HvZ 2011: Day 4

THURSDAY (Start from the beginning here):

Today was another slow day, unfortunately. I guess not a lot of people are on campus for Tuesday / Thursday classes. Anyway, the day started exactly the same way the last four did, with the exception that I had a Chinese quiz, so I studied on the bus instead of keeping an eye out for vulnerable, delectable humans. Our teacher showed sympathy for Josh and I, because we were both lost souls to the inevitable hunger for braaaains.

Our last class of the day, we discovered that the other player in our class was still a human. She looked petrified when she realized that she was the lone survivor in the classroom. The best part was that she sits beside me in that class. I taunted her a good bit, telling her how there was no way she could escape the both of us. She kept saying she was going to call for backup, and there was no way that either of us were going to turn her. In the end, she left class 20 minutes early (missing vital information in regards to our homework assignment for the weekend, I might add). I was a little saddened by her taking the coward's way out, but it is all about survival, so I guess I can't blame her.

Josh and I decided to go get some food (real life food, not just humans) at the campus center. We didn't see any players along the way, and pretty much just wrote the day off as unsuccessful. We sat for a while, just talking and joking around, when Josh suddenly became alert. He said one word: "human". We both bolted from the table, and took different exits so we could surround him. Josh pulled a flawless sneak attack, and got his first kill of the semester. We decided to call it a day after that.

Tomorrow is the final day. We learn whether the human race survives, or if the zombies take over the campus, and then the world! Last semester the zombies won hands down. I'll let you know tomorrow night what went down. Till tomorrow!

HvZ 2011: Day 3

WEDNESDAY (Previous entry here):

Today, fortunately, was a great day for hunting humans. The sun was bright, the sky was clear, and humans and zombies alike were seen hunting and being hunted. But before I go on about today, let me give you a bit of background info...

Last night, I received a call from my friend (Brandon), saying that there were two possibilities for me to turn human again. One of them was finding a random stormtrooper and asking him the question "What does one snowman say to the other?", and the other was to find one of ten random bottles hidden all over campus (in case you didn't know, my campus is pretty big. So big, in fact, that you can't walk end to end of it in under an hour...OK, 45 minutes). Brandon mentioned that if I turned human again, he was going to loan me his good gun, because he couldn't play this semester due to time constraints.

Me with the scout trooper (not the most flattering pic of me,
but better than nothing. Pics, so it did happen :D)

I got up extra early this morning so I could get to campus as soon as possible. I looked around the bus stop, and didn't see any sign of a bottle or a stormtrooper (I park at literally the furthest end of campus, which is advantageous for providing the most opportunities for sighting bottles / humans / stormtroopers). I asked people sitting beside me on the bus, and fortunately, they were very understanding, and even pointed out the stormtrooper to me (I wouldn't have seen him otherwise). I got off at the next stop, ran balls to the walls to where the stormtrooper was, and asked him the enigmatic question. He responded with "I don't know, you tell me" and then told me the bad news: he was out of vaccines. I realized at that moment that I knew the person in the helmet. Turns out, my friend Brandon was the stormtrooper (well, scout trooper to be precise. Several jokes were made about how many bikes / scooters he'd crashed in the past week). He was very kind and agreed to help me hunt for my only hope at rebirth: the elusive bottles. Also, he was still in his stormtrooper gear, so he had an amazingly handy secondary role: zombie bait.

Brandon drinking his Sprite through his helmet.

I decided that being human was more important than German Cultural Studies (just this once), and decided to spend the afternoon looking around. We walked all across campus, looking in all the possible hidden places. Our biggest setback was Brandon's costume. We couldn't walk anywhere without several people stopping him and asking to take pictures with him. He was very gracious and took it all in stride. It made me miss Con Season so much. He even got a free drink from the cafe, because he was so awesome.

I think the helmet is the best part about this whole picture.
Epic Home Alone face!

