So pretty much every Thursday evening an unofficial group of Champlain employees head out to VPB for some local brews and shop talk.  The make-up and size of the group change from week to week, but is generally led by Joe Manley.  Kevin, Ken and other CCM division employees are also regulars of the event, including my husband.  The talk is mostly work related (flash, the slacking attitudes of the senior class, hard drive space, etc).  In the fall there is serious football-smack-talk, and that is usually when Joe insists that I come out.  As the only Cowboys fan (that I know) in the area, the Eagles fans take great pride in busting my chops.  I take it as a personal challenge to defend my team and kick all of their butts in fantasy football.  Apparently Ray does not attent quite as often as Joe would like (usually because he's working too hard).  I rarely have a chance to go, as I am usually bogged down in homework.  Due to my current homework-free status, I took a chance and dragged Ray and Kevin out for a beer.  While the evening was uneventful, it was nice to relax, have a beer and chat with the boys.  Just trying to enjoy as much of my freedom as I have left!

Danielle has always said that she and I should go on some sort of pop culture game show and win a million dollars.  While Danielle could certainly uphold her end of the bargain, I've always felt that my random collection of knowledge tends to be slightly less useful, or at least less likely to end up as a pop culture trivia question.  But tonight we did the next best thing: Tuesday Trivia Night at RiRa's.

Apparently Danielle got the taste for Trivia Night in the bars of Charlottesville, VA while in grad school.  Upon her return to Vermont, she promptly set out to discover which of the Burlington bars would allow her to continue her weekly tradition.  Apparently RiRa's won out over Hooters (not that I am complaining).    Danielle convinced me that, even though I had never been to a Trivia Night before, this was certainly one of the "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead of Her Homework", so we each contacted some friends and met at RiRa's for a bite of dinner and some Trivia.

Danielle convinced Travis to join us after his Business Statistics class, and I was able to persuade Sarah, Jay and Tonya for a night out.  The seven of us joined up to form team "Nearly Proficient".  Turns out we were pretty good! 

There were nine or ten rounds consisting of mostly 10 trivia questions a round.  The first round we were given a card with some strange aluminum foil creatures on it which we had to identify (we got 7 of 10) and round eight was ten songs from the 50's for which we were meant to identify artist and title (we got 8 of the 10 songs and no artists).

Here is a small smattering of questions that I can remember:

• What is the name of Captain Hook's ship?
• What international organization is based in Brussels (that is not the EU)?
• Who was known as "Sweetness"?
• What country uses the internet code ".am"?
• What comedian made the "Hippy-Dippy Weatherman" famous?

(Post your answers in the comment section and I'll tell you if you were correct - these were all questions we DID get the answers to!)

We won three rounds - two on a tie-breaker that Danielle won for us!  While we didn't win it all (I think we came in second or third), we did receive some mad prizes for our winning rounds.

We took a pilsner glass for our first two round wins and the D picked out this Magic Hat hoodie for our final round win (the round in which we had all 10 questions correct)!  The hooide is completely black, but has these glow-in-the-dark spots all over it.  When I took the picture with the flash it seems to have "activated" the glow-in-the-dark and makes it look funny in the photo.

About halfway through the evening Kris made her way downtown and joined us!  Kris works for Population Media Center, and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.  She was our PMC contact there when we visited in August.  She was back in the states for a week to run some workshops and information sessions with the students working on the UN project at the EMC.  But it can't be all work and no play, so we were very pleased that she came down to join us!

Today marks the just-past-halfway-point of my two lovely weeks of freedom and the "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead of Her Homework".  This weekend was fairly uneventful (after Friday's surprise), so there isn't much to say.  Ray had to work all weekend so I spent most of it relaxing and doing nothing in particular.  On Saturday I met Jami, Tonya and Danielle for some lunch and a screening of He's Just Not That Into You.  We figured it was a good girls' outing on Valentine's Day and went early to try to avoid the rush of romantic dates.  Boy, were we wrong!  The movie theatre lobby was incredibly crowded, mostly with families, and the line at the Majestic 10 strechted past the escalators.  It moved pretty quickly and we only missed most of the previews.  The movie was good, and we all enjoyed ourselves very much.

After the movie I ventured to Price Chopper, another crowded location, to purchase dinner supplies.  Since Ray was working all day, and since he sent me such a sweet Valentine's Day surprise, I figured the least I could do was make him some dinner.  Not being much of a cook, I wanted to create something that was special, yummy and that I was unlikely to screw up.  I spent some time combing the Weight Watchers recipes, and finally settled on Baked Shrimp in Lemon Butter Sauce.  I decided this would be good over pasta, and that I could just make regular tomato sauce with meatballs for myself.  I also opted for some chocolate mousse for dessert.  In the end the meal turned out well (at least that's what Ray said) and it was nice to spend a relaxing evening at home.

Sunday I was far less productive.  Ray had to work again, so I figured that getting things done around the house was the way to go.  I didn't get much beyond doing the dishes and the laundry.  I had turned the TV on while folding laundry, and became completely absorbed by The Godfather: Part II. I have seen The Godfather, but neither of the sequels, and seeing how it won a few Oscars I figured it was worth checking out.  On TV it took 4 hours to watch.  I watched the entire movie, and I have no real idea what was going on.  If you are a Godfather fan and can explain it to me - I'd appreciate it!

Now back to the topic at hand: Day 8 of "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead of Her Homework".  Today was all about The Outlander series. This is a series of books written by Diana Gabaldon which I got hooked on last summer.

