Secret Agents

As some of you may know, Room 111 loves the television show Chuck. We love the comedy, stories, characters, and the awesome spy action. We joke around with associating ourselves to certain characters in the show, and since a recent mission that Kenny and Jojo went on to recover some "important government information," we seemed to have created an entire spy network on Biola's campus.
So now w--

--Incoming TOP SECRET transmission--

....now accessing secret agent profiles.......

Agent Sarah Walker

- Trained in hand-to-hand combat and firearms

-Highly skilled with throwing knives.


- Recruited by the CIA at 18 after Father was
put in jail.

Agent Hannah Orion

-Technological mastermind



-Specializes in Languages and Dialects



-Kicked out of Harvard, Yale, and MIT before the age of 16


-Recruited shortly after by the CIA





Agent Ellie Bartowski

- A Femme Fatal, trained in the martial arts


- Skilled in toxicology and nuclear medicine


- Recruited by the CIA at age 19, after blowing up
her university's science building.






......logging out of profiles.....


---Ending TOP SECRET transmission---


--ded up going all around campus! It was crazy!
Anyways, that's all for now! finals and stuff are keeping us really busy, so I've got to get going.

-Brenna Kathleen

Replay Cover: the Tashes

Just a lil something we put together today. Enjoy!

-Jojo

Amazing races and zombie apocalypses of Olympic proportions

Let me just say that it has been one of the most eventful weekends on campus in Biola's history. Well, okay, maybe that's a gross exaggeration, but it has been the most eventful weekend of this semester, and it's not even over yet people! We will see what Sunday holds... but back to the reason I'm writing THIS blog...

The weekend really started for us yesterday (okay, duh, it was friday...) when my roommates, I, and two of our guy friends, Dillon and Austin, went on our floor's GYRAD (aka "Get Your Roommate A Date"). GYRADs are an old Biola tradition, where you go out for a night and usually do something awesome and random... I will leave it at that. What we ended up doing for this one was going on an Olympic themed Amazing Race along Beach Blvd. which ended with a bonfire and Taco Bell at Huntington Beach.

So the five of us dressed and yellow and decked ourselves out as team China, met in the lobby, and got going on our first challenge and clue. It was cut-throat, exciting, and fairly dangerous (due to some crazy... yet still somehow safe driving *cough cough*), but worth every gasp, leap, and running step! We couldn't have asked for a better team ^_^.

But, I must say that before all of the riddle-reading, clue-solving, lane-cutting, Dizzy-bowling, Pyramid-making, frisbee-golfing, face-painting, line-dancing, taco-eating, and whatever else you can hyphen together, the best and perhaps most exciting thing about the entire shenanigan occured. This, my friends, would be the way in which we asked our dear friends to tag along with us on this grand adventure!

About a week before GYRAD, the three of us dressed in the garb of a made-up character of our choice and traversed campus to go meet our friends in their dorm

room. Little did they know what was coming when we asked if they were currently in their room. Brenna dressed as a french man named Jaques, complete with a smashing french mustache, Jojo dressed as a slick beatnik named Claude (she had a gotee), and I was a dang awesome cowboy named Charlie (I got to sport a nice handle-bar). Together, we called our little band "the Tashes". Brenna played the Uke, I played the guitar, Jojo was on spoons, and we all sang in order to serenade and win the aquiescence of our potential GYRAD dates.

What did we sing you ask? None other than our very own rendition of the hip-hop song "Replay" by lyaz. We revamped it to fit the occassion,

and thought it turned out pretty well. I'm guessing it must have been pretty sweet, because they ended up saying yes... but they may have only said yes because our ridiculous outfits and mustaches were so awesome that they could hardly handle it... the topic is up for debate. Anyways, our time and effort payed off and it was probably the most awesome and original way to ask someone on a GYRAD... or anything for that matter ;).

Now that you've heard that heartwarming story, it's time to talk about the zombies. Last night when we got

home from GYRAD to find out that the power all across campus had gone off while we were out on our adventure. We figured all we'd have to deal with was the alarm that followed, but when we woke up the next morning, we noticed that the power kept surging on and off for about an hour. We thought "hey, whatever! This could be fun"... but then it didn't come back on for 11 hours...

