I am tired...

... and apparently addicted to the internet. I also don't speak English or have a conscience. More to come on this later.

And here is pretty much the most random picture I could find on my computer:

Going on a treasure hunt

Seeing as how I am stuck at home due to everything around me being a sheet of ice, I decided to clean out my sock drawer. I totally forgot that I like to hide things in my sock drawer, here is what I found:

1. Bag of Chex Mix
2. Bag of Baby Goldfish (the crackers, not the actual fish)
3. Candy cane (from last Christmas?!?)
4. Half a thing of Starbursts
5. A bag of M&Ms
6. A Crunchie candy bar from London ("Milk Chocolate with Golden Honeycombed Centre")
7. Bag of strawberry cream Japanese hard candies
8. Box of strawberry creme Koala's March cookies
9. Bag of chocolate covered puff wheat from Japan
10. Fun dip candy thing
11. Chocolate Mousse Pocky

Yah, maybe I should actually remember that it is in there so I can eat it... I have to throw half of it away because it is stale!

And just for good measure, a picture of me with the "Whore Beast" we made Sunday night... aptly named by my brother:

Here's how it went down...

A triumphant story, presented as a series of pictures:

It felt so good to win the Apple Cup, words cannot even describe. UW hadn't won the past two years, meaning that if they had lost this year, it would have been the first time in the 106 year history of the Apple Cup that WSU had won three years in a row. Fortunately, the wrecking of the tradition was one thing that this year's UW team didn't have to answer for. UW played some great football, similar to the beginning of the season. Sorta makes you wonder WHAT in the world happened when we got beat by Stanford. But alas and alack, we won the Apple Cup and that makes me happy!

The fact that UO lost its last two games to Arizona and OSU makes me happy too!

What the...?

Methinks that the Pac-10 had an upset of sorts this weekend. Since when is Arizona supposed to beat Cal? And where was it written that Oregon should only score 10 points against USC? And how did ASU manage to score 47 points to beat WSU? And finally... how in the world did UW end up losing to Stanford, the bottom of not only the Pac-10, but all of NCAA football?!?! (Well, I know how, but this is supposed to be a rhetorical question.) The only somewhat non-surprising result was UCLA beating OSU, which in actuality IS a little surprising considering OSU's winning streak as of late. (Which we so nicely started for them when we let OSU beat us at home.)

Don't believe me? Check the results for yourself...http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/conference?confId=9

Hello out there

To be lazy and recap my life yet again (as if any one actually reads this still...)

1. Most importantly, I am sick. With a cold. I don't feel good at all. I knew this time was coming, because it always does during marching band. But the fact that it took me until November makes me happy with my immune system. Usually I get a cold within 2 weeks or so of the beginning of school and then never really get over it and continue to add on other random illnesses through the end of the season. We will see what happens this year.

2. Apparently, seeing as how yesterday was Halloween, it is now Christmas. I went to Target yesterday in search of some rally gear in their Halloween section, only to find that Halloween was COMPLETELY over except the "gross" candy aisle and Christmas was making a strong showing already.

3. It is November and the leaves are beautiful and mass amounts of hyped up festiveness are starting to set in. Yay! I love this time of year.

4. I went to Leavenworth 2 weekends ago to see the leaves and they were VERY pretty:

5. The day after that we took the ferry to Whidbey Island to play for a nice man who is leaving HMB lots of money, but is dying. It was a sad, yet good day at the same time. And beautiful yet again. I love the northwest, but more specifically Seattle:

6. For all of those not following Husky football (which is everyone but me), let me give you a little recap:

10/7: USC-UW, Lost 26-20
10/14: OSU-UW, Lost 27-17 (The curse of 17 returns yet again?)
10/21: Cal-UW, Lost in OT 31-24
10/28: Arizona-UW, Lost in OT 26-23

So basically, going to games stinks right now. And we get to continue the fun by going down to Eugene this weekend where the fans hate us so much that the UO marching band volunteered to escort us to our busses at the end of the game so that we wouldn't die.

7. I learned in nutrition the other day that apparently your body actually NEEDS trace amounts of arsenic to function properly. Who knew?

Poe-tay-toe

As I sit here eating mashed potatoes and gravy, I am reminded of a random question over which I have often pondered. Since I was a kid, I have always had to mix my gravy into my potatoes. It is not good enough for me to just put the gravy on top and eat it that way.

The question is, is this odd? Do most people eat their gravy on top or do they mix it in? I just don't know...

Who needs a title anyway?

