Zombie Killers & Politicalticians

Monday October 3

We are quickly approaching mid term season (I personally believe that mid term season is worse than finals season) and that means another exam for Chase's weather class. I spent pretty much all of work with Chase going over the different types of clouds, and arguing over what shape troughs and ridges are on the weather map. Just the usual Monday. 

After work I had institute and then my capstone class. We just finished our first round of stories and published this semester's first edition of the Tombstone Epitaph. I unfortunately did not get my stories done on time (but really done at all because people just really suck sometimes), so I didn't have anything published in the first issue, but it was still cool to see all my classmate's work printed all together. A few of my classmates' articles got picked up by the Arizona Republic, which is so freaking cool #goals.

Deezus and his sister Julia came over to my house after my class for a totino's pizza party with McKenzie. McKenzie wasn't actually around for awhile, but it was okay because Deezus and Sister Deezus are just too cool.

I unfortunately could not stay at their pizza party for long before I had to go to class. Once again, I got out pretty early from class and made it in time for FHE. For FHE we played this charades game where you draw two different papers, one with an action and one with an adverb, and then everyone has to guess what the action and adverb is. I mostly worked on some wildcat work while I was there but it was entertaining to throw out random guesses, and also watching people fail at acting. 

Tuesday October 4

More studying with Chase on Tuesday.

Then I went in to work at the Wildcat for a little bit. I am breaking my record of how fast I can finish my work each week, and that all depends on how much work I am willing to do in the morning before I actually go into work later in the afternoon.

After getting some work done I went to the institute for Dollar Lunch. On the menu was baked potatoes, and I am not the biggest fan of baked potatoes, so I decided to hang out with my homies for a bit before I went to Chipotle for lunch. Kenzie joined me on the venture because I also needed to make a pit stop at Campus Candy to get some Razzles and she had never been there before. Few things in the world can make me as happy as Razzles and Chipotle can. 

Then I had my RPA class... nothing exciting as usual.

Then I went to work at the Wildcat, got done super speedy fast, and then watched the VP debate with a bunch of other crazy kids at my house. Afterward everyone wanted to go to the Taco Shop for #TacoTuesday and also #InternationalTacoDay, but the wait was thirty minutes for some freaking tacos.... so instead we waited even longer at BJ's for their free pizookie day. A bunch of people joined in including: me, Deezus, Sister Deezus, Kenzie, Jenny, Brittany, Danielle, Kara, Rudy, Jeremy and Jacob. It was a party, and totally worth the long wait, unlike the Taco Shop (sorry Jenny).

McKenzie and Jenny are the greatest dinner guests and always bring up all the taboo dinner conversations, but those are the best conversations in my opinion and everyone was pretty tame with their opinions so it wasn't a disaster after all.

Wednesday October 5

The only thing I can remember that happened on Wednesday is that Sister Deezus came and hung out with Jenny, Kenzie and myself while Deezus and Steph went on their date. They made voodoo dolls of the naked strippers and they're amazing, try and guess which one I am:

Thursday October 6

Thursday was kind of a refreshing day because I actually got to work on Thursday for Project FOCUS. They had me on morning mobility duty which just means that I make sure all the students get to school and to their peer mentors when they are supposed to. It's a fairly easy way to get paid honestly. I was also able to knock out 90% of my Wildcat work while I was waiting for students to arrive, so it was a win-win all around. 

After that shift I went to have a meeting with one of the staff photographers, and then I went to the Wildcat to turn in the photos that I had already completed while I watched the new episode of Survivor. 

Then I went home to change into some professional clothes for an interview I had with a recruiter from the USA Today Network later in the day. I got ready pretty fast and still had a couple hours to spare so I went to lunch with Chastity at SmashBurger. I live for lunches with Chastity, she's the greatest.

Then I had my interview. It wasn't so much an interview for a job as it was just Aric guiding me to where photographer jobs are available in the USA Today Network. Aric was really awesome though and lead me to a few jobs in the midwest and contacted all their hiring people to look out for my application. Two of the jobs were in Wisconsin (one in Green Bay, so I would shoot the Packers holy crap how cool) and one job was in Detroit (real talk people, do you think I would die if I moved to Detroit?). 

After my interview/meeting since I was already pretty much done with all my Wildcat work, I just finished up some last minute things and then went home. 

Friday October 7

After work and free lunch I went with Kara to help her fill her tires up with air at QT. Over my three ish years in college I have become quite the mundane car maintenance master, and in three years Kara will be a master as well, but I am glad to help until then.

Afterwards Chastity and I went to Nogales to interview a rancher for an article for my capstone class. Chastity drove since I have driven on the past two trips down south, and she is quite the speed demon. We got there pretty early so we decided to drive around the ranch a little bit and take some photos:

Believe it or not this was actually not posed^^

We saw lots of cows, talked about fires and the border and it was a grand old time. Chastity is the greatest journalism friend, she pretty much comes with me to every single reporting thing I do.