We felt like we were in a movie or some freaky, psycho social experiment. Campus-wide we had no power, yet everything surrounding us did. As the rain fell hard outside and rumors of earthquakes and tsunamis swirled in our minds, we watched the sun gradually set outside our window, wondering what was going to happen when the entire campus became pitch black. In the course of the night it came back on once, for maybe an hour, ruining all plans we had of sneaking around campus fighting a zombie apocalypse with our nerf guns.

When it went off again, Jojo and I dropped what we were doing and ran back to the dorm to come to the aid of a very distressed Brenna. We grabbed our nerf guns and flashlights and picked up a friend of ours as we were walking out of the dorm. We travelled across campus, under the pitch black parking garage, and took our friend Grace back to her dorm room. We explored various different floors of her dorm, and then the lights sadly came back on... for good this time. So we dropped her off at her room, seeing to it that she was safe from all threats, and proceeded to the dorm next door in order to check up on our good friend Dillon (yes, the very same Dillon who went on GYRAD with us the night before). We figured we might as well not let our ammunition go to waste (seeing as we didn't run into any zombies. ), so we hid in the lobby and called poor, unsuspecting Dillon down.

Shots were fired, laughs were enjoyed, conversation was made, and then we made our way back into the night, with joy in our hearts at the fact that we saved our campus and dear friends from a zombie apocalypse. I do wish the power was still out... but hey, I guess I can't complain too much that the luxuries of Biola life have returned once more... though I can't deny I felt totally BA running across campus in the pitch dark with a nerf gun! Well, that's all for now! Stay safe all! And if the power goes out again, keep your flashlights and nerf guns nearby!

~Kendall :)

Hello New Year, New Decade, New Semester!!

WE'RE BACK!!

*and there was much rejoicing*

Ok, ok. I should be honest.

*and there was a head nod and a few grunts*

Wow. We can hardly believe 6 weeks went by so quickly!! It seems like we just left school and now we're here again! Totally. Crazy. But we all had a great time on our respective breaks.

Speaking for solely for myself, this was the best break from school (counting Thanksgiving, spring break, summer, Labor Day etc.) I've had in a while. It was so good to see my family, friends, boyfriend, and dog. The boy and I celebrated our one year dating anniversary. He took me out to dinner and to see The Beauty and the Beast at the Ordway, which was fantastic! We also both celebrated our 20th birthdays, though he had to be at school for mine, which was rather a bummer.

I also got to have a lot of other fun adventures, with him and with others, such as sledding, ice skating, playing board games, going swing dancing, baking, seeing The Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater, shopping, watching movies and tv shows, etc. Let's just say I kept busy.

But now that's all over and here we are again!

Last weekend, before classes started, we had fun just hanging out and having a good time. On Sunday, after church, Brenna and Kendall blindfolded me and took me to an outdoor mall in Irvine for my birthday. It was really cool for me, since chilly ol' Minnesota doesn't have outdoor malls. It just wouldn't be practical. Anyway, we poked around in a few stores and Kenny and Brenna both bought some cute things. I kept my money in my pocket.

But the best part, by far, was the carousel ride! We were like little kids again, except we rode side-saddle because of our skirts. It was very fun. I hadn't been on a carousel in years and it was great. Normally, I'm more of a roller coaster/intense G's sort of ride person, but carousels are still thoroughly enjoyable.

We ate an early dinner at Red Robin and then headed back to campus. Kendall and I played frisbee later that night, and it was great to see all the old frisbee friends again.

Our first week of classes went fairly well. It was a rather long week though, and it's hard to readjust to doing hw all the time, instead of what we want to do. But we've got three semesters under our belts, so I'm sure we'll be just fine.

That's all from the First South girls for now. Gotta do some hw.

*EDIT*

Well, my roomies are officially the coolest and most crafty people I know. They just surprised me with a birthday party and cleverly arranged everything without me even getting the tiniest bit suspicious. Ladies and gentlemen, I live with brilliant people. A ton of my friends jumped out from behind couches when I walked into our floor's lounge tonight. I had been totally oblivious up to that point. We had cookies and cupcakes, played Guitar Hero, and watched THE DARK KNIGHT!!! (Only my most favorite movie ever.) It was lovely, and I am in awe of their deviousness. Kudos to them all.

-Jojo

San Diego Winter Update

It seems that I have been given the charge to update this poor wee blog.
Well, As I am on my own I can only update on what has been happening with me.

