its sunday so that means i went to church today. it was good...i met shannon and we walked over for the 11 oclock service. it was my second time goin. we met some more ppl and sat down..worship was really good. i really like worship there...but i just love worship. and for the 'serman' today it wasnt a serman...some students shared testimonies and then we watched this short clip of this dvd thing called 'red pills' it basically talks bout major topics..and they are gonna go into the schools and show them...that is what i think they were for atleast. but basically we talked bout college and stuff.it was cool. so then afterwards this guy was walkin around givin out flyers bout a cookout at his house. so i thought...'hey free food..that rocks and maybe i can meet some more ppl'. so me and emily walked back to her apartment and i got to see it for the first time..it rocks..i wish i had my own place..but eh.i will soon enough i guess. but anyways...she changed and then we walked over to courtneys place and we drove to this other girls house named lilian. [lilian is really cool..her personality is just funny and she is really outgoing...she seems like someone i will hang out w/ maybe alot...we'll see i guess] so when we got there we basically dropped off courtneys car and took lilians car to this guys house where the cookout was. he lived way out in the middle no where but his house rocked so it was cool. none of us knew anyone there except a few ppl but it was still cool. we jumped right into eating..the burgers werent ready yet but there was chips and drinks and stuff...so we got it and then we went out on the porch and sat on the floor. [i like sitting on the floor] so then we walked down to the "river"...more like a creek after a few minutes. we got there around 3 and left around 430 i guess. but i also was talkin to this other girl who has dreds. i was askin her how she got them and stuff...cuz i definately want dreds..she was tellin me she got them started at a salon and she works at one so she can do them for me...she said that it is pretty expensive but if i do them for a class and i am the person they do it on then it will be cheaper..so that rocks. it is at this place in carytown called 'look' so i will prolly definately do that. so we finally left and in the car we were all talkin about the Lord and just different things about holy spirit and about our church and stuff..it was fun..it was good hangin out w/ some christians b/c i really havent since i got here. that is what i miss the most about williamsburg the most i guess is i dont really have any christian friends here. but i know that the Lord is gonna put some awesome ppl in my life...i just have to keep tellin myself that "it is only the third week...calm down". so yea...now i have to finish writing a paper and finish another project and at some point between today and tomorrow spend 2 WHOLE HOURS drawing trees...yess i know that is boring and i dont have that kinda time that i need to spend sleeping..but hey i am a big college student now

today i woke up at 1230...i duno how b/c i went to bed at 430 last night b/c i was up talkin to mark the whole night. i was so tired the whole day. but i met megan and her friend for lunch. after lunch when we were walkin out i saw my friend from highschool...jessica. it was random seeing her cuz she goes to cnu but she was up visiting someone iguess. it was good to see her tho b/c i hadnt seen her in a long time. after that i rode back to my dorm and worked on my journal for awhile until kim came over so we could work on our project for design class. that project is dumb and annoying..so we worked on it for awhile and then decided to take a break and go eat. when we got there we saw shannon and his "crew". me and shannon were gonna go to see spiderman for free in the business building but he decided to go hang w/ the crew somewhere..but its all good. so tonight i decided to do laundry for the first time since i moved in 3 weeks ago..so i brought all my clothes down and figured out i didnt have any quarters so i once again had to walk up and get some. so i put all my clothes in and sat around and called some ppl. then when it was done i put them in the dryer. then i went up to my room for awhile until i went back down to bring up the clothes when they were done...[no i havent folded them yet..im thinkin ill wait till tomorrow just b/c i can :-) ] so now on this wonderful lazy saturday night i might go to bed really soon...i might work on my journal before or read..but maybe not...eh

