Friday, April 08, 2005
Mission: Improbable
Courtney's birthday celebration was a complete success! Haha!
What birthday surprise, you ask? Why, the one I've been planning for the last week, of course! Every comment about "secret stuff" was in reference to this, which I'm sure doesn't come as a surprise to any of you who know me well enough. But yeah...I put lots of effort into this and I'm happy to say that it paid off.
Here's how it was supposed to go from Courtney's perspective:
She gets up for her 9:30 class, and when she opens her door there's a balloon and a note that wishes her a happy birthday et al and that tells her to look out for more notes throughout the day. (I know...if you knew me my sophomore year in high school than this will all sound vaguely familiar.) So she goes on her merry way to music theory, where she finds another note taped to the wall just outside of her classroom. This one tells her two things: one, that she should look for another clue in her bio lab, and two, that she go to a specific room on campus and look for something. What she's supposed to be looking for is left to the imagination, but which room on campus is specified...in binary code. Courtney doesn't know binary but pretty much all of her friends are computer geeks, so she finds someone to help her decode the note. When she does, she finds that she is directed to go to one of the practice rooms in the music building. Arriving there, she finds a jar of Starburst jelly beans in a jar stashed behind a piano. Woot. Courtney loves Starburst jelly beans.
A little later in the day, Courtney finds another note pinned to a bulletin board just outside of her bio class in Science North. This note again tells her two things: one, to look for another note somewhere in her last class of the day, and two, to stop by the College of Science and Math Advising Center to check if they have anything for her. After her bio lab, she walks upstairs and is given another gift: an empty picture frame, with a note attached instructing her to find a picture that makes her happy to put inside of it. Hooray.
In her last class - chemistry lecture - she sees the last note pinned to a bulletin board inside the classroom, but can't get it until the end of lecture. This note tells her to go to the garden near Sandwich Factory, adjacent to Building 52. She arrives there and searches around for a while. After a bit, her phone rings...I instruct her to stand in the middle of the garden and look out over Engineering East. As she does, I surprise her from behind with a bouquet of flowers (keeping in mind that Courtney has never before received flowers from anyone). Courtney is happy! I then tell her that I lied about having to go to rehearsal an hour early (yes...the last entry in this blog was a complete load of crap.) and instead I've packed a picnic dinner, which we'll be enjoying on Pismo Beach. So off we go, and we have a great time.
Good, huh? Not entirely original, but I was so happy to do it for her. Courtney is not a very material person, and as such there isn't really anything I could have bought for her that would make her horribly happy. I knew she would enjoy me making a big deal out of her birthday much more than anything else I could have done. So yeah...she seemed overjoyed, and that makes me happy.
But right now I have to go eat and take my laundry out of the dryer, and then go to the opening of West Side Story. So woot. I'll finish this story later.
dum dum da da dum........dooowaaaaaaahhhhhhh,
Josh
mood: hungry and excited for opening night!
music: "Horse With No Name" by America
location: dorm...with Danielle visiting me and Kevin still at class
What birthday surprise, you ask? Why, the one I've been planning for the last week, of course! Every comment about "secret stuff" was in reference to this, which I'm sure doesn't come as a surprise to any of you who know me well enough. But yeah...I put lots of effort into this and I'm happy to say that it paid off.
Here's how it was supposed to go from Courtney's perspective:
She gets up for her 9:30 class, and when she opens her door there's a balloon and a note that wishes her a happy birthday et al and that tells her to look out for more notes throughout the day. (I know...if you knew me my sophomore year in high school than this will all sound vaguely familiar.) So she goes on her merry way to music theory, where she finds another note taped to the wall just outside of her classroom. This one tells her two things: one, that she should look for another clue in her bio lab, and two, that she go to a specific room on campus and look for something. What she's supposed to be looking for is left to the imagination, but which room on campus is specified...in binary code. Courtney doesn't know binary but pretty much all of her friends are computer geeks, so she finds someone to help her decode the note. When she does, she finds that she is directed to go to one of the practice rooms in the music building. Arriving there, she finds a jar of Starburst jelly beans in a jar stashed behind a piano. Woot. Courtney loves Starburst jelly beans.
A little later in the day, Courtney finds another note pinned to a bulletin board just outside of her bio class in Science North. This note again tells her two things: one, to look for another note somewhere in her last class of the day, and two, to stop by the College of Science and Math Advising Center to check if they have anything for her. After her bio lab, she walks upstairs and is given another gift: an empty picture frame, with a note attached instructing her to find a picture that makes her happy to put inside of it. Hooray.
In her last class - chemistry lecture - she sees the last note pinned to a bulletin board inside the classroom, but can't get it until the end of lecture. This note tells her to go to the garden near Sandwich Factory, adjacent to Building 52. She arrives there and searches around for a while. After a bit, her phone rings...I instruct her to stand in the middle of the garden and look out over Engineering East. As she does, I surprise her from behind with a bouquet of flowers (keeping in mind that Courtney has never before received flowers from anyone). Courtney is happy! I then tell her that I lied about having to go to rehearsal an hour early (yes...the last entry in this blog was a complete load of crap.) and instead I've packed a picnic dinner, which we'll be enjoying on Pismo Beach. So off we go, and we have a great time.
Good, huh? Not entirely original, but I was so happy to do it for her. Courtney is not a very material person, and as such there isn't really anything I could have bought for her that would make her horribly happy. I knew she would enjoy me making a big deal out of her birthday much more than anything else I could have done. So yeah...she seemed overjoyed, and that makes me happy.
But right now I have to go eat and take my laundry out of the dryer, and then go to the opening of West Side Story. So woot. I'll finish this story later.
dum dum da da dum........dooowaaaaaaahhhhhhh,
Josh
mood: hungry and excited for opening night!
music: "Horse With No Name" by America
location: dorm...with Danielle visiting me and Kevin still at class
