. I said the Ed Lab cuz it's much closer to his dorm than the dining hall.

Friday.
Artist Series. He said I had a whole medieval princess thing going. Other than that, the music was good, but the evening was nothing that spectacular.

Saturday.
I slept in most of the morning, went to brunch, then came back to the room and talked with Leah for a few hours about her night at Artist Series and various other things classified as "girl talk". Then, 2:30 came. It was a cold day, so I practically ran over to the library, which is in the JEC, and then meandered over to the door that led to teh Ed Lab (mostly because I wasn't sure which one it was). He was busy cutting out letters with some odd machine that looks like a rolling pin that cuts out paper letters when yous et the paper on something that looks like a hard foam block with the letter outline carved on it.

As he finished that up, he showed me the material and waited to see if I approved of it. (He knows nothing about fabrics and had NO idea whether it was useable for it or not) As it turns out, it was perfect! It is cow printed (his bulletin board is on calcium.. I'll attach the picture) and is a coarse, almost sack like material that does not fray unles you mess around with it. And it was wonderfully easy to work with! I cut out the fabric in two inch strips for him, and then informed him I'd be willing to help with the rest of it too. (This might sound weird, but I like doing bulletin boards... have for years!)

This is where things kinda get funny. See, he was thorougly convinced that me cutting out a few strips of fabric was a HUGE inconvenience to me and that he was just ruining my day completely. What took him a day to comprehend was that I had NOTHING to do this weekend that I hadn't already done (or had plans to do later that evening.) So, he thanked me profusely and kept saying what an awesome and great person I am and all this, and then after I told him I wanted to help him with the rest of it, he asked me if I like the Grind (coffee shop on campus), and I said yes, so he said he'd take me over there and buy me up to three things as his way of saying Thank you.

We got what we needed to get squared away in the Ed Lab done, and then gave it to the girl to be laminated. It was going to take a while, so we walked over to the Grind and I got a large hot chocolate. (There are no three things that I could possibly buy at the Grind at once... well, maybe cookies or mints, but I so wasn't in the mood for that.)

I figured, after the hot chocolate it would be, "Well thanks for helping me, I'll tell you when and where for tomorrow at dinner. See ya Frank!" But... he took me back to the JEC and since coffee an dthings are not allowed inthe Library, he asked me to sit down at one of the tables for the Grind Limited and wait for him as he got his stuff. (The Grind limited is pretty much a little stand with a few of the more popluar drinks from the Daily Grind. It's in the main floor/lobby of the JEC, and it has four or five tables set up in a little set back part of the wall. Quite out of the way, directly across from the library, popular place to study if the Library isn't your thing and the Grind is too loud or isn't open.)

So, sit I did, and when he came back, he sat down in the other chair (which was next to mine) and turned it so he could face me better. We talked for something close to an hour about his eldest brother Dan and his youngest brother Joel, who has muscular dystrophy (sp?). I must say, he loves Joel and he was just tickled pink that I was interested in hearing about him. I think that is the brother he loves the most. It was very sweet.

Well, time drew night to dinner, so he said he had to return the stuff to his room and that he'd see me at dinner and we could discuss when and where on Sunday that we could meet to hopefuly finish up the board.

About 45 minutes later I was sitting across from him at dinner and we there established we would meet at noon in FC 211.

Sunday.
WEll, church ran a little long, and he had other stuff to do, so it turned into 12:25ish. Anyway! From 12:25 to about 1:30 we sat around cutting out laminated letters. This is where something shows through, but I'm not sure what... see, I ended up cutting out a bulk of the letters because he was much slower than I was. I don't know if that means I've just done it more, or if guys are just slower at cutting out laminated letters or what... but this is a slighlty important note for later.

After we got them all cut out, we put up the paper and the border, then all the letters and what not. Which, would have been incredibly dull if he wasn't so incredibly funny! I spent most of the day watching him be his silly self! From the silly voices to the teasing to the singing... oh he kept me in stitches! Yet, for as much of a goof off of a clown as he seems to be, he seems to be on top of things academically and, from what I can tell, is quite a responsible guy. How he blends the two is beyond me. But it's hard for me to say, I was born 35. Maybe 40. :o)

Now, because this was sunday, I could only work on it til 4, then I had to go back and get ready for evening services. We agreed to meet at dinner and then head back over to finish putting it up.

Now, I'm pretty sure this was before dinner, but I'll mention it here... he called me on my self conciousness. Which, I have been ridiculously self conscious since I've gotten up here. He said something like, "You know, you're a very self concious person which doens't really work so well with... (and something abut being not very self concious). You need to... just be. Just be!" And I admitted he was right, but said no more on it and just thought about it a little.

Oh, and something else to randomly throw in... I sent out a huge mass email to all of my friends both back home and here and I signed it with my typical "-Farlas" Well... he brought up the fact he had recieved the email and then said something about the name, but he couldn't remember what it was, so he said something like, "Yeah, what was that? Alfeous Farschnitzel bar Jonah..." and rambled on with this huuge long name that made me laugh, quite hard, yet again. Well, every once in a while he yet calls me Alfeous, and I like it! Sounds Roman or something...

Well, after dinner we worked on it and worked on it, and got done at 9:30pm. Then, I took a picture of him, and then he took a picture of me and photoshopped it together. Then we looked at Artist Series pics and i showed him a few of my banners, which he actually found a few of them interesting and spiffy! :o)))))) and then we cleaned up and walked out. We reached the path in the sidewalk where our ways split and he told me yet again how thankful he was for me helping him and how awesome I was for helping him and how great a friend and all this jazz, and then I told him I was going to try just being myself with out apology and that I was going to try it out on him and let him be my sounding board. To which he smiled and said he would be.

And that was that. I think...

Well, then there is the tearing down. Which took a grand 20 minutes as opposed to the many many 6.5 hours or so we spent putting the fool thing up! But not much happened. And not much has happened in between and since. Though, I will keep you posted Annatar, so your movie may be accurate.

-Farlas Alfeous the Frank

P.S. Can I star as myself?