I am not dead, just trying to stay afloat in my crazy and insane life. To recap since I last posted:

1. September 29-October 1 I went down to Arizona with band for the UA-UW game where I am happy to announce that we forced them into submission and won 21-10. It was an awesome trip and we even got to "sight-see". Brad thought it would be fun to take us to a desert botanical garden to see desert botanical things, and it was fun. It was warm too... like 99 degrees, but absolutely no humidity, so it was wonderful. I did NOT want to come home. Yay for swimming at 9 in the morning because it was already like 85 degrees. I think the only time I was cold was A. When I was inside where it was air conditioned or B. Saturday night at 4 in the morning when it finally got chilly out on the "vista".

2. My graduate school applications are completed and turned in. Hallelujah!!!

3. I have three (3), count 'em, 3 (three) midterms this week.

4. I am working.

5. I am doing my usual stuff at church.

6. I am taking 15 credits.

7. I am volunteering at UWMC.

8. I am doing upwards of 20 hours of HMB every week.

9. I am going to audition for basketball band so that the fun can continue into next year!

10. The Huskies are now 4-3. Still a winning record, but sad none the less.

11. The USC game sucked. I wonder what would have happened if the clock (i.e. the ref) wasn't stupid and we had been able to get that last play going. On the plus side, we lost to USC by only 6 points.

12. We lost to OSU on Saturday. At home. I have no idea what happened. We aren't even going to talk about this one.

13. Isaiah Stanback is out for the rest of the season due to a foot injury he sustained in the game Saturday. There is no shortage of tears over here.

14. Sulu from Star Trek was part of our field show on Saturday.

15. My knee is healed up nicely, although I think I will have a nifty scar for a while.

16. I have three midterms this week.

17. It has started to rain in Seattle. I am happy.

18. You wouldn't believe the number of times that I got on to post to my blog but got sidetracked by Facebook because it was more entertaining.

19. I get to go to Leavenworth this weekend!

20. It sucks to be a senior in a predominately freshman class, but it is awesome to already know all the answers! (If you want more details, you'll need to ask me)

21. I get to go to UO in 2 weekends and WSU in 4 weekends.

22. If we lose to Stanford, I think that I really will cry.

24. A good portion of my life does indeed revolve around football right now.

Okay, that is it. I'm sure there are more things to post, but I have procastinated long enough and should go be a good student or some such drivel.

Why oh why?

Someone wanna tell me why lately all the nice, gentlemanly guys I meet are not from church, or any church at all, and therefore completely off limits for the most part? And why the guys from church are mean jerk-faces who don't know how to treat a girl with decency or respect her? GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes, bitter party of 1, right here.

How is it...

...that Washington is ranked higher than Cal in Pac-10 standings, yet Cal is ranked in national standings and Washington isn't. I am a bit confused.

Pac-10 standings:
1. USC
2. Oregon
3. Washington

This next month should prove to be rather interesting.

???

Does it make me pathetic that when I open up the homepage for Google to find that they have somehow changed the "Google" part into something cool, it makes me have a better day?

Last February during the Olympics... I had to to check Google everyday to see what sport they had somehow managed to change the letters into.

Whose house? Dawgs' house!

We beat UCLA on Saturday... 29-19. It was beautiful. Glorious. Wonderful. Amazing. Incredible. Joyful. Easily the most excited/happy I have been in a long time. We were 8 point underdogs (the last prediction I had seen was UCLA 31, UW 23) and it looked like that was going to come true based on the first half of the game. But then we scored a touchdown right before halftime, which helped ease the tension. In the second half (as well as the first) our defense kept UCLA from scoring touchdowns so they had to settle for field goals. Eventually, with like 7 minutes left in the 4th quarter, it was UCLA 19, UW 14, when we scored a touch down and then went in for a 2 point conversion... and made it. So that right there was totally awesome, if ever there was a time to try for the 2 points instead of the extra point, it was then. And then on practically the next play, we intercepted the Bruins' ball and ran it in for another touch down. Thus resulting in our wonderful score of 29-19.

3-1 baby!!! Undefeated at home thus far... and half way to a bowl game. Just you wait and see... Husky football is on the return, and they WILL be a force to contend with. I heart Willingham. Maybe some day I will do a post on how much I admire him, but for the time being, that is all I will say.

Hey look.... it's me!

Complete with four bandages AND a backwards baseball cap. The backwards baseball cap because we won on Saturday and the bandages because Seattle's streets have too many potholes.

UW beat Fresno State 21-20 due to a blocked extra point in the beginning of the 4th quarter. I was deliriously happy that we blocked an extra point, and it just got better when that became the game winning point. I had just gotten finished telling the team (much to the amusement of the people around me) that it was NOT okay to slack off and not play in the 3rd quarter and that it was NOT okay to let Fresno State score, when they blocked the extra point. And then we managed to keep their offense curtailed enough that even though there was 4:30 left in the quarter, we won. I can't even begin to explain to you how exciting this is. We are 2-1 heading into real Pac-10 play and we gave Oklahoma a good fight last week (at least for the first half of the game). I have been mocked for being a Husky fan, but I have to say that I see enough improvement in this team to be able to hope for good things. This may not be *the* turn around season, but it is already way better than the past two years and we are headed in the right direction. So when we are back on top and are a big football contender once again, none of you better say that I wasn't a fan when we weren't doing well.

