Last semester, I was approached by a couple friends to start a Doctor Who club on our college campus. I’m the current secretary so I just send emails about meetings and such. We got our club ratified and we have at least 20-30 members right now. A huge part of my college experience has been participating in clubs on campus. I have been the secretary of the Astronomy Club for a year or two now and I have met many unique individuals because of it. I also got to meet someone from NASA!

I’m so glad to be a part of this club. A fun fact is that a former WSU employee started a Doctor Who club way back in the 80s but it dissolved due to the cancellation of the show. So the fact that I’m a part of bringing this club back to life is neat. Our first meeting is tomorrow and I’m pretty excited to see some new faces of people who love this show as much as I do.

What I hope to see with this club is watching the older doctors since I haven’t really seen any. Especially Tom Baker because apparently, he was an amazing Timelord. I also hope to get the members to go to Console Room this summer. I went last year and it was a blast. It was great to hear panels all Doctor Who.

When I was at the club fair, I got some looks. I mean most people don’t really know much about Doctor Who. Plus our officers including myself are super energetic in promoting this club. Those looks don’t really bother me because this show is amazing and I love showing my love for something regardless of what people think. Plus we had alien balloons at our booth, so how neat is that?

The holiday season has passed and it was a nice couple of days filled with Christmas cookies and socializing. Although, the holidays are very tough for me because I miss my dad and I wish he was here.

My dad was easily my best friend. He drove me to the bookstore, went to all of my school plays and he was the radio announcer at all my ice shows. My world changed in 2005 when I came home from a field trip and found out my dad had been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Pancreatic cancer has one of the lowest survival rates. It’s also rather difficult to treat because surgery is out of the question. The pancreas is surrounded by the liver and the gall bladder so the metastasis rate is naturally high (metastasis = cancer spreading). He died a year after his diagnosis. I look at how lucky I am that he survived a year. 9 years have passed since his passing and I still get emotional about various things. I don’t think that feeling will ever go away because my dad was such an important part of my life and he still is. Those who know what it’s like going through the holiday season without a family member know this feeling.

Even though I miss my dad, I try to not let that affect my holidays. Christmas Eve is always spent with my mom’s side of the family. Christmas is spent with my dad’s side and we go ice skating and eat a lot of food. As for presents this year, I am loaded on fuzzy socks, have gift cards to do some shopping with and I’m currently reading Firefight which I received this Christmas. Overall this holiday season was pretty great.

My year is coming to an end so I decided to do a recap post on an event that I should have blogged about months ago. In way older posts, I mentioned my trip to the Electric Forest music festival in June 2015. I have been wanting to make a blog post for a while, but I kept forgetting and now, I have decided to talk about my experience. Electric Forest was an interesting experience and I’m glad that I went.

Way back in March this year, my best friend showed me this music festival. Now I’m the first one to say I’m not an impulsive person, but me and my friend both bought tickets after a week of finding out about this festival. This would be my first music festival ever! Electric Forest is in Rothbury, Michigan which is approximately 10 hours from my home. The weeks started ticking away and the date of the festival was approaching. After numerous hours spent packing, we were ready to go. The drive definitely felt long at parts. I drove the first half and when it came to Chicago I handed the wheel over. One distinct memory of the drive was horrible traffic on I94 towards Detroit. They were forcing four lanes of traffic into one exit and I thought the traffic would never end.

On the day of the music festival, we got up early and waited in line to get in. We were in line for close to three maybe even four hours when my car shut off. Panic set in and I tried to turn my car back on, but nothing. Tears rushed down my face as a couple other people rushed to help push my car off to the side. One thing that the Forests advertise is how everyone feels like a family. I can attest to that because so many people came over asking how to help and if I was okay. Unfortunately, we had to carry all of our camping stuff to our campsite which took forever. The first person I called was my mom and thank god for my car insurance which has roadside assistance, we were able to call for a tow. My car not working definitely put a damper on the festival. I wish I could say the car had no impact on my experience there, but unfortunately not.

To sum up this post, here were my favorite memories of the Forest.

• Sherwood Forest The forest itself was mystical! The dragon above is actually made entirely out of CDs with lights on the inside. The entrance to the forest is amazing too. My favorite were these yellow lights that reminded me of tetrahedral dice (my nerd is showing) These lights were stunning and were one of my favorite parts of the forest.
• Seeing Skrillex at 1:00 AM because we slept through some of his performances.
• Waiting in line to get into the Forest and taking pictures while waiting
• The totems! People were carrying these totems which basically were pictures taped onto sticks. It was a huge thing there. Of course, I appreciated all the geeky ones but I took quite a few pictures of those.
• Seeing Borgeous on Thursday and being literally in the middle of the crowd.
• Going to this kind of gross water park
• Camping
• Playing beer darts with friends.
• Our camping neighbors

Due to my car being fixed and the mechanic closed on Sunday, we had to stay another night that wasn’t planned. Eventually, we called the mechanic and they said nothing was wrong with my car which was great because I couldn’t imagine paying hundreds of dollars for them to repair my car. My car took us the 10 hours home and let me tell you, I have never been so happy to be at my house.

And that was my experience in the Forest! Electric Forest was a fun experience and I think if you haven’t been to a music festival, definitely go. I probably won’t go to the Forest again at least not for a while. I’m glad I was impulsive enough to take a chance and check this event out. I will definitely have many memories that I won’t forget.

