MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas! :)

Cetus a petus!

So many interesting things!

First: The boy is 25 today! Happy birthday Boy! Going to see him in a couple of hours and give him his presents. So exciting!

Second: The winter solstice is today! It's the first day of winter! Whooo! That means it's the shortest day and the longest night.

Third: There was a lunar eclipse this morning. I would have written about it in preparation if I'd known, but I literally happened to be on facebook at midnight-ish and saw that people were talking about it. Walked outside, and lo and behold, it's the moon being all awesome. The pictures above are a couple of the many I took. My tripod didn't cooperate very well, but I tried.

Anyways: EXCITEMENT! I'm hoping that all this excitement is just predicting the most awesome rest of break ever.

Home :)

Guess who's home? In the same state as the boy and her family? This girl!

Guess who had to clean up her desk because mom wants to redo it? Empty nest syndrome my arse. Anyhoo. Here's what resulted. (PS: I'm slightly coming down with something maybe possibly and can't focus quite the way I intended, therefore, this is kinda' sparse, I'm afraid, but hopefully somewhat amusing? Maybe?)

Also: shout out to the lovely Audrey, who gave me the most comfortable PJ pants EVER, which I was wearing until a second ago when I changed because the boy is coming over and I thought maybe I'd put on real pants. But STILL. They rock. And I have a picture, but it's on my phone which is upstairs and not with its phone card converter uploader thingy. So that will come later. But follow her blog! She's going to Spain in less than a month! Be jealous!

Here begins a tiny smattering of finds from cleaning up the Jess-Mess:

First: the dog. 

The sad thing is, I made this dog my senior year of high school. Maybe you're thinking, "it's not THAT bad--its eyes are just a little weird." But you're wrong.

What you didn't see is that this dog lives in a hat. Why? Because I realized that I can't sculpt dog bodies. The awesome part? My teacher thought it was creative. Nevermind that my hat is the lumpiest hat I've ever seen. Also, please ignore my awkward smile. 

The sad thing is that this next creation is ALSO from my senior year of high school, which was only a few short years ago. Hence, I realize that you thought you were gonna' see cute little-kid things, but most of those are hidden way away somewhere. Now I just have shit that I thought was cool that's really not. Anyways. This is a cup. Looks innocent enough, right? 

Until you see the inside, where for some reason I felt the need to make it look bloody. Who wants a drink of blood? Anybody? Didn't think so. Luckily, there's a bloodless plate that matches. 

I didn't make this. But I was wondering: what is it? I got it as a gift one year, and I'm still not sure what exactly I'm supposed to do with it. It LOOKS like some kind of bath soaper-upper apparatus, but that netting stuff on it is scratchy and I don't think I'd want to use that in the shower. Whatever. I just thought I'd throw that out here and ask what it is. 

This reads: "oh my! a spill!" I don't know why I felt the need to draw that. I'm pretty sure that was from middle school at the latest. I just... a spill? Really? 

This is an incredibly awkward drawing of homeostasis.

DRAGON!!! ... I don't know why his belly is so spiky/fuzzy. Weird. 

This is a book I wrote when I was 9 I believe. It's called, "The Adventures of Marcy." 

This is my favorite part. It says: "This is dedicated to my teacher--who taught me very skilled things." Gotta' love those teachers that teach you skilled things. 

Last but not least I shall leave you with the beginning of a short story I wrote. (It doesn't have an end. Or a middle for that matter. This is it.) It must have been early high school or something because my cursive was good, but I don't recall ever being into sci-fi or environmental stuff like this. Whatever. Here goes: 

The DEMISE of UMAY! (Universal Monarchy of Angry Youth)

(UMAY vs. Ozonautical Optimists Club!)