On to the four bandaids. Every Friday night before a home game, UW has a tradition of holding an all campus rally, of which the marching band is an integral part. We basically run around campus and the surrounding streets (read: Greek Row) playing stands tunes and getting excited for the game the next day. Most of the time I am VERY careful where I am walking as we are walking around old Seattle streets where long ago the streets got into a war with the roots of the surrounding trees and lost, creating many tripping hazards. So I managed to navigate all of the tree roots and other random obstacles in my way. We were running across 45th back onto campus cause the police had stopped traffic (we have a parade permit to do this) and I was thinking, "Hey, it's the middle of the street, what is there to trip on out here?" Yah, well I found the only thing left to trip on in the middle of the street... a giant pothole. My foot got caught (I was wearing TENNIS shoes for crying out loud) and I went flying across the street, landing on my hands and knees, but mostly my knees, on the other side. And to make matters worse, I was wearing shorts because it wasn't that cold outside and I knew that I would get hot once we started running around.

So I have four impact points and some massive bruising going on. I feel slightly like a 5 year old because I have two skinned knees. In the picture is the get-up I sported so that I could make it through game day. My knees are feeling better with less stinging, but cold air makes my bruises hurt (lame, I know), my knees are rather stiff, and my high knee marching leaves something to be desired at the moment. I never knew just how hard I was working until I did the last two practices with minimal effort put forward, everything is so easy when you don't march the right way =).

Quick recap of my life...

-I have once again taken up the great past time of marching down the full length of a football field at the speed of 160 beats per minute

-I do this RIGHT after sprinting onto the field and then running in place, complete with high knees (i.e. upper thigh comes up so that it is in a perfect 90 degree angle with the rest of the body) for 3 or 4 minutes... 7 cadences of Scratch at least

-And did I mention that I am supposed to be playing my picc as I march down the field at turbo speed? (If you don't think 160 is fast, you get a metronome and try marching to it...WITH HIGH KNEES!)

-I just memorized or rememorized 11 songs:
Bow
VI and VII
The Alma Mater
FCS Fight Song
Take On Me
Mush Huskies
Grand Old Flag
Johnny's Mambo
Radar Love
Throne Room
Everybody's Everything

-I have been at practice from 8:30am to 8:30pm since Tuesday morning

-I have practice and a rally tomorrow, football game with band guide duties on Saturday, another practice on Sunday as well as practices next week on Monday, Wednesday and all day on Friday culminating in a Queen show at the UCLA game that Saturday

-I have four pages of magical Bohemian Rhapsody goodness to memorize

-I have recently lost all of my free time to watching seasons 3 and 4 of Gilmore girls

-I am trying to get my grad school applications under control and dealing with that in my spare time once I get home at 9pm

Oh yah... and I am loving every minute of it!

My guys came through!

Also considered as a title, but ultimately rejected: I heart Isaiah Stanback

I am exhausted, but basically I would be the worst fan ever if I didn't post about the first victory of the season today! I don't really feel like rehashing the game... I am sure you could find a sports column to read tomorrow if you really wanted to. I will just say that I am quite relieved that we won... San Jose State was the school we beat the season that we only won once. I shudder to think what it would have done to morale had we lost to them in the season opener. But oh wait, yah, thats right, we won!!

Just a little warning...

It is that time of year again! What time of year, you may ask... well, it is early fall, so that can only mean one thing. Football? Well, yah... but more importantly, MARCHING BAND! Yay! I am a gigantic band geek and I am aware of that, but I am so excited to have marching band start again.

This week we have practice W,Th,F from 6:30-9:30 for the San Jose game on Saturday. Since the season hasn't officially started, it is most of the varsity members and some alumni who felt like coming back. It is good times since, #1: Every one knows how to march and it is assumed that they are a fairly competent marcher and, #2: Only people who really want to do it are there, none of those people who thought it would be cool but then decided half way through the season that they hated it and walked around making every one else miserable. Plus the show is a 80s show, which makes me pretty happy. Here are the songs, just so you can feel special and included:

Theme from MTV

Video Killed the Radio Star

Take On Me

I'll Be There For You (The theme from Friends)

Tubthumping (Reminds me of middle school, I don't really know why)

Come On Eileen

Good times. I confess that I had to check some of them out cause I didn't know all of them. I can pretty much guarantee that Video will get stuck in your head if you just listen to like 15 seconds of it. Amazingly enough, I'm not too sore.... yet. I have three ideas about this, #1: I'm not working hard enough, which I know is not the case cause I'm exhausted right now. #2: I'm just really cool and in shape and everything, but some how I'm thinking that isn't totally the case either. #3: I was in good enough shape that one night of marching was okay, but tomorrow I will wake up after 2 solid nights of marching and I won't really be able to move, a delayed reaction sort of deal. We will see.

