The Plaid Pladd

Tomorrow is Bova’s birthday, so I’ve decided to compile a list of some favorite Bova memories/reasons why Bova is amazing!!!! In honor of Bova, this post also has 30% more exclamation marks!!! These are mostly in the order I thought of them while driving home from work, and should not be considered a comprehensive, authoritative, or even factual list. Since there are way too many things that are amazing about Bova to fit in one blog post, I’ve decided to simply use some of the lesser known ones that I, her fellow THE 434 member, have special memories of.

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1. Night of the Comet

You seriously do not even know how amazing this is

Night of the Comet is your typical sci-fi disaster post-Apocalyptic zombie movie mixed with a sassy coming of age story all set to a ironically awesome 80’s soundtrack. I was skeptical in the beginning too, but Night of the Comet did not disappoint. Every time I thought it couldn’t get even more awesome, IT FOUND A WAY. Another amazing movie I would never have experienced if Bova hadn’t taken her D3 professor’s derisive comments about its lack of scientific accuracy to heart and ordered it on impulse from Amazon Marketplace. Not only do I think about Bova every time I remember how great this movie was, I also learned from her and it the valuable lesson that impulse purchases of questionable taste are ALWAYS even more amazing than you could ever expect. For instance: the time I rented Santa’s Slay.

2. New linguistic breakthroughs

graspin’ adj.
1. lacking in coolness or basic functionality
2. pathetic
“Ever since my computer got dropped on the floor at O-Week, the screen’s been so graspin’! I can’t even see these lolcats!”

setchy adj.
1. something or someone that is both sketchy and sexy at the same time
2. I am having a hard time thinking of an example of this myself; to me it is more of a theoretical concept than a proven entity. Like the missing link or a Made-for-Sci Fi Channel Original movie with realistic dialogue. Still, if Bova claims to have seen it, I believe her.
“What’s with Steven Wiggin’s mustache? Does he think that’s flattering? Is he trying to be a pirate?” “No, I think he’s trying to be setchy.”

totes jeal adj.
1. totally jealous
“Have you seen how awesome Bova is? I am totes jeal!!!!”

There’s a hole in my bucket phrase
1. Used to describe a state of being when everything seems to go wrong for no discernible reason
2. I actually completely forget what this one means
3. I don’t think it’s meant to be used in an unironic fashion
4. At least I hope
“Meeeerrrrhhhhh there’s a hole in my bucket“

Lesson learned: You can do anything you set your mind to, including irrevocably warping the speech patterns of those around you. I’m sad that I will miss new Bovaglish updates since we’re apart and the next time I see her my version of it will be hopelessly out of date.

3. An appreciation of dramatics

Me: “So tonight I was supposed to meet Steven after work at like 5, and he said he’d call me when he was done. So I drove all the way to Humble and got there at like 5:30 but he still hadn’t called. So I tried to call him for an hour and he never answered. So I got angry and started driving back to Rice in a huff but then half way home started FREAKING OUT that he had gotten into a car accident or was dead somehow and I had spent the last hour leaving him mean voice mail messages. So I turned around and drove back to Humble, parked at the mall, went to the photo place, and asked if Steven was there and she said yes and I said “Tell him his EX girlfriend stopped by” and angrily stormed out and angrily drove home and angrily walked back up to my room and angrily lay on my bed being angry. And then he called at like ten and said he’d just gotten off of work and his phone had died and why was I freaking out so much and I said “If you loved me, you’d be here RIGHT NOW” so now he’s driving here.”

Any other person’s response: “Wow… you are like all kinds of crazy.”

Bova’s response: “AMAZING PATRICIA!!!! That is exactly what I would do!!!! Good job at being dramatic!!!!”

This is why some stories I can only tell to Bova because, rather than tell me I am paranoid or have control issues, she will always agree that the more dramatic and/or romantic something is the better rather than being all judgey and lame.

4. Bitchy Italian Models

This one time, Bova and I took Italian 101 for some reason that probably neither of us remember. One of our projects was to write a lengthy conversation to perform in front of the class using our limited Italian 101 vocabularies, which mostly consisted of describing how people looked. Rather than be lame and just have endless monologues about our families, Bova and I decided to be contestants on Italia’s Next Top Model (actual name of the actual show) and constantly bitch about how ugly each other was.

I've never seen an episode of Italia's Next Top Model, but I assume our conversation piece was what 85% of the real dialogue is like

I don’t remember a lot of the details of the assignment, just a lot of shouting of “IO SONO ITALIA’S NEXT TOP MODEL!” which to this day remains the only thing I remember how to say in Italian. Which is probably all I would ever have to know when going to Italy anyway. Thanks, Bova!!!

5. The Wiess Garage Sale/becoming hobos

At the end of last year, a lot of us realized we owned perfectly serviceble plastic drawers, appliances, bikes, costumes, board games, lawn chairs, hats, ukuleles, and scrolling marquee belt buckles that, sadly, we would have no chances to use again after Rice. To facilitate a mutually beneficial transfer of goods and to stop the bitching, I organized the first ever Wiess Garage Sale. Unfortunately, the twenty or so people I talked to who said they had stuff to sell utterly failed to show up, so it was just Bova and I with our possessions strewn across the acabowl like homeless waifs. If I had been with anyone else, it would have been awkward, but since it was Bova we were still bringing the classy.

Bringing the classy, and an umbrella

And we sold most of our stuff to the disappointed masses thanks to my haggling skills and Bova’s ability to sweeten the bargain by throwing in whatever happened to be lying around.

Okay, so we actually sold almost everything to Rachel Liontas, whatever

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Even though there are 12 million more amazing things about Bova, five is a good number to have in a list so I will stop there.

Secret Bonus Reason Number 6 is that she owns at least two tiaras

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOVA!!!!!