At some point, it had to happen. A human, desperate for a free life, ran up to the stormtrooper to ask the magic question. As he was chatting, I hid, trying to sneak attack him. I was just about to pounce, when another zombie ran up and started trying to attack him. He started shooting at the zombie, and I thought I had my opportunity to still be able to sneak attack, but the other zombie got to him before I could tag him. Oh well, one less meal (not the first time I've skipped one :p). Fortunately, it wasn't too much later before another human tried to get a free life. She didn't even see me until after I'd tagged her (and I wasn't even hiding this time. In fact, I didn't notice her until she was asking about snowmen). She looked to Brandon, confident that she was still safe, because she got the question out before I tagged her. Brandon looked almost apologetic (if trooper masks can look apologetic) as he said "Sorry, I'm out of vaccines. Ummm...Welcome to the horde?". I finally got my first blood for the semester.

I did manage to stalk a human on my own without the aid of a costumed medic. Brandon needed to use the restroom (and you can imagine how long it takes to take off armor), and so I was just waiting outside, when I see a human pass by. I decided to follow him. I played the casual game, staying pretty far behind. Just as he was about to enter a building, I attacked. I only managed to dodge one dart before he shot a bullseye at me right in the boob. He seemed genuinely surprised when I handed him his ammo after he stunned me. That made me a little sad, and wondered about the people who are playing this game and taking it a bit too seriously...

My last class of the day has a mandatory attendance policy, so I had to take a break from human hunting. I said goodbye to Brandon and thanked him for his noble work. It was then I discovered that my friend Josh had fallen just before class started. 'Twas beauty and noble friendship that brought him down (his girlfriend and their friends were all chatting outside, and he joined them instead of going inside, and he got sneak attacked). We entered the class together, once again fighting on the same side. The class dragged by slower than usual. I couldn't focus very well on the allomorphs and the suppletion and vowel shifts...All I could think about was getting back outside and finding some humans to nom.

Finally, the class ended, and Josh and I made our way to the main exit...only to see a very large group of humans...and a larger group of zombies. They were all waiting for the other to leave first so the game could begin. Josh and I headed outside and waited for a few minutes, hoping to catch a stray human who wasn't part of the group. We then saw a large group of humans taking the passageway to the next building. We took a guess as to which door in the new building they would come out, and then waited by that door. Time passed, and no humans came. I went inside, and nobody had even seen them come through. I got a call from Josh, saying that the humans were back in the original building and the other zombies had them trapped. We met up with the horde. Half were inside, taunting the humans, and the other half were waiting outside (about 8 of us or so). After waiting for a few minutes, we got impatient and decided to find someone else to hunt.

Fortunately for us, a random human just happened to pass by right as we decided this. 6 of us split into groups of two, and we surrounded him. He was duel-wielding two semi-automatic guns, and had them trained on the original decoy. He saw us appear one by one, and you could see the "oh ch**z-*ts" look cross his face when he realized he was surrounded.

We tightened the circle, and one of us ran in for the attack. The game plan was to make him run out of ammo before we were all stunned for 15 minutes. The first zombie was good at dodging the darts, but he was taken out quickly. The next zombie who ran in got a nice head shot. The third zombie was brilliant. He used his jacket as a shield, and then threw it at the human. A lot of shots were wasted, but he was eventually taken out. I decided to go next. By this time he was down to one gun. He wasted a good 5 or 6 shots, but I miscalculated and he stunned me as I was running in to tag him. He ran out of darts on the next girl, and while his attention was focused on her, the final zombie swooped in and made the kill. As soon as he was turned, we all congratulated him on his epic demise, helped him pick up his darts, and invited him to hunt with us. He readily agreed.

Our horde grew steadily in size, and I somehow started being the one giving the orders for reconnaissance. We canvased the entire campus, but we didn't see another human for the rest of the afternoon (we did run into Brandon again, though, and took a picture of our horde with him and we were all doing the Thriller pose). By the time I got to Boyfriend's office, I was sore, tired, and sunburned beyond belief, but I was so happy. It's games like this where you realize how awesome people really are. You get to make new friends, and bond closely with old friends. Plus, it's combating obesity, one panic-attack-based chase scene after another, and getting hit with a dart is good moral fiber. Anyway, that's all I have to report for today. Until tomorrow!