Now, let us see.... I have been working on some changes regarding my personal style. It's description is "Nerdy Vintage Chic." And I must say it's been going rather well. I have had very good visits to thrift stores and other places. And have procured several skirts and sweater sets. I've taken this style change to also work on other parts of my life. More style changes in decor of home, that I'm afraid wont be put into play until I am out of the sharing living space situation. But I'm also brushing up on my mystery stories and getting a good dosage of England in the 1940's by watching lots of Miss Marple.

I've been getting some work as a file clerk for a tax clinic. I've been working on and off for them since high school, so it's nice to be able to come back and do some filing for extra money.

Other than that I've been searching the web for pictures of whimsy and inspiration.
Hope you all have wonderful rest of breaks!

-Brenna Kathleen

From Cross 'til Now

Sooooooooooo... I figure it takes at least that long of a "so" to express my utter shame at the fact that I have not written on this blog in what, at least 5 months? perhaps even longer? I'm sure my much loved friends will be more than willing to clarify that little detail ;).

So, I'm going to give my little recap and "take" on this semester and all its shenanigans, and perhaps this will remotely begin to make up for my past failures? Hey, a girl can hope... Anyways... as you've seen from said friend's past and recent posts, it has been a very, very interesting-jam-packed-eventful-off-your-rocker-betty-crocker-kinda semester. School itself kind of really sucked for all of us this semester... but that's okay because it rocked in other ways that more than made up for it! We made tons of new, aweseome friends, including Dillon and Austin from the tunnel adventure, Kathy, Alyssa and Megumi from our floor, Jason, Raquel, Gillian, Tiffany, Rachel, and the list goes on :). God blessed us so much with all of these people this semester, and thankfully, with their help and jojo and brenna's help, I somehow made it through this semester without losing my mind and everything else along with it.

I've been through a ton this semester, from awesome things like the cross and tunnel adventures to not so awesome things like my grandfather dying. But through it all God has been so gracious and SO good in teaching me what I can take from all of these starkly contrasted experiences. I am so thankful for my friends and even the simple little joys they bring to my life :). You have all heard about the tunnel adventure... so I will relate to you the cross adventure, the brilliant start of my semester!

Right off the running blocks my semester was admittedly pretty darn bomb... First weekend I got to go with a large group of friends to the John Williams concert in Hollywood! And if that didn't make the night epic, what four of my friends and I did afterward more than made up for that. Jason Leith, Christine Fuchs, Christopher Girard, Riley Gilmore and I piled into a jeep and went on an hour's search for the base of the hollywood hill that has the giant illuminated cross on top of it... for what reason you might ask? What else but to climb it and go to the cross! As Jason put on the song "lead me to the cross" by Hillsong, we drove the confusing one-way streets of Hollywood at 11 o'clock at night, searching for the infamous hill with the giant glowing cross. After failing one attempt and being warned by locals of the hill's danger, we finally found a sketch backroad that led us to a hill that we were sure was at least close to the one we wanted.

And then we climbed... in dresses and sandals and dress slacks we climbed the less than pleasant terrain (i.e. extremely steep hills covered in dirt that slid right out from under us, various cacti, prickles and pointy grasses) until we finally had to resign ourselves from shoes and just go barefoot. Let me tell you, that trip was friendship and character building... we had NO idea where exactly we were going, and we had to help each other the entire way up, else I'm pretty sure we never would have made it. As we climbed, we realized that the hills just kept going... pretty soon one hill turned into five or six, and after passing by a camp of sleeping homeless people and being scared out of our minds by a jack rabbit, we came out on top of what really ended up being more of a mountain than a hill (well... it would definitely be a mountain if we were back east... lol).

There we saw it... on the hill BELOW us... As the five of us descended down a rocky pathway, all of us were blown away by the scene before us: a 200 foot tall, illuminated cross in the foreground of the still entirely lit city of Los Angeles stretching as far as the eye could see! It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. When we reached it we took a moment to observe our surroundings, and after a few minutes of recooperations from minor injuries, we decided we should do something worthwhile after all of that effort. For some stretch of time the five of us took turns praying over the city so conveniently laid out before us. Then we sang a few worship songs that we all knew and prayed for each other and the semester to come.

After we had remenisced about how crazy we were and how our recent journey and its difficulties perfectly mirrored the realities of a Christian's walk with God, we made our way down a different way so that we wouldn't die... and after walking down the same sketch road we drove in on, found the jeep. We high-tailed it out of there, hit up some Tommy's for 2:30 am chili burgers, went home, showered all of the caked dirt off, and nesteled into bed around 3, 3:30 in the morning.