Now that final is over and done, I can finally focus on the holiday spirit. Yesterday, the holiday train rolled into Winona and it was a nice mood boost. The train was decorated with an assortment of lights and there was Christmas music being blasted. It was a nice needed holiday event to help engage me in the Christmas season.

Christmas is always a great time because I’m able to catch up with family members from both sides. I also do a lot of figure skating over break. For those who don’t know, I have been figure skating since I was 6. I took lessons for about 10 years or so. Learning to skate is like riding a bike, it’s something you don’t forget. Sure, I can’t do waltz jumps anymore, but I’m still steady on the ice. Every Christmas, my family gets together to go ice skating. It’s a fantastic tradition that I remember when I was little.

I read a lot of blog posts about people posting their Christmas lists and cool items that they want. Now that I’m older, I realize I never truly need anything for Christmas besides my family, friends, cups of coffee, an endless supply of books, and peace.

I absolutely 100% love Halloween. I know many people who detest this holiday, but it’s my favorite. Of course, to have an awesome Halloween, you have to spend it with people who love the holiday as much as you do. This led me to go home and hang out with my family and one of my good friends for the entire weekend. Friday, I just stayed at home watching movies with my mom. Having a glass of wine and watching movies is a nice way to spend a night at home.

Saturday rolled around and I was already planning my Halloween night. I went down to my friend’s apartment. She’s currently attending the University of Minnesota and her apartment is essentially in the middle of everything. Dinkytown is right around the corner and we knew that’s where we wanted to be. After getting dinner at The Republic on Cedar Ave, we got changed into our costumes for Halloween. I ended up wearing this Spiderman corset that I borrowed for a second time from my friend. It was fun seeing everyone in costumes and having a great time after the Gopher game. I met some cool people including a guy dressed as someone from NASA, Chewbacca & Star Wars crew, and Step Brothers.

Overall it was a very fun adventure in a city I love. It was great to catch up with friends & family and it was necessary to relax this weekend. I will have to catch up on homework this entire week, but it was so worth it to have a much-needed break. Happy Belated Halloween everyone!

October is upon us and I couldn’t be happier. The weather is chilly, and I was able to wear boot socks and a scarf today. The leaves haven’t started changing, but they will soon. This weekend was amazing because one of my best friends came to see me. It’s been a while since I have been able to catch up with her and it was much needed. We also attended Oktoberfest in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Attending Oktoberfest, I typically like lighter ale beer so I ended up purchasing Spotted Cow and Appleweizen beer. My friend purchased a darker ale beer that I actually enjoyed because usually, I’m not a dark ale kind of girl. One of my favorite moments was when my friend spilled beer all over her phone, oops. I couldn’t stop laughing for the rest of the day.

In the meantime, I’m planning a trip to the cities for Halloween because Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday and I need a reunion with my best friends. Now I need to start figuring out my costume because Halloween will be here before I know it.

Blogging is a newfound leisure activity that I distract myself with. Starting the Bizarre Brunette over a year ago, I really wanted to inspire people to adore themselves for who they are. It’s easily a struggle I deal with on a daily basis. I know that there is nothing I can do to change my geeky, weird, bizarre personality so it’s a journey of basic acceptance.

Presently, I have been writing various blog posts for different websites. Yesterday, I submitted my article to Twin Cities Geeks about weight lifting. Lifting weights has been amazing because I have been seeing the results. I can see how strong I have become and it’s awesome. I feel like a badass. Being able to write about fitness to inspire others just assures me to continue on in my major. Health and fitness is a career I really and truly belong in.

Besides writing fitness-based articles for Twin Cities Geek, I have also been volunteering for the Winona State University Blog. My first post is all about surviving anatomy and physiology which is one of the toughest classes to take at Winona. I’m so glad to be done, but I’m proud that I accomplished and passed both semesters of A&P with flying colors.

So right now I’m keeping up with this nerdy masterpiece, Twin Cities Geek and Winona State University blog. I also journal every other day so I can easily say I write a lot. I feel that my writing has grown and become much better the more practice I have. I really love writing this blog and I’m thankful that I have followers who enjoy reading it too. 🙂

Another Sunday has come and gone. I have been trying to take better-quality pictures for this post each week. Photos are a fun way to reflect on a past week. This post is pretty quick to put together so even if I become super busy, I can still update my blog. Here are my photos this week:

Captain America Door Decoration!

I live in off-campus/on-campus apartments owned by Winona State. My CA (community assistant pretty much the equivalent of an RA) made our building superhero-themed! I am on the floor with the Avengers theme and I talked to my CA and requested Captain America’s shield. She listened! It looks awesome and I’m pretty excited about it.

Roommate Note!

My roommate has an 8 AM so she is up really early! She left me this note on my whiteboard. I thought it was sweet.

White Board Doodles

This is the first year I put up a whiteboard outside my door. The boyfriend and my roommate are really taking advantage of it.

Astronomy Club!

The first meeting of the Astronomy club was on Wednesday. Usually, we have really small meetings, but this meeting was huge! Our VP (aka my best friend) took this wonderful picture!

Winona Area Humane Society

More than likely, I will have multiple pictures each week of cats. It’s going to happen.

Flirt the Cat

“Hi, I’m Flirt! I love to be petted and loved. If you aren’t paying attention to me, I bite your phone and your fingers until you pet me again 😛 “