john mayer concert
what a day! today was one of the coolest days in a long time. at around 1 after english class and lunch me and matt took a little drive down to browns island were we walked up to backstage..the gaurd nodded us in [which was cool b/c i felt like part of a band or something] and matt used his acting skills to get us into the show..on the guestlist and in for FREE. so we chilled around browns island after goin back to our dorms like 3 times to get my cameras. [my digital camera batteries died on me so that blew] i brought my cannon so i should get some awesome pictures. but anyways...we went back to the island just in time for john mayers sound check. that was cool. then we went and ate dinner at this place called 4th street diner. it was a cute little place on the corner. i had chili and cheese...yum. by the time we walked back we got right in line to get in to the show. it was 5:30 then and the doors opened at 6. there werent that many ppl there either but it seemed like as soon as we got in line..like a line formed a mile back behind us...so we got there in perfect timing. so next a radio station truck pulled up and was handin out tank tops and what looked like back stage passes. i got both. so when we were goin in...matt went to 'will call' and got our FREE tickets and we were bout to go in...they said no cameras aloud...so basically i tryed to ignore that coment and walk in hiding it in my backpack. they werent gonna let me in until this one gaurd said "no- regular cameras are aloud but video cameras arent...so in the mean time while they were fighting bout who said what and if what cameras were aloud or not...me and matt just walked right thru [with our cameras]...yesss. so we walked right to the front...and we saw megan and hali so megan had a towel so we sat down and chilled. me and hali went to walk around and she bought a 4 dollar lemonaide....eeesh then we went back..then me and megan went and walked arounnd and she got a 3 dollar slice of pizza, and i got a john mayer sticker. then we went back and the show was bout to start so everyone stood up. boo. the first band was called 'charlie hunter' they were a really good jazz band. i liked them alot. then 'guster' played. they were amazing. it was 2 guys on guitars and a guy on the drums and congas...he had his hands taped and he played them. he rocked my face. they reminded me of jars of clay for some reason. but i liked them alot more. so then john mayer finally came on like around 920. by then everyone was crowded up around the stage. the towel megan put on the ground would have been killed if she didnt pick it up and hold it for the rest of the show. but i was being smashed into God knows how many ppl and i definately couldnt see b/c of my height problem of 5'3". but the show was completely amazing. they just flowed...john mayer is amazing on the guitar...wow..when he goes off he kinda has a jazz sound to playing..i duno...but wow...i cant express how good the show was. it was one of the best live shows i have ever seen. so after the show we hung around and matt wanted to try and get one of the set lists or a pick or somethin...and one of the guys from guster came out so we got his autograph on our ticket stubs...then we walked over to the merchandise table and i got a guster poster..it rocks..it is like antique looking. so after we chilled and slowly made our way back to my car...definately in no rush b/c there was so much trafic. but me,megan, matt, and hali went out to eat at river city diner. this place rocked too. and we had so much fun. we basically laughed the whole time. it was weird.. it was like we were all so tired we were acting drunk. it was great. around 130 in the a.m. we walked back to my car in the straight ghetto and made our way back to drop megan and hali off at their car and made my way home after droppin matt off...and that ends my rockin day...wow arent you jealous?

who knows how many ppl read this...if any. but hey if ya ever want to make me feel special and popular then see over on the left side you can sign my guestbook and go down in history of...signing laurens guestbook. ..ha...lucky you

back to the blog. this is where i like to come to every night and just talk. im sitting here looking at my favorite painting [monet- levar del sole], listening to john mayer. i finally finished my english paper that was due on wednesday. ok to quote myself for the day "i hate rubber cement". basically my whole art box got glued together today. my rubber cement can somehow mysteriously opened and emptied itself on my 200 dollars worth of art supplies. the good thing was that everything was salvaged. rubber cement has a friend named rubber cement pick-up. when rubber cement dries you can take this square of rubber and pick it up if you dont want it. and obviously i didnt want any of it in my box. so i emptied my box out and let everything dry. thru out my 3 1/2 hour c&p class i erased all the rubber cement off all my stuff. it gave me something to do but it definately took the whole class period. but besides that....that class rocks. today we learned how to transfer magizine pictures onto paper by using latex glass medium. it rocks. the first one i did didnt work but the second one i did came out perfect. and it is cool b/c it is like a transparent picture. and i put it in my "used book" over words. and in my other class [drawing studio] we drew still lifes for 3 hours. its fun to draw big. yea...so yesturday me and kim got bike baskets b/c of the long hall to north lumbardy. they are "quick release" baskets..which is good b/c we can just take them off and use as a basket and put them on whenever...but they are bad b/c we have to take them off b/c of the quick release...if it is so easy for me to quick release it ..it is just as easy for someone else to quick release it. so this morning goin to class we put our art bins in our baskets [yes that was the reason we got them] and we used kims strap portfolio to cary out paper, drawing board, etc. that was fun and we looked like cool artists on bikes.
punchline came out today too. that paper rocks [if you dont know..it is like a local made richmond paper i think made by college students and the best part...it is free] i think i am gonna collect them all. so far i have all of the ones that have come out since i moved in. they come out every thursday. they include random things that are fun to look at.
another interesting thing at vcu today was there was a pair of shoes...tied together at the laces thrown over a telephone line outside ...it was cool b/c it looked like shoes were floating right in the middle of the intersection.. all i could think was...'i wonder how long they stood there tryin to get them to stay there? and why?'
for dinner tonight i chilled w/ megan, her friend jamie, matt, and shannon. megan did her monologue for me which was very "motherly" [...ha] then she had to leave so me, matt and shannon hung out in the cafeteria way after everyone left. it seems like we do that alot...we are eating and talking and then i look around and there is nobody in there except us and they had cleaned every table except ours...when the evil eye of a cafeteria person comes we know to leave..