HvZ 2011: Day 2

TUESDAY (Monday here and Intro here):

Unfortunately, this is going to be an incredibly short post today. I did not sight a single human OR zombie the entire time I was out hunting, and there were only 2 humans in one of my classes (one of them is my friend with whom I made a gentleman's agreement), and the other one got away while I was packing my stuff up at the end of class. She did have an awesome weapon though: marshmallows.

There is hope for me though. There are apparently vaccines being handed out if you find the right person and say the right password, so there is a possibility that I'll become human again tomorrow...Wish me luck! Until tomorrow (and hopefully I'll have more to report)...

HvZ 2011: Day 1

MONDAY (intro here):

My outfit was all prepared last night: If Lara Croft ever entered the Matrix, and the only weapons were Nerf guns, I imagine her outfit would have looked similar to mine. I was feeling pretty good about this semester's battle. I was duel wielding two semi-automatic Nerf (well, Buzz Bee, but who's keeping track) guns, my sock bombs were prepared, my bandanna was wrapped around my arm and my duct tape was clearly marking that I was a human member of the resistance. I got up extra early so I wouldn't be ganked on the way to class.

I caught the bus and got to my first class without incident. My Chinese teacher took one of my guns and tried to shoot a student with it, but fortunately missed. He seemed very surprised when the dart hit the back wall of the classroom and stuck there (at least 30 feet). He quickly returned my gun. I had to get the wayward ammo myself.

After class, I had a "civilian" friend of mine as an escort so I could get a good heads up on any zombie sightings. We decided to building hop, because the building we were heading to is a zombie hotbed. Along the way, we ran into one of my roommates who was also building hopping, and happened to be heading in the same direction as us (she was a human as well; this is the girl who got attacked on the way to the rendezvous point last semester).

We somehow made it to the SLC (Student Learning Center, our final destination for a while). My civilian friend quickly went home so he could register to play with us, because he had so much fun running escort duty. My roommate (Allie) and I met up with our other roommate (Wayne), who happened to be a zombie (we were fortunately in a safe zone, so he couldn't turn us). As we were waiting for him, a pack (herd?) of zombies walked by, taunting Allie and I. Their threats didn't scare us while we were inside.

 Fortunately, the rest of my afternoon was spent in the same building (I have two classes there, and I typically spend my spare time on Mondays in the building anyway, so I was safe for several hours thanks to my normal schedule). Finally, after an eternity of classes and waiting, it was time to venture out into the dangerous wilds of zombie-horde-land. I gave my civilian-turned-compatriot (Josh) my spare gun, and we decided to run an escort mission for this little Freshman boy who was clearly new to the whole game, but really needed to get to class. We start walking and sneaking around, only to be spotted by a pack of zombies.

We make a run for it into a nearby parking deck. The boys got further ahead of me because I decided to play a sneaking game instead of full-on running. There were only two zombies chasing us at the time, and I managed to stun both of them and temporarily escape. My hunting buddies escaped with their lives, and the stunned zombies called for backup on their walkie talkies. I ran around the corner, only to find 4 more zombies. My back was to the wall. I managed to stun another one, but I was cornered, and was turned before I could stun anymore. I'm proud of my turning though. I managed to save my friend and the noob, and I took out half of the zombie posse surrounding me (all of whom were guys, btw), and went down in a blaze of glory.

I tried to hunt after that, but didn't see any more humans for the rest of the day. I rendezvoused with my friend in a neutral zone, and gave him my other gun (I didn't need it anymore). We have a gentleman's agreement: he won't shoot me with my own guns, and I promise to count to ten and not pay attention to which direction he's going when he runs away from me. Allie managed to survive today, and Wayne and I are plotting (well, Wayne's trying, at any rate)...

So that's all from me today. Sorry if the grammar and coherence of this post aren't the best...I did turn into a zombie today. So, until tomorrow....


BBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNS!!!

HvZ 2011

So, since I'm having a bit of difficulty trying to get the superblog put together, I figured I'd do something a little different while you're so patiently (heh) waiting.