Zooming through the asteroid belt at light speed is a rare treat for a young child living on Pluto, but, it is in fact, an even rarer treat for a 128 year old man. Even though life expectancy exploded to the century and a half mark fifty years ago, not many people this old can be found hanging out in the non-terrestrial vaccum of air that is the space in Outer, sector 9132 of the Universal Monarchy of Angry Youth (UMAY). Most of the senior population of the Universe chose to remain near the sun and in the Milky Way Galaxy when the new Biniverse opened up in May of 4125. The UMAY faced opposition from many organized groups of Universal Seniors, especially the Ozonautical Optimists Club, which claimed that if the UMAY continued to promote personal Rockships as the primary mode of transportation, not only would the Spacebus program lose millions of dollars for the Save the Earthan Landfill campaign, but the surplus exhaust from personal Rockships would cause Mars’ ozone layer to suffer the same fate as that of the Earthan Landfill which was destroyed over 2,000 years ago. 

End of story. End of post. Enjoy.

Zombie Week

Welcome to Zombie week, yall.

Well, actually, you're kinda' late. The majority of it is over. One paper left to turn in in the AM and then I'm in Kansas with my boy, who has promised to sing to me while we make Christmas cookies. He is the best!

In order to prevent death by boredom on your part, as very little has happened in my life this week other than studying, I'll explain my week through pictures:

 I survived the week on chocolate, "Twist Up" (some version of Sprite), Mac and cheese, soup, and Coffee. Seriously one of my worst weeks ever in terms of food. I only ate things I was sure would give me energy. Except the mac n' cheese. That's just yummy. But anyhoo. The Dove wrapper gets a spotlight in the blog because I cussed at it. At the moment I opened it, I'm pretty sure it was already after 2 or 3 AM on one of my 5 or 6 AM bedtime nights. Classy, I know. Sad the things that piss you off when you'd rather do anything other than finals. 

This picture serves to illustrate one of my many creative methods of procrastination (although just for the record, I finished my stuff early, so obviously I'm not the best procrastinator in the world). Anyways. I combed my hair out completely, which I rarely do because I have curly hair and when I comb it out completely (instead of just untangling it in the shower which is usually enough) it comes out frizzy as hell, like this. And then I sent my mother this picture so she would understand why I never comb it out completely. She said she thought it was cute and I looked young. Fail. 

Got this AWESOME chocolate penguin from a friend tonight for Christmas. How cute is THAT? I'm seriously geeking out about this (can you technically geek out about chocolate? I feel like "freak" out doesn't express my emotion like geek does). Don't know how I'm gonna' eat something so cute. 

And last but not least, I want to introduce you to Robot Unicorn Attack! Robot Unicorn Attack is an online adventure in which you, Robot Unicorn, run and leap from rocky/hill thing to rocky/hill thing, blasting stars with your horn. If you run into a star without blasting it or heaven forbid you run into a rocky/hill thing instead of jumping over/under it, you die. SO. MUCH. FUN! 

Tomorrow = home. Next week = boy's birthday and then Christmas! I think I did a good job getting him stuff this year, but I'm not entirely sure I'm done yet. BUT I love the mall at home, so I'm excited to do some shopping there anyways. Just wish I had more money. Then I'd get him a jetpack and a transporter, although I suppose if I got him one it'd be kinda' pointless to get him the other. Although, he could use the transporter to come visit me on the weekends (much faster than jetpack travel), but when we're home together, we could use our jetpacks (I'd have one too) and go flying like this. 

... maybe next year? 

Peace out. 

It's here :)

The silence of a snowed-in world. 

A blizzard rages and I'm all alone in the middle of it. 

This is perfection. 

I took both of these pictures last night while walking home from a party. While I hate worrying about driving in the snow and it pains me to think about those that have no home and are seeking shelter on these bitter cold Iowa nights, I can't help but consider snow a little gift from above. There's just something beautiful about the way it covers everything--completely changes the world in so short a time--combats darkness with white fluffiness. I was going nuts the whole way home last night. Suffice it to say, I am a very happy camper, but that is also in part due to the fact that I'm currently sitting in Starbucks sipping a peppermint mocha and listening to Christmas music bundled warmly in my favorite hoodie. Life is good, peeps, and I hope it is for you too.

Stay safe. Stay warm. Enjoy this beautiful world.

