15 Jan 2009
10:15pm
This Is Me
Snowflakes in my hair
Stars in my eyes
Dreams in my heart
Worries on my mind.
Voices in my head
Polish on my toes
Pencil in my ponytail
Freckles on my nose.
Music in my ears
Bracelet on my wrist
Chocolate in my mouth
Tension in my fingertips.
Wandering imagination
Devoted soul to Christ
Tears of joy and sorrow
This is me, this is my life.
Alright, so I'm currently sitting here in the community college cafeteria. Now, for a gal like me who's been homeschooled all her life, meals consisted of opening the fridge, finding something edible, cooking it, and eating in the dining room, kitchen, living room, patio...you get the idea. The whole cafeteria concept was a totally new and exciting experience for me this year!! I'm only on campus twice a week, so the excitement really hasn't even completely worn off yet. I mean, yeah, the food's not always that great...but the whole experience in general? Pretty darn exciting!
It's just so interesting. Two booths in front of me are two girls who have discussed everything from transfer applications that are due in March to books that focus on the downfall of society to why girls are smarter than guys to how one of them celebrates Hanukkah. Next to me, two adults are griping about the amount of people who don't bother to recycle. Above me, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" flows out of the hidden speakers, and on the other side of the half-wall on my right, a group of guys is attempting to sing along.
I love the hustle and bustle and the many eavesdropping opportunities that abound! Who knew meals could be a social activity, too?!
What did I eat? Well, in celebration of the fact that this is my last week of Fall semester classes, I skipped the salad and the snacks I packed and went all out. I got all my favorites:
Pizza (I LOVE the pizza here. It's homemade and it's like no other!)
Chocolate milk
Potato cheese soup + crackers
Doritos (saved these for later, though; I'll pack them in my lunch tomorrow to eat at preschool)
Chocolate pudding (with whipped cream!)
Mmmmmmmmm!
Recent words of wisdom from my Intro to Ethics prof, who has been known to say some amusingly profound things purely by accident....
[He can be slightly scatterbrained. He set an assignment down on a back table and forgot about it, couldn't find it, and then eventually located it halfway through the class, causing him to remark...]
"Ah, the table. Pockets and tables are very challenging for me. I should be a man with only one pocket and live in a place with only one table, and then everything would be where I thought."
But if you ask me, pockets are what keep life interesting! Is there a feeling more lovely in the world than pulling out your favorite jeans for the first time in the fall, reaching into one of the many pockets and finding a wrinkled $10 bill, just waiting to surprise you and make your day, because you forgot that you put it in that pocket last Spring? I think that "EUREKA!" moment is like no other!
This post made me sigh happily. Thanks, cuileann!
Quick updates, because it's late-ish and piles of schoolwork abound...
Friend Amy ended up unexpectedly going for surgery this past Tuesday, a week earlier then expected. Everything went really well, though, THANK GOD (and I mean that quite literally!). She's back home and doing well, recovery-wise, and is back to teasing me which must mean she's feeling better :)
Keep praying as we wait for the results of the biopsy.....
College = writing. UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNTS of it. Holy stinking guacomole. I haven't gone to bed before midnight in at least two weeks.
Cafeterias are not quite as fantastic as I'd hoped. I'd always thought it was a bummer that, being homeschooled since birth, I never really got the chance to experience cafeteria life. I ate out of my fridge at my dining room table each day. Wahoo. How exciting. So, when I started taking college classes this year, one of the perks -- to little sheltered me, at least -- was access to the cafeteria.
I've learned that really, it's a bunch of overpriced fried grease. That's it. And it all gets old rather quickly. I'm officially sick of pizza, mysterious pasta dishes, salty soups and chicken tenders. And whatever you do, DON'T eat the "soft" pretzels, because the word "soft" is a FLAT-OUT LIE. You know you're in trouble when your "soft" pretzel has fossilized and an archaeology major at the next table informs you that it's probably been around since circa 5000 B.C.
So, because of all this, last night I was found eating -- are you ready for this? -- a salad. Yep. Green stuff and all (for those who don't know, I happen to severely dislike most green foods. Lettuce being one of the worst offenders, as the word, to me, is bascially synonymous with the word "grass".). Thank goodness for the blessings of ranch dressing and insane amounts of cheese; I could somewhat drown out the nastiness of the lettuce with all that. Which probably totally defeated the purpose of eating the salad in the first place, but oh, well. At least I tried.