1 year together!

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear JSN,

Happy Birthday to you!!!

My car and I have officially been together for a whole year today. It has been a great car, which I grow to love more everyday. Times were a tad rocky at first since I didn't know how to drive stick. This meant that I had a new car that I couldn't drive. But I QUICKLY learned and it has been smooth sailing ever since. To commemorate the occasion, I will give you a selection of pictures showcasing our happy times together...

Getting to know each other:

Playing in the Snow:

The view as an insider:

Going for Chinese Takeout:

*sigh*

I miss this: What is "this"... a map of the London Underground, or the tube. Pretty sad when a map can make you nostalgic, isn't it?

Maybe I should go find this guy...

The Novelty of Non-Cooking Sluts Soon Wears Off

Idealist: I just want to meet an old-fashioned girl who will make omelets and won't sleep with my friends.

--7th & Ave A

via Overheard in New York, Aug 22, 2006

Ain't she a beaut?

Today my dad and I went down to the Center for Wooden Boats on the south end of Lake Union to see The Lady Washington. What is The Lady Washington, you might ask? The Lady Washington is a tall ship ("a large, traditionally rigged sailing vessel"... definition stolen straight from Wikipedia). She also, drum roll please....... played the Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean!! Loving the movies (and anything to do with Pirates of the Caribbean, really), I was very excited to get to see her up close. Although I am not an insane Johnny Depp/Orlando Bloom fan, it does beg the question of whether or not they ever set foot on the boat. I am betting that the answer is "Yes", so that is fairly exciting.

She really wasn't that big, and once again, I amazed at the bravery of people who willingly go out to sea in one of those things. I was sort of sad because I couldn't get a picture of her with her sails unfurled, but I guess I will live. Having read enough books where they try to explain boat rigging, I am also amazed at how intricate it all is and I have come to the conclusion that I am too stupid to ever be a sailor on a tall ship. But the boats are BEAUTIFUL and they do provide for some wonderful picture taking opportunities.

Roosevelt High School 2003

Last night I was looking for something and I tore my entire room apart because I could NOT find it. Finally, on a last whim, I checked my year book from my senior year, and I had just happened to have stuck it in there between two of the pages. But since I had the year book out, I decided to read through it. Next time I complain about the fact that I had to move to Seattle my senior year, tell me to go read my year book. Quite frankly, I was AMAZED by the number of people I met at Roosevelt and the number of friends I made. I guess I just sort of blocked it out because it wasn't the happiest year for me. But looking back from where I am now, I realize that I did have a pretty good year and I had friends. I know that sounds weird to say, but being the sort of social person that I am, not having friends my senior year would have really sucked. And somehow I managed to maintain a positive attitude through it all (at least at school), cause that is something almost everyone commented on. I know that was only through the Lord giving me the strength to deal with it all. True, it wasn't the senior year that I had planned out for myself, but the Lord knew what he was doing and he has worked it all out way better than I would have ever imagined. He never ceases to amaze me!

This also raises lots of scary questions about the fact that in less than a year, I will be graduating once again. But if the Lord worked out the first graduation so well, I know that he will take care of this one too!

Wanna know the best snack ever??

Ritz crackers and peanut butter!! MMMMmmmmmm... that is what I am eating right now.

In other news, on Monday, my family minus Alex and plus Erik and Jamie (My family - Alex + Erik + Jamie, for you math types) went on the Underground Tour of Seattle. It was pretty awesome. I have wanted to do this since I moved here, and seeing as how I am now going on my 5th year here, I think that it was way past time to do this. The tour started out in Pioneer Square in an old tavern (which was way cool cause of the decorations) where they told us some Seattle history about the pioneers and what they did... blah blah blah. Then we went down and looked at the underground part. It wasn't really what I was expecting, it just sort of looked like someone's very, very dirty basement (and in fact, you get into it from the basements of the buildings in the area), but it was cool nonetheless.


Why do we have an underground, might you ask? Well, they had these things called toilets (crappers, they called them, because the guy who invented them... his last name was Crapper). Anyhow, when Seattle was a young pup, the city area as a whole was a lot lower (about 10 feet), which meant that basically it was built on the tidal flats. This was okay, but the plumbing for all of these new fangled crappers was hooked up so that the force of gravity pushed the expelled contents out of the toilet and out into Elliot Bay. This was all well and good (other than the polluting the bay with human waste part) until the tide came in, when the in-rushing of water would fill the pipes up BACKWARDS so that you had, what the tour fondly referred to as "Exploding Crappers". I am serious... they would explode sea water and raw sewage and other delightful things. So this was a big problem, and as I see it, the main reason that they decided to basically raise the city another level.