Why I'm a Writing Major

In lieu of a normal post (blame dead week/upcoming zombie week), I decided to leave you with a little poem I wrote with a group in my poetry class on September 1st, 2010. (Quick explanation: first person writes an article and an adjective then folds the paper and passes it to the next person. 2nd person does the same, only writing a noun. 3rd person a verb, 4th person an article and an adjective, and the 5th person writes another noun. And voila! You have a poem). Anyways, it's cool because none of us knew what the others had written until the end. This is our poem. Enjoy. 

Just in case you can't read it, it reads:

The fatal 

feces

charms

a disgusting

boy. 

(Also: a shout-out to my poetry class people if any of you see this: E114 2010 = best class of my life. I love you all, and you kept me sane this semester. Never change.) 

Life As I Currently Know It

I've been taking notes about the interesting (ish) things that have happened to me (EDIT: not that interesting. sorry.) that I want to write about. Oh! And I took a picture on my phone I need to upload. If you're tired of my phone pictures, feel free to send me a smart phone. I don't mind.

Here's my list (written on the hand of yours truly). I will explain further later.

• leggings (I like calling them leggings. But some people call them leggins What's the real term? Gah.) 
• responsible coat
• disaster area
• Cee Lo

Leggings
(from: http://www.amazon.com/American-Apparel
-Cotton-Spandex-Legging/dp/B000YEDW8E)

Leggings: I have discovered the secret to true happiness. Wearing leggings under pants. Specifically under sweatpants, but it works under jeans too. Leggings are WARM when you're cold and the windchill is in the single digits like it has been (but currently it is 10! woo! double digits!). Also, you know how when you shave your legs and put on sweat pants, it feels really really good because your legs are smooth and your sweatpants are fuzzy? I don't know why or how, but wearing leggings under sweatpants feels like that. 

Long Underwear
(from: http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/ladies-
petite-silk-long-underwear-tops-bottoms-in-petite-sizes)

Also. People. Essentially leggings are the same as long underwear. Look at the pictures. Long underwear. Leggings. SAME THING. I'm not fashionable or trendy and I'm not gonna' lie and say that I don't think leggings are cute with a pair of Uggs under a dress, but there's a reason you're cold if all you're wearing are leggings. The windchill is 5. You're just wearing underwear. Think about it. 

Responsible coat: This is not to say that my coat itself is responsible, but I was going to write about how my mother would be so proud of me to know that I've actually been wearing my winter coat lately. You know that weirdo that every college campus has who wears flip-flops, shorts, and teeshirts in winter? Well, I don't go THAT far (though I did wear flip flops out in the snow frequently when I lived 30 seconds from the dining hall), but I usually just wear hoodies, sweats, and boots. No coat. I don't know what exactly my point is here other than that maybe there's hope for me being a responsible adult someday because dang it I've been wearing my coat! Go me! 

Disaster area: This is supposed to be accompanied with a before and after picture of my room. Except I have no before picture and no after picture YET. Before and after what you might add? Dead week. Zombie week. Gah. My room USED to look like a tornado sight. NOW it looks like a tornado attacked a town and THEn zombie monsters that like to read came and set up camp. And they like to eat clementines. And. Okay, this isn't funny. I keep trying to think up a good analogy for how bad my room looks. I need a picture. Sorry for this pointless paragraph. 

EDIT: I just tried to take a picture. And realized it was scary embarrassing how messy my room is. It's not dirty or anything-- it's just so dang cluttered. I have papers EVERYWHERE and five jillion pairs of shoes. I don't know where I got so many shoes. Anyone that knows me knows I'm not even much of a shoe girl. 

Cee Lo: My professor played Cee Lo's hit song the name of which I don't want to mention in this blog. I know I said penis once, but the F word is a tad different. And I don't want you to have to click through a series of things saying that you understand I have "adult content" on my blog, because I really don't. In fact, I believe my blog illustrates the epitome of anti-adult-hood. Though maybe not in the sense that Blogger means. I make no sense. Shutting up about Cee Lo now. I just thought it was sweet that she did that. Also, our entire lecture was about obscenity and profanity, and did you know that in Spanish, it is apparently an insult/recognized phrase to say "My donkey knows more than you?" 

