Bring your own toilet paper

I hate the phrase "fun run." There's nothing fun about running, ever, so it's a bit misleading. Unless you're Maurice Green or someone remotely fit, running is torture. I never do it, personally, unless I feel that it's urgent -- for example, if a pack of vicious dogs (or baboons) is after me, or if I'm late for free food or clothing. So why I signed up for the Owls Fun Run last year is beyond me. In what's just another recurring theme with me, I failed to think of what fun run participation would be like. I pictured myself putting up my hair, donning my pair of tennis shoes (maybe for the fifth time since I graduated high school?) and psyching myself up for the run. I didn't consider how low I'd feel as the 70-year-old lapped me, again, or having a stitch in my side that wouldn't go away, sweat pouring un-sexily down the sides of my tomato-red face or how much I'd wish I'd worked out before this when I came in last among my group of friends. In short, I never picture things accurately when I sign up for them. Ever.

The international student club on campus is kind of useless (do we do anything? We don't appear to have regular meetings) but it does provide us transportation to certain events. And though I love jamming to Beyonce's "If I were a Boy," the unfortunate thing about globalization is that you can be as far away as Africa and still hear almost exclusively American music. So when I saw that there was an Afrikaans music festival coming up this weekend, I signed up as quickly as I could, thinking about glamorously dancing to awesome music I'd never heard before, understanding the lyrics even though all I know how to say in Afrikaans is "my naam is" and "my vak is" (the v is pronounced like an F, so it sounds exactly like an English obscenity; har har har) and meeting awesome South Africans.

I'm not saying that won't necessarily happen, but it's really hot here (it broke 100 last weekend), so I don't know how glamorous I can be while I'm dripping sweat everywhere. But there are a few more, um, pressing concerns I've been mulling over lately.

Except for a few concerts, I've never, ever been to big music festivals like Austin City Limits. I wish now that I had. Maybe this festival will be more intense than ACL? All I know is, we're advised to bring our own toilet paper. And we need to bring a tent. And I don't think I'm going to be seeing a toilet or shower for a couple of days. It's BYOB, also, and though I initially scoffed at the idea of bringing tons of alcohol along, I think that, given that we'll be using some sort of communal outdoor toilet area, I'm going to need beer. Lots of it.