Hello Pink eye

Feeling: Sick in more than one way
Now Playing: The Latest Dart- Ted Leo/Rx

Having conjunctivitis sucks. I was hoping to start the post today with something else, but this just made headlines. I woke up this morning with tons of "gunk" in my left eye. It took awhile to clear out, and my eye was a bit sore. Hoping the minor pain would go away as time progresses, I didn't think much of it. By noon, the situation was not getting any better. I feared that my eye will probably swell up, since this has happened once before, but I did not expect the white pus that mysteriously excretes out of my eye. It's abit annoying, not only the constant cleaning I have to do but also the clouding/irritation in my eye where I can't see very well. After doing some wiking, I found that I have conjunctivitis, of the bacterial kind to my belief. Unfortunately he swelling and redness has gotten progressively worse since then, but I'm hoping the situation ease by tomorrow before I have to visit the school clinic.

In other news, the past week had been excellent setting aside academic. Last Wednesday was the Wilco show tha I've been looking forward to ever since I found out I got into the Student Concert Committee. From the moment I entered backstage at 9:30 in the morning to the time I stepped off the dock around midnight, the experience was wondrous. The whole day was fairly laid back as we just sat backstage for the majority of time after finishing our tasks. It was around 5 that we started watching the upstairs dressing rooms for "unauthorized personnels". At one point, a guy walked up , said hi, and continued up the stairs. It was after a minute or so before I started to think, "wait, that guy looked really familiar..snap, that's the bassist of Wilco." I was confused as to why he didn't go into the dressing rooms, but probably because he got lost. That was a weird first encounter as I had no idea the band was here yet. One by one they came up, including Jeff Tweedy the lead. Seeing him in person gave me a weird feeling that's hard to describe, but kind of excited and nervous at the same time. He looked rather apathetic, and gave a quick monotoned hi without turning his head as he walked up the stairs.
The rest of the time before the show went by slowly. I wondered around and listened to sound checks from Wilco and the opening band Early Day Miners; both sounded very good even though the sound quality from backstage sucked. After having Mad Mushroom pizza for dinner, I went out to the front lobby to help the merchandise guy sell things. That was around 7 when people were beginning to swarming in. Naturally the tshirts, poster, and what not are overly priced, but people still buy them.($25 for a tshirt? lame) Unfortunately, I missed most of the opening act and only caught the last song. As much as I like post-rock, Elliott isn't the best venue for it. Wilco did not come on stage till 8:45. After Ian and Sam left me for Lost soon after, I moved up to the very front, where surprisingly no security guards lurked. Obviously that made the experience exponentially better, and I was able to really enjoy the music.
After the show, I helped to sell more merchandises and conversed with the opening band as they were sitting at their product table next to me. When the lobby cleared, I went back stage to see what's up with SCC. Evidently the band members were outside talking to a small crowd of fans, so I joined the party and got a few autographs. After that died out, the SCC crew cleaned up the dressing rooms and left for our respective homes. I walked back to the dorms feeling pretty happy. The night had been great.

--------

As if that's not enough excitement for one week, I went up to Ann Arbor with Ian over the weekend (October break) to visit Clif. The drive wasn't as bad as I had imagined. We split up the drive, and I ended up with the latter half of 3 hours, including the times I spent wondering around Ann Arbor. Downtown looked pretty cool, which made me wish West Lafayette had one.
I suppose the highlight of the trip would be going disc golfing, the free Ok Go concert for MSU/U-M football game, free food, and other things. I didn't get to go around town/campus that much, but I'm sure I'll get another chance too.
Also, I'm not very good with directions.
I left Monday afternoon and spent an hour trying to get out of the town. In my defense, it was mostly Ian's fault. Apart from that, the drive was the same 5 hours. After getting back to my dorm, I stayed up pretty late even though I was tired. I thought that might have resulted in my irritated left eye the next morning, but maybe not. Sucks.
-----

Last night was the SCC dinner at Arni's. I didn't pick the best entree, but everything on the menu looked/sounded tasty. We went over some meeting business with future concert plans, but majority of the time was spent socializing. Interestingly, Brian, a fellow new member, was also at Ann Arbor last weekend for the game, but he didn't know about the Ok Go concert. After dinner, we reconvened at Mallory, the president's house. Most people didn't show up till late, so the beginning was slow as the 3 of us just played pool for awhile. By 10 or so, the party was well off. Overall, I had a good time and got to know everyone better, especially the old members who I though had their own clique going on already. That was the first night I've really partied on a weekday, but I don't feel too guilty about it since I didn't have any work that had to be done.