And then they got lucky...there was a fire that burned down a lot of Seattle in 1907 (?) and the city officials decided that when they rebuilt, they should bring in soil and rock to raise the streets about 10 feet or so. But the merchants wanted to get back to business, so they began building right away on the old level. This meant that there were shops and sidewalks that were 10 feet below the raised street and they had to put ladders on the corners so that people could get down! (There was also a frightening statistic that they quoted us about people being smashed and killed by things falling off of passing trucks up above on the streets.) Eventually, the merchants let the city raise the sidewalks too. They did this by putting a beam from the street to the building, and covering it with brick and cement to make the new sidewalk. So a lot of what the underground is are these covered sidewalks flanked on one side by the mooring for the street and the other side by what used to be the front of an old building and is now the basement. They put skylights in some of these sidewalks and actually used the underground as a kind of shopping district until they suspected bubonic plague down there. Why it is okay for us to go down there now, I'm not sure, but apparently it's okay! One building they showed us was built with two main entrances, one on the lower level and one on the upper level for when they knew the street would be raised. I wish I could find a picture of a door floating in midair on the second story before the street was raised.



Anyhow, I really, really enjoyed it... lots of history! Although it is kind of confusing to think about, it's cool to see how they effectively raised the entire city by an entire story! If you come to Seattle anytime soon, you should really consider going on this... (and visiting me while you are at it)!!

Hmmm... I must use my great thinking ability for this one!

So wanna know what is disturbing me of late? The fact that my bed smells like cologne, and I have absolutely NO clue why. Now if I were the kind to go out, get drunk, bring a guy home, have a one night stand and wake up so hung over that I couldn't remember anything that happened the night before, I guess this could make sense. But that is not me. I don't do that. I repeat, I DON'T DO THAT! So why, then, can't I figure out why my bed smells like cologne. The only thing I can think of is that when Jamie stayed the night on Sunday, she must have had a teddy bear sprayed with DJ's cologne and set it on my bed and the smell got transferred. That's it, that is the only thing that makes sense. Either that or I am just going crazy. Which is always a possibility...

I almost forgot!

I just wanted to inform you all that I am now the proud new owner of a pack of 24 color, ultra-fine tip Sharpies. They went on sale for $10 at Target a couple of weeks ago and I said, "How can I resist?!? That is less than $.50 a Sharpie!" But sadly, when I got to Target, they were all out so I had to get a rain check. Everytime I was there I checked, but they were still out...until tonight! I am victorious with my glorious 24 color, ultra-fine tip Sharpies!

Youth Camp '06

Okay okay okay!! I'm posting. Since I have had multiple people ask me to post this, that means that theoretically I can make this as long as I want and you will still read it, right??? Hehehe... I'll try and be nice and keep it manageable!

So, youth camp... I was counselor to the 4th grade girls with Lindsey as my co-counselor/kitchen help (mainly kitchen help). My week basically consisted of dealing with little girl sagas over and over and over and over and over... you get my drift! I had a total of 5 girls, 3 of which had recently graduated from the Primary department in Seattle, so I already knew them EXTREMELY well. Dynamics in my cabin were interesting, in that one of the girls was bossy and a know-it-all and she would try to boss the other girls around so none of them wanted to be with her. She would then come to me and say that the other girls were being mean and ignoring her, conveniently forgetting to tell me about how she had been bossing them around. Needless to say, by the end of the week whenever someone would come to tattle to me, my first question was always "What did you do to them first?" and then, being the cold-hearted person that I am, I would say that they probably deserved whatever ill they were currently bemoaning. *Insert here that I DID pay attention if it was something serious, I'm not THAT dumb!*


Getting them to go to sleep was insanely hard, especially for one girl. The first night, I honestly am not sure if she slept at all. To make matters worse, our cabin had new, super crinkly mattresses, so that whenever you even moved everyone else could hear it. This girl laid on her top bunk and everytime she rolled over she would give a little bounce, you know like you would do when you were little and trying to bounce in your bed, that, coupled with the squeaky mattress and our cabin, which was like 80 degrees, I barely slept the first night. By the third night, I had managed to track down some "Adventures in Odyssey" which didn't put them right to sleep, but at least meant that they had to be quiet so that they could listen to the story. I also told noisy-non-sleep-girl that if she kept making noise when I had asked her to stop and go to sleep, I was going to make her sleep on the concrete floor with no mattress.