It was freaky, it was daring, and I can't deny that there were times that we all got pretty freaked out of our minds... But all in all, what is an adventure without all of those things included :)? And now we can say, whenever we think about that night or see that cross, that we didn't just go back to Biola and hit up some Inn-N-Out after the concert... No, my friends... we went to the cross.

~Kendall

The Wait is Over! (Tunnel Adventure)

Well, I guess I had better write about our tunnel adventure like Brenna promised I would. (Or else she might beat me up...hahaha! Riiiiiiight.)

It was a dark and stormy night. Not really. But in honor of one of my favorite "great" writers, I figured I would begin this tale in that manner.

To be honest, it was a California night like any other: a little chilly, no matter the daytime temperature. Dillon and Austin met us at Hope shortly after we ambushed them in Horton with our Nerf guns. We were dressed warmly in clothes that could withstand the unknown dirty dangers that lay in wait. Dillon was the only one who had previously explored the dark depths of the drainage tunnel to which we were headed, and because of the recent inundation of rain, even he didn't know quite what to expect.

We began our adventure by exiting the lower end of campus, sliding under a walking bridge that crossed the stream that runs through campus. A couple steps later, we spotted a large pipe, also spanning the waterway. Dillon informed us that we had to shimmy across it. He led the way, followed by myself, Austin, Brenna, and Kendall. The pipe wiggled under our weight as we slid along, which wasn't exactly a comforting sensation. We managed to traverse the pipe successfully, albeit slowly, without major mishap (i.e. falling about ten feet into the stream below).

After Dillon's menial mental capacities allowed him to recall the specific location of the drainage tunnel, we cautiously crept down the steep embankment to its mouth. Since Kendall had lost the "nose goes" game earlier, she was the lucky adventurer selected to lead the expedition into the darkness.

We shook hands and exchanged grim looks, fully aware of the perilous course we had set for ourselves. I fixed my comrades with a firm gaze and murmured, "The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted. It belongs to the brave." The beams from five flashlights cut through the inky darkness as, one by one, we entered the cavern. Five began the voyage. We didn't know how many would complete it. But with courage in our hearts and shakiness in our knees, we set out to conquer the mile-long tunnel.

Ok, maybe I embellished that last bit, but if I had been calm enough to think clearly at the time we entered the tunnel, it might have wound up looking something like that. As it was, I could hardly stop the adrenaline shivers that raced through my body.

Long story short, the tunnel was awesome. There was some "interesting" graffiti on the walls, our feet got wet from accidentally stepping in the trickle of water running through the tunnel, and a multitude of less-than desirable companions joined us (i.e. cockroaches and spiders), but the journey was well worth it. We explored a side tunnel, which led to a rectangular room with a drain at the top, but quickly returned to the main tunnel when we saw a suspicious spider. Dillon hid and tried to scare us, but failed because we were expecting it. I had no trouble standing up straight in the tunnel, and it wasn't too short for Brenna and Kendall either. The guys weren't so lucky.

When the tunnel finally reached its end, we found ourselves in a small triangular space, covered in a pool of water a few inches deep and surrounded by 5.5 foot cement walls. Dillon and I had little trouble scaling these walls and standing on the top. The other three found this a little more difficult. Dillon pulled Austin up (with a little help from Kendall and Brenna down below?). That just left Kendall and Brenna. I hopped back down, and with the guys lifting from above and me pushing from below, the girls scrambled their way to the top of the wall. Lastly, the guys lifted me up by my arms. A few chain-link fences later, and we were in the La Mirada park, ready to walk back to campus.

After a couple valiant attempts by the guys to catch some water fowl in the park (they came pretty dang close) and running across a street (during which I had the grace and nimbleness to trip over the curb and fall flat on my face), we returned to campus. We were tired and dirty, but in high spirits. No adventure could have been more epic.

We finished our night off with an appearance at Study Break in the Caf, where we fed our weary bodies. Then we parted ways with the guys and went back to Hope, to savor hot showers and comfy, warm beds.

So there you have it. Easily the most monumental escapade of our semester. Hope you enjoyed living vicariously through us. We're all home now, and perhaps we'll have stories to relate in the near future. Check back and see.

Merry Christmas!

-Jojo