Tomorrow morning (or I guess later today, technically) begins the second semester of Humans vs. Zombies. I will once again be participating, and I'm going to try and survive as long as possible. I'll be posting at the end of each day my adventures for all of you to enjoy, instead of writing one long synopsis at the end of the week like last time (I seem to be having some trouble with longer posts lately). Anyway, wish me luck! I'll see you tomorrow!

MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY

I think I might have a slight eating disorder...

This is kind of a hard confession I have to make, so please bear with me...

I've been on a diet since I was 12. After I got the chicken pox (I got them at a relatively late age), I suddenly realized I was fat. My mom encouraged me to go on a diet. From then until I was 16, I would drink Slim Fasts for breakfast and lunch. After that, I stopped eating breakfast and lunch. I'd have good days and bad days--A good day was when I was successfully not able to gorge myself at dinnertime and eat a small, "healthy" meal. Unfortunately, most days were bad days: I'd eat until I was full. During the summer it was almost always worse, because my stepmom is a health nut and is always trying to make us "eat right".

Snacking was (and still is) my weakness. If I'm at home, and there's food nearby, I'm going to eat it. Cheez-its are the bane of my existence (I often use the name as a swear word when I'm really frustrated about something, hence the title of my blog). I discovered pickles in my senior year. They don't have any calories (something I've always counted), so I can eat as many as I want without "consequences".

When college came around, I got to experience dining hall food (which at my school is noted for being really good). I lived off of Life cereal and yellow Powerade. If I had a test, I'd go to the 24 hour dining hall and get some bacon and eggs. That's pretty much it. When I sprained my ankle my sophomore year, I couldn't walk, much less exercise, so I ended up gaining a lot of weight (around 15 pounds, I think). When I posted a picture on a music forum, they ended up tearing me to shreds in regards to my weight and my acne. Any confidence I had went out the window with that. To exacerbate the situation, my boyfriend (at the time) was constantly telling me that I needed to lose weight, about how much sexier I'd be if I'd just be skinnier and had a tighter ass.

When I moved to Germany for a year, I didn't eat anything (I'm a picky eater naturally, and German food and I didn't really get along all that well), except for a tiny snack in the evening. I also walked everywhere, so I ended up losing about 15 pounds. I was thrilled. Then I got the swine flu, and ended up losing 15 more pounds. I was even more thrilled. My friends would make jokes about how I never ate anything, but it always seemed like I was eating too much all the time. I was afraid for the rest of the year that I would gain too much weight and lose all my "sexiness".

I've been back in the States for about 6 months now, and I've definitely gained weight. And I'm really not ok with it. I keep trying to exercise and eat well, but exercising makes you hungry, so I end up eating more than before I started exercising.

I've never eaten anything without feeling guilty about it. I know that I have a problem (though it really kinda took a friend pointing it out to me), and the rational me keeps telling me that I'm perfectly fine the way I am, and if someone doesn't like me when I'm not completely skinny, then they're not worth my time.

But the voices of my ex, my family, and all the people who've called me fat and ugly (and there are plenty more of those than people who've said I'm pretty / just fine the way I am) are so much louder, and sound so much more truthful to me. So I feel fat as I eat my piece of bread for dinner, and try my best to just lose 30 more pounds ("ideal" weight for my size is 110 pounds), and maybe I'll feel pretty again and people will think I'm sexy.

tl;dr - I'm trying to accept my body, but I'm somewhat anorexic (plus bingeing), and it's hard to change. Thanks for reading my rant.

A Trip to Prague

Sooo...Sorry about this very very late posting. My school schedule has been absolutely murderous lately, and I've literally had no time to even think about things other than school, much less be able to participate in any activities that could be described as "fun". However, I'm procrastinating from doing some of my homework in order to provide my two (or is it three now?) readers with something entertaining (at least to me) to read. So now, I shall now impart the story of one of my trips while I was abroad. 

Prague is officially known as Bohemia. So, really, it's
no surprise there's art like this there...