It was insanely hot in our cabin, which would have been a good thing, except that we all had sleeping bags and were prepared for the cold. What's that you say? Turn down the heat? No way.. the thermostat was in a little box that was screwed to the wall with no opening whatsoever... I finally had to get my dad to unscrew it so we could get the cabin comfortable to be in. The cabin also had showers in it, which was a blessing, except that in the morning my girls would lay in bed and call "first shower" but they wouldn't get up and take it. I explained that I didn't care who called "first shower" but whoever actually got their butt up and went and TOOK it got the first shower. (See, wasn't I just so mean!?!) They also took like 3 showers a day, which I wouldn't have minded, except that they always yelled at me to get out cause I was "taking too long" because they all needed to take their third shower of the day. (Just for the record, 10 minutes isn't too long and I, as a counselor, can take as long of a shower as I want and also invite any of my fellow counselors to utilize our much nicer showers if I choose... both were concepts lost on my girls).

One of my girls (the bossy one) kept complaining that she wasn't having any fun... hmm, I wonder why... but she told me the only fun thing she had done at camp was floss cause flossing was her favorite thing to do. This is the same girl whose flip-flop broke so she left it sitting in the gravel parking lot and kept on running. When she came back for it an hour later, Bro. Joe and Bro. Chet had cut off the bottom half (because it was broken, duh!!) and used it to help hold the pressure on the bottle-rocket launcher. When she found out, boy was she mad... nevermind the fact that she had abandoned it in the parking lot... no no no, they CUT her flip-flop!!!! ... said the drama queen.

Another great problem of the week were the slugs. My girls HATED slugs, so they found these two slugs that they thought looked like they were mating. Were they actually? I have no idea, I don't know much about slugs myself, but they didn't want "baby slugs" so they broke them up. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Needless to say, my cabin was fairly intense. By the end of the week, someone came up to me and was like, "Good thing camp ends today, cause you may need a straightjacket if it were to go on any longer." I still am not sure if she intended the straightjacket for me or for my girls.


I also had a screamer in my cabin. She screamed when she was happy, she screamed when she was mad, she screamed when she was excited, she probably would have screamed when she was sad too, but I don't know for sure. This was blood-curdling, heart-stopping, someone-MUST-have-just-fallen-over-dead-to-warrant-this-kind-of-scream screaming. It finally got so bad during the middle of the week that I announced to the cabin in general that if I heard any more screaming of the previously described variety, unless there was blood involved, I was going to take away their concession card for one concession time. That made her stop screaming =).

And did I mention the great exploding suitcases? Each morning I would be the drill sergeant and make my girls clean up the cabin for inspection. By 1 in the afternoon, each and every girl's bag would have exploded all over the floor yet again. I kept telling them that clean up would be easier if they kept their clothing in their suitcases, but no, why would you believe me? I've only been to youth camp going on 15 times now. This pile, coupled with the rocks they collected from the beach (complete with sand!), left over drawings and wet/stinky towels that they NEVER hung up, was enough to drive me insane. A couple of times I stopped to ask myself if I was getting frustrated by this because I was 21 and they were 9, but then I came to the conclusion that no, my 4th grade self would have been mad at her cabin mates if they were doing this as well. I guess that is the price I pay for being anal. Although I don't call not wanting my pillow to be grabbed from my bed and thrown in a dirty pile on the floor to provide a "safe landing" should their jumping from bunk to bunk go awry being anal. I call that being normal. Once I figured out what they were doing, I quickly put a stop to it, but I think that those sneaky little girls did it even after I told them to stop. I wouldn't know for sure because unlike them, I don't particularly enjoy hanging out in my cabin when there are things to do outside. How did I guess? I walked in one day and my pillow was yet again missing. I checked the mass pile of junk on the floor, located said pillow and noticed a row of dirty little toe prints on my white pillow case. I just sighed, turned the pillow over and put it back on my bed, figuring there wasn't much that I could do about my now dirty pillow case.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy myself and had a good time... it was just one of the more memorable youth camps. And I'm assuming that my girls didn't hate me even though I was "mean", seeing as how on the last day as they were getting ready to leave, they kept running at me full tilt from across the fielding and almost toppling me over with their hugs. *sigh* Yup... youth camp sure is fun! =)

Update!

In our developing news story... the air conditioning vent by my desk got closed somehow. I am much happier now that I figured that out and fixed it!

I WANT OUT!!!!!!!!!!

My office is hot and stuffy, my brain is fried, my eyes hurt and I am falling asleep. If someone were to bring me coffee, I would seriously love them forever. Even if they were a "reaper" in a blue van.

What is going ON?!?!