I was looking for book recommendations for the very loooong plane rides we had ahead of us on the South Africa trip.  Someone recommended Outlander to me.  At first I was intimidated by the size of the book - that's quite a commitment, espeically if I don't like it.  Fortunately it all worked out.  I started Outlander while we were in South Africa, and had it finished by the end of September.  I did most of the reading of Dragon Fly in Amber over the Christmas break I had from class and work in December.  For my birthday this year I asked for Voyager, which I have just barely scratched the surface of.  I was able to purchase the rest of the published series with a little help from a Barnes & Noble Gift Card Danielle, Kat and Andrew gave me for my birthday (thank you!).  The next three will likely keep me occupied for all of 2009. The best part is the author isn't finished writing the series; there are another two books yet to come, and at the rate I'm going, she may have them both published by the time I get there!

I really enjoy these books, and would highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.  They may be slightly more appealing to a female audience, but if you never know.  When I am in class I have almost no time to read anything other than my textbooks, so when I get a break I am thrilled to get to really dive into these books.

So today is Day 5 of "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead of Her Homework", a lucky Friday the 13th.  I wasn't quite sure if today "counted" towards TCWSWDIOHH, as I try very had to get all of my homework done during the week, so that I can actually do some fun things on the weekends (Friday nights included), so there were no big plans for today.

Now, let me restate that, I had no big plans for today.  Showed up for work at the regular time, did the regular Friday tasks (paying the bills, printing the thank you notes, etc) and tucked in to work on another big mailing that I really wanted to finish today.  Around mid-day I received a lunch invitation from my husband, and since I knew he had to work late tonight (and all weekend), I drove out to Winooski to grab a bite with him.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but he did ask about my afternoon plans (printing letters, stuffing and sealing envelopes) and asked if I had my camera.  Since I've been trying to blog about my two weeks of freedom (and blogs are always better with photos), I had it with me.  After lunch (and a quick stop at Ben Franklin's for stickers) I headed back to the office.

The afternoon was far from exciting, until just before 3:00 pm.  Jen showed up to collect a reimbursement check, which was nothing unexpected (as she had told me last night she would be by) or out of the ordinary.  Then, a few minutes later (we are talking five or less), I see a group of men dressed in white tuxedo jackets and red bow ties walking down the office building hallway.  Now mind you, anyone coming into our office building who needs to get to the elevator has to walk directly towards our office, so I didn't think anything of it.  But then they opened my door.  Two things popped into my head: (a) they are lost and are going to ask me where someone's office is, or (b) they are selling something (what they might be selling I had no idea).

Nope!  Turns out I was completely, 100% wrong!  They were looking for me.  I stood up from my computer as they walked into the office and asked if I could help them.  They asked if I was Corinn, and when I said yes, they told me that Ray had sent them.  I believe it was right about this point that I (a) turned the same color as their bow ties and (b) probably said something like "Oh my God...".

It turns out they were the Green Mountain Chorus and my wonderful husband had sent me a singing Valentine.  It was a complete mix of emotions: there were five men singing me a love song from my husband in harmony in the middle of my office AND my boss and our stage manager were watching me AND taking pictures!  The song was lovely and sweet, and I was completely overwhelmed by the entire experience.  I felt a little silly; my office isn't that big, so the gentlemen were essentially standing no more than five feet away, blocked by boxes and the mess I hadn't cleaned up yet.  I didn't know where to look (there were a lot of them and they were close) and I was embarrassed that Mark and Jen were watching me.

My song came with a Valentine's card from my man, a small box of chocolates and another photo op with the whole group.  I think this is quite possibly the most romantic thing that Ray has ever done for Valentine's day.  He sent me a text right around 3:00 pm and I called him to thank him after the chorus left.  Turns out that Ray had called Mark this morning to "tie me with a ball and chain to my desk" around three in the afternoon (apparently even going to the bathroom was not acceptable).  Mark had called Jen to tell her that she should be here before 3:00 pm, so that she could see my gift as well.  Ray always said that there was no point in sending me flowers to work, because I have no female co-workers to get excited for me, but I think this was about one million times of that effect.

Thank you, Ray, for this wonderful and romantic surprise!  I love you whole big bunches!

Day 4 of "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead Of Her Homework" was dinner with Jen and Evan at our place.  Jen is VSC's stage manager and Evan is her boy-toy, who also happens to work at the local FOX news station as a camera man.  Evan usually works nights, but Jen and I were able to coordinate (with mucho amounts of early planning) to have our dinner date on one of Evan's nights off.

Ray made a fantastic dinner of Ahi Tuna Steaks (a pork chop for Mr. Allergies), rice and his wonderful Tomato-Apple-Cilantro chutney.  I decided I wanted to make dessert.  It wasn't anything terribly fancy, but it was yummy.  I made brownies and "topped" them with some Mint Bailey's just as they came out of the oven.  The Bailey's soaked about 3/4 of the way down, and made the brownies super moist and very yummy.  We served them with some Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mint ice cream.  Yum!

After dinner we coaxed Jen and Evan to play some Rayman: Ravining Rabbids with us on the Wii.  Neither one of them had ever played before, so we tried a variety of games.  Turns out Evan not only knows that "Bunnies are Excellent Dancers", but he can make them dance!  I think the absolute best part of the game was Evan's ability to smack-talk Jen as he was playing the game - and still kicking our butts!

Ray did his fair share of butt kicking - breaking all sorts of records on the game.  Actually, I'm not sure who broke more records by the end of the evening: Ray or Evan.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all, but I think we tuckered them out - it's hard work keeping those Bunnies at bay!

Week One of "Things Corinn Wishes She Was Doing Instead Of Her Homework" is turning out to be pretty awesome!  I'm not sure what treats are in store for me tomorrow, but I have a date with my girls on Saturday for a Valentine's Day showing of He's Just Not That Into You.    Can't wait!