My trip to Prague is one of the best experiences despite really crappy circumstances of my life. This was the first big trip that my close inner circle of friends (except for one) would all be able to go on together. We booked our flight and hostel a month in advance. We planned to spend 5 full days there, in order to get the full experience of Prague, and since we were on break from school, the timing couldn't be better.

The night before we were supposed to fly out, I had a minor...something on the bus on the way home from hanging out with my friends. All I know is that I suddenly got extremely hot (keep in mind it was mid-March in Germany: there was snow on the ground and it was well below freezing), and my vision faded into this dark fuzziness. This lasted for what seemed an eternity (though in actuality must have been less than a minute), and then, just as suddenly, it completely disappeared and I felt fine again. I brushed it off, went to my room, packed, and went to sleep.

I woke up at around 6am with an urgent need to vomit, and the most familiar feeling of fever chills. Fortunately, we didn't have to leave for the airport until the afternoon, so I slept on and off the rest of the morning. When the time came for me to head to the airport, I was still feeling very sick. I forced myself to get up, get dressed, and go to the bus stop. I was running late, and almost missed the shuttle. Fortunately my friends were looking out for me and made sure the bus didn't leave without me. I don't remember the ride to the airport, nor the actual flight (except for this one moment where I looked out the window and it looked like we were in a Star Wars-esque warp drive thanks to the snowfall). I remember landing, and having to walk all over the airport because we had to wait for 20 years on a bus (it really did feel like that long, I swear). I was still feeling the fever chills and the general miserableness (fortunately, I didn't feel nauseous again). While we were waiting, we decided to go withdraw money from an ATM (we'd discovered that the easiest way to exchange money while losing the least amount through profit-seekers was to just directly pull from our American bank accounts through various ATMs), only to discover that my card didn't work in any of the ATMs at the airport. We figured it just didn't like my one card, so we didn't think anything of it.

View of the (what we called) "The Wall of Souls" from
the castle.

 Finally, our bus arrived, which delivered us to the subway station. From there, we had to guess which direction was the right one (the signs were notoriously ambiguous, and we argued for a long time on which way the signs were supposed to be read). Unfortunately, we picked wrong. Fortunately, we were at the end of the line, so it just went around and we were suddenly going the right direction again. At this point, all I can remember is that the subway ride would never ever end. My friends wouldn't let me fall asleep, either, which I thought was especially cruel of them. When we arrived at our designated station, we suddenly realized that the street signs weren't easily seen nor read, so we had no idea where we were really supposed to go. Fortunately, a very nice British lady who happened to live in Prague heard our confused arguments about which way we should go and took pity on us, and kindly directed us to the proper street where our hostel was.

View of Prague from the castle.

It was by far not the nicest hostel I've ever stayed at, but for the price, we couldn't really complain. The six of us got our own room to ourselves. We quickly all picked our beds for the week, and I plopped in mine and fell asleep, despite the fact that it was only 9pm or so. I was fortunate to sleep through the night, but I remember being so cold and that whatever my dreams were, they were the deranged fever dreams of someone who probably shouldn't have traveled.

Yep. 'Tis art.

I woke up the next day still feeling feverish, but not quite as dead as the day before. We got dressed, and made our first venture into Prague. I was still feeling out of it, so I missed most of the picture taking opportunities that day. It was also this day that we discovered that our good friend Kenny has a very serious coffee addiction. On our way to breakfast, we had to stop at coffee shop so Kenny could drink coffee while we walked to another bakery, where he also had another cup of coffee. The poor guy didn't hear the end of it for the rest of the trip. We also saw the astronomical clock tower, and generally acquainted ourselves with the city. We decided that for dinner we should have...Thai food. What better way to get a taste for the Czech culture, right? After that, my friends headed to an absinthe bar, and I went back to the hostel to collapse. The day had been very long and I literally had no energy left.

Imagine seeing this when you aren't
expecting it. It's just a great big bowl of
wow.