i love music, especially worship music. for the past week i have been listening to 'jason upton'. he is just amazing...he is totally obediant to the Lord. he just goes off and says stuff that just blow me away. i think that is how David in the Bible was. i would compare jason to him. everyone needs to go to jason's site and download his music http://www.jasonupton.com

ok ..today was really my first day of real school. b/c last week was just sylabis week i really didnt get the feel of college yet. but today i felt the stress that is goin to come w/ art school. i know that i am goin to be really challenged in a lot of ways. i already am and it is the 2nd week. i am not really used to that b/c in highschool i basically got to do whatever i wanted. but it will be good for me ..that is if i make it thru. i got a 'b' on my first assignment in college. this was in my design fundamentals class. we had to make name tags turning our names in to represent ourselves in sertain ways...like as an acrobat or taxi cab driver..stuff like that. you prolly cant picture what im talking bout but basically it was hard. me, kim and colin stayed up until 2 in the morn doin this. the hard part was that we had to do each one 3 times. but i made it thru. and yes i had to wake up at 8 this morning. eek. so anyways...we were in drawing fundamentals class and we had to go outside and draw trees. that was aight...that is not my kind of thing but hey i did it. it was cool tho b/c the teacher came over to see how we were doin and he ended up like drawin a whole tree for me. so that rocked. so i moved on and drew a bench and kims foot and everything else except trees. basically we were just havin fun out there yellin "BFI" at the bfi trucks..ha..anyways...so after awhile i figured i should draw atleast one tree...so i went over around the side of the building and sat on this brick thing and drew this tree...it kinda rocked ...but what rocked even more was this lady pulled over on the curb and asked me if i drew children...she wants me to draw a picture of her daughter for her bday invitations...so i got a job already...i duno if she is gonna pay me or not but it was cool...i felt like an artist or somethin..ha. so she is gonna call me bout that i guess...and another cool thing...colin was tellin me that a homeless guy came up to him and told him he would pay him 25 bones to draw him ...but colin doesnt draw portraits..so he asked me if i did...so that would be another cool thing to do. we will see...
so..i upgraded my meal plan from a 10 meal a week to a 15 meal a week. which is good but could be dangerous. but i told myself that i am gonna stop eating so much carbs. so today i ate the same thing for lunch and dinner. i had roast beef...well atleast i think it was...it was some kind of beef that was really good. and then i had potatoes [not mashed but those little red ones] and peas and carrots and thats it. so im doin good so far..but we will see how long this lasts. tonight for dinner i hung out w/ shannon. he already had ate dinner but he said that he would go anyways w/ me to hang out b/c he had extra meals he wanted to get rid of i guess...but he ended up not even using one b/c we went in the cafeteria when someone else was coming out..so we got a freebee dinner ...cha-ching. but it was cool hangin out w/ shannon...he watched me try to eat my roast beef that wasnt cut b/c there were no knifes. ask him how embarrased he was...ha...but he was sweet- instead of sinking down in his chair tryin to hide..he went and got me some napkins..ha. so we chilled there for awhile and talked bout stuff. shannon rocks! he is like one of my best guy friends..im glad that we are at the same skool now b/c we used to only talk on aim and we never had even really talked in person until star day. we had been friends for almost a whole year and only hung out w/ him in person like one time.. but now we hang out all the time and we can go to all the concerts together. [rotton eggnog fo life]

my whole 3 day weekend is over ALREADY. boo. i was lucky to get a 3 day weekend atleast tho b/c the other colleges my friends go to like william and mary and cnu both had skool today...so haha. but anyways. i had a good weekend in the burg hangin out w/ the farinos as always. last night- me, joy, shannon, and brandy went to see 'my big fat greek wedding' the movie. it was my second time seeing the movie but it was worth seein again and paying $7.25 for b/c it is a halarious movie. if you havent seen it yet then you must. but the main reason i like it is b/c even tho they are greek they definately remind me of an italian family. after the movie we went to go see brandy and marna's apartment. it was really sweet place. i wish marna was there but she wasnt cuz she had a soccer game. but me and brandy got to hang out which was good b/c i havent hung out w/ her in a long time. we watched the video that brandy taped of cnu's celebration service [this all worship meeting at cnu] . i really wanted to see marna sing b/c i didnt get to go. it was last thursday night and it was my dads bday. but i got to watch alot of it and marna sang so good. i give her big ups! and also april, mark, and nate did awesome too. it is awesome to see how the Lord is moving at every college. after we watched that video we watched the video of 'the call' that was awesome watchin that. alot of the footage was of us girls [me, brandy, marna, joy, and shannon] drivin around new york makin fun of everything and then there was like 10 minutes of 'the call' but still awesome. we didnt leave their apartment until 2 in the morning. eesh. and we talkin to marna on the phone in the car on the way home. we picked my car up at starbucks and then i went home to sleeeep until 12 the next day when joy called me and woke me up to go to lunch at crackerbarrel w/ her and michelle. so that was good i hadnt seen michelle in a long time. so we hung out and talked bout her goin to the benny hinn crusade...and how powerful that was. i wish that i could have gone but i guess i wasnt suposed to. butttt after lunch we went back to the farinos house and played ping pong. i started off good...i beat joy, michelle, and vinny, then i played derik and lost then from then on...i dont think i did very good...ha. i love ping pong tho...its the funnest game. PINg.....PONg

