The sweetest, strangest, funniest... Valentine's Day

When he was 17, senior Mike Huang spent Valentine's Day night writing poetry on the sidewalk outside his high school girlfriend's house. \nHis original Valentine's Day plans to take her out had been spoiled that afternoon by an argument with his girlfriend's parents. So he formed a new plan and went to the nearest Wal-Mart, where he bought a jumbo pack of colored street chalk. \n"I knew she liked some of the poetry I had written her, so I spent the rest of the night writing some of the poems I had written to her from her doorstep all the way to the steps of her school across the street," he said.\nThough she loved the poems, they broke up a year later. But he said that Valentine's Day is a fond memory.\nGetting it right\nValentine's Day isn't always about the flowers and the chocolates. Many people find unique ways to profess their love.\nSophomore Kerry Kyle expected a lonely Valentine's Day last year. Her boyfriend was singing at an a cappella performance in Florida. She was stuck at a Kappa Alpha Theta house meeting in Bloomington on their first Valentine's Day as a couple.\nAs Kyle walked into the meeting, she recalled everyone "looking at (her) kind of funny." At the end of the meeting, one of her pledge sisters stood up and announced they had a surprise for her. Her boyfriend had asked the pledge class to give her his Valentine's Day present because he could not be there in person.\nOne by one, her pledge sisters dropped a valentine in her lap. \n"So I am sitting there crying and I have 44 valentines in my lap. They were all Winnie the Pooh because Winnie the Pooh is my favorite," she said.\nAfter the meeting, Kyle's roommate presented her with a dozen white roses and daisies that Kyle's boyfriend had instructed her to buy. When Kyle was reunited with her boyfriend a few days later, he gave her the letters he had written to her while he was gone -- one for each day they were apart. \n"I thought it was going to be a horrible Valentine's Day and it ended up being one of the nicest we've had," she said.\nGetting it wrong\nFor some, Valentine's Day surprises can go awry.\nWhen freshman Charlie Connor was in high school, he froze a long-stemmed red rose in a block of ice and left it with a love note on his high school girlfriend's doorstep. She thought it was a great idea, but when she asked him what she was supposed to do with the present, he realized he had a problem.\nThey tried running hot water on it in the sink, but the block of ice was too large for the basin. So he threw the bucket-size block of ice in the bathtub to thaw.\n"It was awful," Connor said. "The flower went into shock and died because it went from freezing cold to boiling hot." \nTo make things worse, he forgot to put the note in plastic wrapping before he froze it in the ice. The note was destroyed by the time the ice melted.\n"I wasn't the brightest kid back then," Connor said.\nNew twists\nValentine's Day does not have to be romantic. For freshman Charles Clark, a good laugh worked equally well his junior year in high school.\n"I'd rather make a girl laugh, even if I embarrass myself doing it," he said.\nClark took his high school girlfriend out to dinner at an Indianapolis restaurant. The couple was enjoying a romantic dinner, when Clark decided to serenade his girlfriend. He summoned the violinist and asked him to play some romantic music.\n"I didn't know the words to the song he was playing, so I just made them up as he went along," Clark said. "There I was in a fancy restaurant in front of all those people and she was laughing so hard. But she really loved it." \nNot everyone goes out for Valentine's Day. Freshman Kathryn Fox's favorite Valentine tradition takes place at home. Every year, her mother makes her a Valentine's Day breakfast, complete with heart-shaped eggs. \nFox's mother decorates the table, down to the tablecloths and plates, and gives out Valentine's Day presents to her children. Fox said she is upset she will miss her mother's Valentine Day celebration today.\n"This is the first year I'm not going to be around for it," she said.\nNot all great Valentine's Day memories are of years past. Freshman Rob Walter said he hopes to reveal his interest in a classmate today. \nSunday, he left an unsigned card and a lollipop in the girl's mailbox. He gave her a carnation and candy Monday, again with an anonymous note. For Tuesday's gift, Walter sent the girl two boxes of flowers and some carnations. \nToday, he said he will buy her roses and a box of candy. He plans to ask the girl in class how her week has been and then reveal himself as her secret admirer.\n"I'm kind of nervous, though," Walter admitted. "This has been hanging over my head all week and I am just wondering what she's going to think of me"