I see butterflies!

fighting embryos. or butterflies. or a
Christmas tree! (I have festive skin)

Do you see the E? Sort of? 

It's been bothering me last night that I didn't know what THIS was called (Erythema ab igne. I mean, of all things--THAT'S what it's called? it looks like BS.) Anyways. Last night, while skyping the boy, I was sitting in my round fuzzy gray chair with my feet propped up on the windowsill so my legs would get warm and toasty from the heater which is right under the window. I wanted my legs toasty in the whimsical mmmmm-I-just-ate-a-stomach-and-my-heart-feels-fuzzy-and-toasty kind of way [EDIT: that was supposed to be "ate-a-smore..." but I couldn't completely change it because that typo makes me smile and smiles are few and far between during dead week]. Not in the toaster strudel kind of way. But that's what happened. My pictures suck because I had to take them on my phone because I was skyping the boy and he kept giving me weird faces and comments whenever he caught me looking at the backs of my legs and shouting out the random things I saw in them. Like an E. Or skulls. (last night the bigger one looked like a skull or a mean face or a Christmas tree. But today I see fighting embryos. Like twins in the womb. That fight each other.) Plus, I was too lazy to get my camera out. I considered using my computer but that would have involved stopping my skype session with boy and in boy vs. fighting embryos, boy always wins.

Anyways. Just for the record, the weird skin things went away after 20 minutes. I don't have some scary disease. I just sit too close to the heater sometimes. Maybe if I kept my heat at a mid-level all the time instead of turning it off and waiting until I'm freezing and then turning it on high and sitting really close to it, that would never have happened. Also, I was wearing shorts. Usually when I do that I'm wearing pants (which makes sense because I'm cold. I don't know why I was wearing shorts last night). Whatever. But beware people. Apparently this can also be called toasted skin syndrome (that makes so much more sense than jiggerythiglsosoleditcheesas or whatever it's really called), and it's recently been in the news more often because people do this to themselves while using laptops. I'm so glad that I, living in the 21st century, where awesome things like laptops pose health issues, get burned [ish] by really old radiator things. Totally 21st century. (By the way I'm not complaining. I actually like it. And I'm thankful I have heat. I'm just saying: laptops... really old radiator... laptop... really old radiator. Interesting.)

Really old radiator thingy

In other news, I am the queen of procrastination. Today I read through almost all of Allie's old blog entries, played snake 59382018475903 times, read my boss' paper for the 3rd time (I don't know why but I can totally focus when reading other people's stuff... just not my own!), googled my skin thingy for a long time, listened to an entire album of Sara Evans and read the lyrics at the same time, watched 20 minutes of Wizard of Oz (that was actually for class though-- but watching it again didn't make me change my mind that it's really really dark and shouldn't be labeled a kid's movie), braided my hair, lost my card thingy for my phone to put my pictures on this blog (which is why this post has taken at least 45 minutes to write), and... other stuff. I don't even remember now. I also wrote a bit and got some stuff done. I wasn't entirely non-productive, but I'm constantly impressed with my ability to procrastinate.

... that's all.

Posting makes me feel productive

Hello dead week. It is officially the weekend before dead week, which in my mind is the legitimate START of dead week because all of campus is in study mode. Except for all those people on my floor that went out last night. And all the people who updated their facebook statuses to say they were going out. Ok, I'm going to PRETEND that all of campus is in study mode, because otherwise I'll feel even worse about myself because *I* am studying all weekend. Except for now of course. And those couple of moments I took breaks last night to play snake.

Yes. You heard me right. Snake. Do you remember this game? It was awesome. Back in the good ole days-- sayyy 2005, it was on my cell phone. Which means you probably haven't had it on YOUR cell phone since 2003. I didn't get a color phone until 06 or 07. ANYHOO. Snake was the best game ever. That was my point.