Do you ever have days were the entire world seems like it has come unglued and needs to be admitted to the mental hospital? It is on days like this that I am always careful to stop and ask myself if, perhaps, it is I who has come unglued. After all, if EVERYone around you is acting strangely, it seems more likely that you are just overreacting. But after carefully evaluating myself and coming to the realization that I am doing great today, I have deduced that all of Seattle is going crazy.

I had about the strangest day ever at work today: clients worried about the whereabouts of their clothes, someone yelling at me when I tried to help them because I "Didn't know who they were" but they hadn't even given me their name yet, my coworkers (about 10 of them) taking way too much time to put together a couch, an eventful trip to Ikea, my coworker shopping online at Abercrombie cause she had no work to do. *Sigh* Yes, it is safe to say that my day has been eventful... but boring nonetheless.

Oh, and on a fun side note, just for future reference, nectarines are NOT a very good fruit to attempt to eat while typing at a keyboard. I tried that at work today, it didn't go over so well.

Don't you just love...

...CDs that you randomly buy on a whim, but quickly turn out to be your new favorite? I do!

In other news, I think I have an addiction. Today I was at Target buying new crayons for the Primary department (VERY important purchase, you see) and since I was in the school supplies section, I ran across a package of Sharpies. But this wasn't just your average red-green-blue-black package, this had like 25 different colors. I seriously almost started drooling, right there in the middle of the store. I LOVE sharpies, especially the ultra-fine tip ones. I am not sure why, but they call to me everytime I see them. The only thing that saved me today was the fact that I didn't have $14.99 to randomly throw away on a package of Sharpies that I probably didn't really need. *Sigh* Hopefully I will be able to go on living...
P.S. No Chris (or Matt or Bryan), I don't like Sharpies because I enjoy sniffing them. I just wanted to clarify before one of you asked...

Campmeeting '06

So I am very aware of the fact that I haven't posted in a long time. And logically, it would seem that I should post about campmeeting, as I really haven't been doing much else with my time over the last 2.5 weeks. But when I sit down to actually write about it, I am not really sure what to say. I had an awesome time, although it was one of the more strange campmeetings in my remembrance. Partially because of all of the people, and partially because the two weeks felt totally different to me. They were both fun and enjoyable, but I hung out with two very different groups of people in the two different weeks, mainly because that was when they were there. So I have decided that I will list out key inside jokes or things that I remember the most about campmeeting. If they make sense to you, consider yourself lucky, if they don't, I am very sorry. Maybe you need to hang out with me more often! =)

-"Sitting" with Mandy and Zach in church
-Zach, I think I have your goat
-"Your brain is flatlined"
-Quality Kitchenette time
-Going to see Pirates
-Going to Shari's (both times)
-Walmart and how I went there more times during campmeeting than I do during an entire typical year!!
-Going to the zoo and eating animal fries
-Quality mall time!
-"Caution Kids" ... enough said
-My promised 3 Christmas presents: Beverly Hill Billies DVDs, a jungle gym and a Honda Element
-Angel Food/Devil's Food cake discussion
-Various discussions on words, including, but not limited to:
*Nautical
*Ominous (Omnious!!)
*Animosity
*Tumultuous
*Indubitably
*Copious
*Maniacally
-"Hiking" in flip-flops and a jeanskirt
-That crazy scary Alice in Wonderland play at the park
-Melina, the marriage wrecker
-Doing guard duty with Angela
-Hey Thomas, I secretly hate you =)
-How do you get an elephant in the subway?
-Apparently, I am now a dictator (and I have a co-dictator to boot!)
-There was this guy named Jay...

The other dancing guy

I haven't posted in a long time... I'm sorry... yada yada yada. But, I found this for all ya'll's enjoyment -- how was that for correct grammar?!?! You should check it, he sounds like my kinda guy!! (I apologize in advance for the bad word in the title, sorry... consider yourself warned.)

And just in case you miss it, I thought I should copy and paste this from the website:

Less Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the world so screwed up? Men.
How do we fix it? Women.

Yup... that is all I have to say about that. Enjoy!

That deaf, dumb and blind boy sure plays a mean pinball!

I am noticing a rather disturbing pattern around my house. I turn on music, my dad sticks his head into my room, and he tells me to turn it off. Why? Well it isn't because he disapproves... that is for sure. It is because it is "his" music and I am not allowed to listen to it! I have a list of about 5 or 6 groups that I am no longer "allowed" to listen to because it is the music of his youth, not mine. I think secretly he is flattered that I would like the music that he liked when he was growing up, so he makes fun of me for it. So yes, I will admit that I stole his Chicago CD, but he freaked out when I asked (and got) an Earth, Wind & Fire CD for Christmas. And a couple of months ago, I went to a rock opera/musical thing at UW that my friend was stage managing. I was trying to explain it to my parents, thinking that they would never know what it was. I said that it was written by The Who, as well as something about it being about this boy that grows up in WWII London and the musical follows him throughout his life. That is seriously all it took for my dad to be like, "You went and saw Tommy?!?" and break out into a chorus of "Pinball Wizard". Yah, so basically, I am doomed to share my love of music with my father if it is older than about 1980, and even then, he is familiar with some of that stuff too. I have just resolved myself to the fact that any cool group from the 1960s/1970s, my dad will be right there telling me that I can't listen to it. And don't even get me started on the songs that we play in marching band... he can sing along with most of those too! (Not so cool to have your parents start singing "You Can Call Me Al" at the top of their lungs along with your marching band CD!) But I don't really mind, I think it is sort of fun... he just doesn't like it when I try to sing with his Chicago CD!