Two children at preschool today came in wearing two different shoes. EUREKA -- I'M CONTAGIOUS!!!!
SAT's on Oct 4th. Probably should find time to review math in the very near future.
I. Don't. Like. Waiting.
ARGH! I don't like the way the clock goes so slow it's practically going backwards and I don't like how no matter how hard I try to distract myself I can't focus on ANYTHING else and I just don't like waiting!
Then again, I suppose nobody does....
*sigh*
I am currently experimenting with the layout of the blog, though really, I don't know how much it matters since most of you are probably reading this via the bland black-and-whiteness of a feed reader anyway....but at any rate, your thoughts are most welcome :)
I am exhausted. Three parties in 30 hours is a lot for anyone; I think my (very limited) social abilities have been completely depleted. I need to recover from excessive amounts of mingling and cupcakes, so I am off to spend the rest of the night curled up in bed with my three latest library finds: Always Grace, by Tim LaHaye, because I love his writing and because this is much different the the usual apocolyptic fiction of his so I'm curious and because even I need a gooey romance story that makes me sigh happily every so often; Poetic Meter and Form, by I-don't-remember-but-it-looks-interesting-and-it-has-that-wonderful-old-book-smell-that-makes-me-swoon; and River Secrets, by (as most of you probably know) Shannon Hale, because Anilee and Somnite got me hooked on the BoB (haha, look at me, using Bayern-related acronyms!).
Ta-ta!
P.S. Check me out! This is post #10 this month. That's right folks, TEN posts this month; that's the most EVER. We're talking wowness of a record-breaking magnitude, here. AND!!! I still have nearly 27 hours before June is officially over, so who knows?! I might even EXCEED 10!!!
ZE RULES:
"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."
[Ok, so here are the first seven songs that come to mind when I think about what I've been listening to lately...a pretty amusing mix, actually!!]
ZE SONGS:
1. Walking on Sunshine -- Katrina & the Waves
2. Brown-eyed Girl -- Van Morrison
3. Hallelujah -- Krystal Meyers
4. Average Girl -- BarlowGirl
5. Anthem -- Superchic[k]
6. Hey Baby -- the Crazy Frog version!!
7. Mirrors & Smoke -- Jars of Clay
[edit] BONUS SONG!! (Just cuz I am such a rule-breaker and can't stick to only seven...!):
8. American Pie -- Don McLean (I have been listening to this song on repeat nearly non-stop for the last 20 hours. I kid you not. Yes, it played while I slept last night...!)
ZE TAGS:
I tag Anilee, Somnite, & Patrice. I think everyone else has done it already...?
[q told me to write. "It doesn't even have to make sense"...well...]
It was so hot in my house yesterday that the chocolate chips, the chocolate chips that were sealed inside their yellow Nestle bag inside a drawer under a countertop far, far, far away from the dishwasher and the sun and any other heat-producing source...the chocolate chips melted. Into one big gooey glob. Chocolate chips aren't supposed to melt inside a drawer! Is there no safe haven left?!
So what did I do? Well, there's only one thing you can do with a bag of gooey chocolate chips. There's no hope left for them; obviously they'll never be the same again. Their sanctuary of the dark drawer has been invaded; suddenly there's no where left for them to go.........
I ate them.
There's nothing like gooey chocolate chips to make the monotony and dreadfulness of summer a little more tolerable.
I have absolutely nothing of worth to say today, however I am trying VERY HARD to get in the habit of posting here more frequently. So the quantity will increase...but the quality, eh, might take some time to improve ;) But hey, baby steps :) Speaking of increased posting, did you notice? April happened to be the best month thus far this year, with 7 whole posts. Not exactly great, mind you but at least it's progress! Goal is 8 posts for May :)
As such, I will continue the tradition of many of the blogs I've been reading lately, and post a totally random post that has no relevance to anything :)
I mowed the grass today for the first time all season and I absolutely, positively LOVED it. Mowing the grass is my all time FAVORITE chore; I go out there and hop on the riding mower and plug in my MP3 headphones and spend an hour and a half singing at the top of my lungs and waving to neighbors who came outside to see what was causing all the racket ("Oh, hi, Mrs D! No, there's no dying cat out here...I just looooove this song! Was I dancing? No, of course not, you can't dance while driving a riding mower....! Yes, I'm watching what I'm doing...oh, no, that forsythia bush has always looked lopsided. I didn't shave off the side...").