hey kids. im homeee. i got back to the burg on friday night and i went to stop by church to see if i could catch anyone. it was like 945 when i got there so i knew alot of ppl werent gonna be there but i figured some ppl would be. so i went in and alot of my peeps were there. they all ran up and attacked me and were really excited to see me. so i felt special. so i chilled there for about an hour hangin out and talkin. after that i went home to my house, empty room, and my family...yay. my mommy made my bed for me so i dove right in and slept like a baby. i finally got to sleep in w/ no disturbances...i slept till around 11 and then i got up and called kristy. kristy is the girl that does my hair for me..[cuts it, dyes, styles it, whatever] so i called her and i had an apointment at 12 but she had gotten in early so i went ahead in at like 11:15.i originally went in to rebleach my roots that all grew out and we did that..but then there was a change of plans. she told me that if i want to dread my hair then i cant do it when it is bleached b/c its all dead and she was scared it would all fall out. so we dyed it black. it rocks tho. its nice havin it all one color again. now i can wear it down. i like my hair blond and i miss it but my hair rocks black too. sooo..next for my day of events. i went to joys house. we chilled and then we went to ukrops to eat lunch and it was rainin out so we wanted to just sit out in the rain and talk. so we went over to starbucks..i got my caramel frap and we sat outside under the overhang and watched the rain and talked bout stuff. it was cool..that rain rocks. thennn we went to the store and got brownie mix to make brownies and here is the fun part of my day. we didnt have any eggs for the brownies and we didnt feel like drivin back to the store again so i was like thinkin bout how in movies and tv shows ppl just go and ask their next store neighbor for some eggs. so i was like hey why dont we just do that...and joy was like "ha...i dare you"..so i was like "sure whatever...ill do it, it will be fun" so in the rain i ran over to the next door neighbors house. the first of three! the first house didnt have any eggs...the second house no body answered the door even tho i know there was somebody there and the third house i knocked on the door...this little boy ran up to the door-looked at me for a sec and then ran away- so i was thinkin...hmmm should i knock again or should i just wait to see if he gets his rents? his dad finally came to the door and was looking at me weird. i said "i was wonderin if i could have 2 eggs" he said "sure, hold on a sec" he came back with the eggs and didnt smile or anything just handed them over and i said "thanx alot" and he said "yea" and shut the door...so im thinkin..."i did not just do that!..ha..i rock" i walked back to joys house w/ the eggs and she was like "i cant believe you did that" so i felt cool...we made the brownies..i licked the bowl...and then when they were done i ate a brownie. so by this time it was around 9 or so. and joy was like..we shouldve rented a movie and i said...we should go to a movie. so we looked on the comp to see what was playin and we decided to see blue crush. i heard two different things bout the movie...one-it was cheese, two-it was really good. so i figured i would check it out. plus surfing is cool to watch. so me and joy drove to the theater and i was about to pay and the guy was like just go ahead in...so we got to see the movie free which was awesome cuz i didnt feel like spendin seven bones anyways. [reveiw on blue crush] ok it was pretty good. it was definately a girls movie. the surfing scenes were good except the main girl wasnt really surfing..you could tell that her face was digitally placed on someone elses body. other then that...there was a love story kinda sorta and yea in the end she surfed the big wave...the end. whoo hoo BOO. i prolly wouldnt ever see the movie again but it was good enough to see it for free. --aight time for bed...night my many veiwers...sike..you thats reading this right now...yup your prolly the only one...feel special

my first week of school is almost over. today i had 2 more studio classes. my conception and presentation class...is gonna rock. we got our first assignment...and im so excited bout it. its basically we had to find a book. any book that already has something in it [writing, pictures, etc.] and we turn it into our sketchbook for 15 weeks. we collect stuff and put it in there or write stuff or whatever we want..but it is gonna be a really fun project. i picked this popart book to use as my book. me and kim went to the thrift store to find our books. [thrift stores rock by the way]

after that i went back home to the burg b/c its my DADS BIRTHDAY ..yay. so the fam got together and went to a nice italian restaurant to eat. then we went back to open presents at home. i got him a globe that is made entirely out of gems. it is a little black globe. it rocks...really expensive but my dad is worth it. my dad is so awesome...ill just give him a shout out right now- thank you dad for everything..you are amazing...i duno if you will ever read this but i want everyone to know how much i appreciate you and all you do for me and how you encourage me. i love you.. i hope you had an awesome birthday