I just think dead week needs to be renamed. Can you really call it anything more depressing? I know that in the heads of some people dead week is supposed to mean dead as in no active assignments or tests due that week, etc, etc, but in reality the dead refers to the students... not the classes. I feel like my impending papers, projects, presentations and tests are slowly killing me with a meat cleaver. By the end of the week I will appropriately be dead. My sister (who has agreed to guest blog over winter break! YAY! about parasites! YAY!) agrees with me--or rather I agree with her, since she first mentioned it when I said, "hey what should I blog about?" (hint: if you have anything I should blog about give me a shout out).

Anyhoo. I therefore propose that we rename finals week: Zombie Week. First comes death. Then comes zombification. YAY. Then Christmas. (PS: this zombie wants THIS  [belowwwww] for Christmas).

picture from: http://www.animalcareclinicslo.com/blog/

Isn't he just adorable? AHHHH so cute. So much cuter than this:

pic from: http://www.sodahead.com/fun/is-it-just-me-or-is-soda-head-dead-tonight/question-950376/

Which is what it would look like if it went to college and had Zombie Week too. This is why cats don't go to college. In case you were wondering (I know you were). 

Lo siento para la pointless post. Must get back to writing papers/slowly getting killed by a meat cleaver.

NOW December Has Arrived...

I keep glancing over at my blog archive and the December Has Arrived post keeps throwing me off. I don't know why I made that the title of that post. I have absolutely no idea. I think, in my head, I got the idea that because Thanksgiving was getting close that meant December was getting close, which... while partly true, isn't quite true enough for me to announce that December has arrived. I mean really.

But in other news, the semester is winding down. Which, crazy enough, means that the stress level is winding up. But that's not so crazy really, is it? It's school. And I guess that the harder we have to work these next couple of weeks, the more rewarding winter break will be when it finally gets here. And snow should be arriving soon. And imagine if we have no work to do and we can have fantastic adventures playing and walking and building snowmen and sledding and building castles and having snowball fights and...

I really like snow. But I also would really like to have a job. (pretend the train of thought from snow to job is logical please.) And I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Which, while bringing about more stress of course, also has been making me think REALLY hard about what I want to do with my life. (And this loverly post by the amazing Holly made me actually decide to blog about it.)

UPDATE: I had to go to class and save that draft and now I just don't really want to write about post-college (read Holly's plans though!). I'd rather write about snow. And how much I love it. But I'm going to leave the post-college plan paragraph there so it haunts me and I have to think about it later.

Thank you picnik.com! 

This is what I want to happen right now: me in a santa hat. Outside with lots of snow in a santa toboggan hat (is that what those are called?). Preferably not with my nails painted green but whatever. You win some you lose some.

One of my favorite college memories happened in the aftermath of a blizzard. A good friend and I went outside and jumped in snow drifts. Just jumped. We'd run... and jump. SO. MUCH. FUN.

And another time, when I was still in high school, it snowed on Thanksgiving and my sister and I made an obese snow-turkey. His feathers didn't go as high as his head. (snow feathers are HARD!) But it made for good safe snow pictures with the baby cousin (who got to go for his first ever snow-turkey ride!) and therefore was awesome nonetheless.

It snowed yesterday a little bit, but nothing like it should have. Probably the number one reason I love going to school in Iowa is because you can reasonably assume there will be snow on the ground from Thanksgiving to Easter-ish. That doesn't happen in Kansas. In Kansas it snows and melts, snows and melts and it gets all slushy and gross faster and the grass is just mud (instead of covered in a warm fuzzy blanket of SNOW!). So we're a bit behind here in Iowa. But I just keep imagining that the clouds are storing up lots and lots of snow so when it finally does snow a lot, it snows A LOT-A LOT. This is long. Sorry. I'm done. I just want snow. I want to make a big huge castle. And then I want to make those snow pie thingies that Laura and Mary Ingalls used to make. And I want to snuggle in an igloo and drink butterbeer.

End of story. Oh! And all the people that I love will be there. Having fun. In the snow. The end. YAY!