It's quite amusing, I have to say :)
I have to say, as much as I despise summer (I truly do. Hmmm, I should do a list...Top 10 reasons why I hate summer...), I do love the fact that it means grass-mowing season is here!
And just because it looks like fun, a meme I keep seeing all over the place:
Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4.Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.
Tagged by: um, no one. I just felt like doing it :)
Book: well, sadly, my nearest book happens to be my Chemistry textbook. That's no fun. So, the second nearest book is George Orwell's incredible 1984, which I am reading for about the 40 billionth time.
"Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods of time every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which there were wild rumors."
And now, I tag Somnite
Oh, and one more thought. Oreos. Mmm, they're amazing, aren't they? In all honestly they're probably nothing more then pure sugar and artificial-ness, and yet....mmmmmmm!
I positively love just plain old Oreos. Now, all the other varieties -- mint, coffee, peanut butter, etc -- are fantastic as well, don't get me wrong, but the original Oreos are my all time favorite.
Yes. I like them even more then the beloved double stuff ones.
Quite frankly, I've never been an obsessive Oreo cream lover. You know how most people LOVE the cream and the commercials are always about fighting over the cream side? Not me. I love the cookie part the best; I'm a chocolate freak, not a cream freak.
Anyway, out of curiosity:
Ok!!
Let's say I asked all of you if you would eat something without knowing what it was. Would you?Let's say I described this mysterious substance as, "thick yellowish-brown paste with a sharp taste". Would you eat it?
Be honest: How appetizing does that sound???
Want to know what it is?
Mustard.
I kid you not. That's how wikipedia describes mustard.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEW.
I hate mustard. Hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it.
I've been on this rant for three whole days, now. I really, really, really hate mustard.
I have ALWAYS hated mustard, mind you; this is no new fad or random passing phase. However, as of late I've simply become much more passionate in my intense hatred of mustard and also much more educated in how utterly revolting the substance is.
This latest jump in dedicated rage directed at a condiment began on Wednesday, when I was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. I was seriously contemplating moving to Australia, in fact; it was that bad. I was obviously in a rather cranky mood and was thrown completely over the edge when I opened the fridge (admittedly rather harder then necessary) and a bottle of mustard jumped out of the shelf on the fridge door (cackling evilly, of course, because everyone knows that mustard is pure evil) and lept on to me, covering me from head to toe (practically) with oozing, yellow nast.
As you can imagine, this didn't exactly improve my mood any.
Adding to my discomfort was the fact that the smell of mustard has ALWAYS made me extremely nauseous, and of course, I smelled like mustard all day. Even the next day, EVEN after taking a SHOWER, I was still convinced that I smelled like mustard....ugh ugh ugh.
But since then, I have been in sort of a feverish crazed anti-mustard mood. I sort of took all the mustard in the house and hid it in the garage so I wouldn't have to look at it.
I cannot for the life of me figure out what about this awful stuff appeals to people. Sheesh. Why would you intentionally consume something so digusting, which makes your eyes water and your nose itch and your tongue scream, "NO! NOT THIS AGAIN! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE SUCH AWFUL TREATMENT?!?!"
Mustard's been around for an awfully long time, you know. The first mustard recipe dates back to 42 A.D. It didn't exactly catch on as a condiment back then, though (gee, I wonder why...it's only the most horrifyingly nasty taste on the planet....) and it wasn't until the 9th century, when French monks began making mustard and selling it as a way to bring in income (I am totally serious, here. I did my research!). Ick. For awhile, though, mustard-making flourished, however due to intense issues with contamination and "adulteration of the substance", in the 16th century the French government passed laws with strict cleanliness requirements for mustard making utensils and also laws stating that only certified mustard-makers could produce the condiment.
You know what even further blows my mind? Found on Wiki:
"The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum is a museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, featuring the world's largest display of prepared mustards. It is often featured in lists of unusual museums in the United States...The initial dozen jars have grown to a collection of more than 4,800 different mustards from 60 different countries, along with items of mustard memorabilia and exhibits depicting the use of mustard through history."
THERE'S A WHOLE MUSEUM DEDICATED TO THIS GROSSNESS? WHAT?!?!
AND! Apparently there is also a NATIONAL MUSTARD DAY!
Now THAT is just taking things altogether too far, if you ask me.
Some of you are probably wondering, "OK...well...let's get to the point now, shall we?"
There is no point. This is an utterly pointless, useless, random post with no relevance to anything. I simply wanted to express my intense dislike of a positively revolting substance.
*takes bow*