I woke up the next day drenched in sweat and full of energy. At last, whatever had descended upon me had finally decided to relinquish its grip. I walked out into the city with a spring in my step, and actually looked at my surroundings. I was in a place that had so much history, and such beautiful architecture. We went up to the castle, and there I saw the most beautiful church I've ever seen in my life. I'm not religious by any means, but the architecture was so vast and so intricate, it literally made me well up a little bit. Unfortunately, none of the pictures really do it justice, so I just sound a bit crazy. We spent most of the day exploring the castle grounds (it was a lot more expansive than we originally thought).

Legit fountain in Prague.

 Towards the evening time, we headed back to the riverside and went to the Kafka Museum. There we saw what I consider to be one of the most amusing fountains I've ever seen in my life: 2 men peeing into the  fountain, and their hips move to the left and right and their penises move up and down (please youtube this to get the full effect). The inside of the museum was awesome, but pretty creepy. I imagine that if you've actually read Kafka's works, you'd get all the little jokes they put in. The philosopher in our group (Chris) looked like he was in heaven, but our online gamer friend (Josh, otherwise self-nicknamed Jooshwah) basically trolled the whole time. I had the most fun watching Chris trying to get Josh to comprehend and absorb the culture of the museum.

Prague castle and Charles Bridge at night.

We spent most of our time walking. We never once took public transit once we were in the city proper (and then, the only time we ever actually rode a bus or subway was to get to and from the airport). We walked along the famous Charles Bridge, we wandered to and from the main city square, and we explored the back alleyways where you got to see a glimpse of what real Prague looked like. It was truly the best way to see the city, because you got to experience as well as sight-see. One of the most harrowing experiences was getting to see an actual Jewish ghetto. My main regret (besides Josh making very loud racist Jew jokes) was that I didn't take the Jewish experience class until after I got back from Germany. If I'd taken it before, then maybe I'd been better able to appreciate what I was really seeing. Also, I'd imagine being completely healthy would have also helped that.

Not really all that big.

Also, remember how I said that the ATMs at the airport wouldn't take my card? Turns out, that was a nation-wide dilemma. Fortunately, I had the sense to bring some emergency Euros just in case something like that happened, and I was able to survive the entire time on less than 50 Euros (of course, being sick for part of the time really helped cut down food costs as well).

Prague playground.

Our last day in Prague we decided to go on an adventure. We'd seen this tower thing on one of the mountain-sides the entire time we were there, and we decided to go see what it was all about. As it turned out, it was the Eiffel Tower of Prague (yes, that's the actual name). They wanted a ridiculous amount of money to go up to the top (which in all honesty wasn't that high), and since we were all broke college students, we decided to just "ooh" and "aah" from the ground. The grounds surrounding the tower, however, were much more fun. We found a playground, and since Ashley and I are both 5 at heart, we both decided to play on it. It's a lot different from today's American playgrounds; there were actually fun things to play on. 

Ashley "preggers" with Beverly Joe...

Finally, after five days of exploring and playing around, it was time to return back to Germany. We gathered our things from the hostel, and figured out how to get back to the airport without getting lost. We made it through security, and were waiting for our plane to arrive, when Ashley all of a sudden realized that she had too much stuff (if you've ever traveled Ryanair, you'll know all about this problem. For those of you who haven't: You're only allowed one carry-on item. That's all. Anything more, and you have to pay a €35 fee to check your bag. All in all, not fun.). So, her primary solution was to suddenly become about 6 months pregnant with little "Beverly Joe". With that solution, we were on our way.

When we arrived, Ashley and I waved goodbye to our friends as they returned to Heidelberg. However, our adventure still wasn't over. We took a bus to another airport, and spent the night there. We had an early morning flight to Amsterdam so we could see Epica again...

I really wish I could remember everything we did while we were in Prague. Unfortunately, I'm writing this up a year after it happened, and even then I was in a fever haze for part of the trip, so some of the details are fuzzy. Other things I've deliberately left out (such as playing truth or dare one night in our room. Trust me, some things are better off left alone). 

I'm so sorry for putting this out so late!!! I've literally been writing this post for two weeks now. I'm just so completely swamped with everything lately that I have no time to do anything fun. Hopefully I'll start being able to post more often soon. Till next time!!!