When we got back to Tucson I packed up my stuff and then Steph, Jenny, Rudy, Brittany, Andy and myself made our way to Mesa.

For the past couple weeks my group of friends have been planning to go to this Zombie Outbreak thing at Schnepf Farms in Queen Creek. There were 17 of us total and we all left for the valley in different groups at different times. Luckily, most of the people in the group are from the valley so there were enough places for the people who aren't from the valley to sleep. Jenny, Steph and Rudy had a sleepover party at my house.

After we dropped Brittany and Andy off at their houses we finally arrived at my home, we of course had a dance party with Avery and then I crashed and went to sleep.

Saturday October 8

I woke up dark and early to do a session at the temple with my mom (only my second time going actually, which just goes to show how good I am at not spending every weekend in the valley this school year). It was a great experience and I am glad my mom was up to go with me so early in the morning.

When we got home everyone was awake and getting ready or watching football. Once everyone was ready the party people (Jenny, Steph, Rudy, Avery and myself) went on an adventure. This adventure included Circle K, Target, the Gilbert Temple (and running into Amanda May's wedding while we were there), lunch with Sadie, Parker & Trevor at Firehouse (I got to see Kinlee Garr for the first time in years, which was too cool) and then Bahama Bucks.

This is Jenny and Avery battling with the "swords" according to Avery

What is a trip to the temple without a little photoshoot?

This was also not posed

Steph was jelly of their cool unposed picture so they took a cool posed picture with Steph in it

Avery: The Selfie Queen

You also probably can't tell but the four adults are the four emotions from inside out, Avery assigned them to us.

After that adventure we went back to my house for some nap time. Then Deezus and Abby came over for a pre-killing-zombie-party. That party consisted of dinner made by my angel mother and also Jenga.

Then it was time for some major zombie slaying.

The final group of zombie slayers were: Diana, Harrison, Kara, Travis, Abby, Andy, Marissa, Thane, Steph, Jacob, Sydney, McKenzie, Jeremy, Rudy, Brittany and Deezus. 

The line for the zombie paint balling adventure was 2 1/2 hours long (but really we stood in line for 3). When we were told this right before we redeemed our Groupon we decided the wait didn't matter because we were all together and we all came from Tucson specifically for this. Usually I don't care about waiting in line for this long especially when I am with friends, but holy crap was I going insane... I felt so claustrophobic the entire time and I thought my head was going to explode. But it's okay, I survived.

While we were in line there quickly became a divide in the group. There was the group of kids who called ourselves I'm Single and I'm Sufficient (joke from New Girl, I wish we were cool enough to come up with that name) (this consisted of me, Kenzie, Jenny, Jeremy, Rudy, Deezus, Jacob, Steph and Brittany) and the couples (Dianisson, Andigail, Kravis, and Tharissa). I honestly don't know if we meant for all the singles to group together and for all the couples to group together while holding each other so closely, but it happened and it made for a really entertaining night. Our Zombie slaying groups were even divided by couples and "I'm Single and I'm Sufficient."

During our three hour long line Rudy participated in a planking contest and won, because he is a beast:

And I took some pretty gorgeous photos of McKenzie, the zombie killa:

Also while we were in line Rudy was trying to say the word "politician" but said "politicaltician" instead, and it was hilarious and he will never ever live it down.

Was this zombie slaying worth the three hour long wait and me feeling like I was being suffocated by my own skin? Absolutely. But only because Back In Black by ACDC was playing while we were shooting the zombies (oh and one of the workers gave me and Brittany extra paint balls for free when we ran out instead of making us pay 5 dollars). If you're not into ACDC and they don't pump you up as much as I do, then I suggest going on a less busy night. 

After we finished our round I went back to my house to do some last minute Wildcat work while the party animals went to IHOP until 3 am, this is one instance in which my FOMO did not kick in, I was too dang tired.

Sunday October 9

The party crew (Rudy, Steph, Kenzie, Jenny, Andy and myself) left back for Tucson around 9:30, and then I pretty much crashed for the remainder of the day.

I did wake up in time to watch the beginning of the Presidential Debate, and then I went to game night at Quandy's house and watched the rest of the debate before we actually started playing games. They were streaming the debate from Facebook and the first game we decided to play was who could get a comment to show up on the video, I sent in like 50 comments, but Queston won in the end. If you ever get the chance you should watch the debate on Facebook because some of the comments people post are hilarious.

After the debate was over we played Head's Up (I have never lost at game night), and then Codenames. We usually end up having an odd number of people whenever we play Codenames so I sit out and help the clue givers think of clues if they need it. I am glad that I have friends who love this game as much as I do, and we are all eternally grateful for the Walton's for giving me the game in the first place.