P.S. Tommy is AWESOME! You should see it if you ever get the chance. A rock band on stage playing all of the music for a musical, you can't get much better than that! It combines two of my great loves... =)

Peggy Sue...

is systematically carrying all of her food from the little food cup on the second floor of her cage down to the bottom of her cage and hiding it in her little house. I am not sure why, since the only one with access to the food is her, but I guess she wants it to be safe. It is cracking me up... there are about 20 food pellets buried in the sawdust now and this has been going on for like 3 days. Silly Peggy Sue.

Introductions

Note how Tucker appears to have only a head! He isn't very tall, so that is all that he could get on the table to look at Peggy Sue.

The end is near!

For me, this definitely is NOT a bad thing! Tomorrow is my last day of classes, finals next week... and then I am free for the whole summer! *And there was great rejoicing because I have no more homework to do and I can do other fun things, like posting to my blog whenever I feel like it!*

In other exciting news, Peggy Sue comes home tomorrow. Don't know who Peggy Sue is? Maybe you should read my blog more often =)

And I learned my life lesson #68 today: Don't wear flip-flops if they are forecasting rain and you know that you have to walk across red square. Red square = big square/plaza thing on campus made of, what else, red brick. But they designed it special so that it would be slick when wet so that they could knock down all of the protestors if they got out of hand (No kidding... it was designed in the 60s with all of that college demonstrating going down everywhere). Anyway, I learned the hard way that flip-flops and wet, slippery red brick do not mix very well. It is bad enough walking across it when you have tennis shoes with traction, shoes with no traction are next to impossible. *Sigh* If the stupid muggy weather would go away, then I wouldn't have to worry about wanting to wear flip-flops even though it is raining. Muggy weather is the bane of my existence.

X3

My sibs, my almost sib, and I went to see X3 tonight. I'm just gonna say this... I really liked it. A lot. I kept reading reviews that said it was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo thrown together and it wasn't that deep and the characters weren't that good and blah blah blah. Well, maybe I am just the naive public, but I really enjoyed it. And in my book... by the time you get around to the third movie in a series, you should know the characters well enough that character development is not high on your priority list. It should be sort of like putting on an old sweat shirt... you know what to expect and you are pleased to find out that it still meets your expectations. Jean Grey sort of looked like one of those girls that could be in a horror movie, though.... which was a little frightening, but I managed somehow. And Angel, yah, he should have had a bigger part cause he was incredibly nice to look at. Even better, I am sure that he has a great personality... rescuing his dad like that and all!! =)

Of GREAT annoyance, some idiot brought their kid to the movie. And when I say kid, I mean infant, as in 3 or 4 months old. They seemed to cry the entire movie. And the stupid parent wouldn't even take them out for awhile there. It sucked. Apparently the term "babysitter" is not in their vocabulary...

And did any of you guys who have seen it stay through the credits? Can we say "fourth movie"?? Hehehe... =)

The Science Guy

As I was sitting in O. Chem today and feeling very grateful that it seems that I finally have a grasp on the class... I was wondering. Wondering whatever happened to Bill Nye the Science Guy. Suspecting that if HE had taught me O. Chem, I would have learned it much faster. He was so cool, and he was from Seattle too which makes him doubly awesome. So where did he go? I miss Bill Nye...

Where is the ice cream truck when you need it?

Tonight I was craving one of those strawberry shortcake popsicle things. You know the kind with the strawberry ice cream on the inside and the little crumbly things on the outside? My mom calls them captain crunch bars, but I am not sure if that is the real official name. It was arranged with my brother that when it was quitting time down at yonder Safeway, he would buy some and bring them home. And guess what... NO STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE BARS!!! So I didn't get my ice cream. The end.

But I did get an 83% on my O. Chem test!!!!! Great jumping up and down and much rejoicing occurred. I wanted to do a cartwheel, jump into drumheller, scream and run around... but I didn't, I went to anatomy instead. I am very excited, especially since the class average was 67%.

And just for the record... if somebody were to find me strawberry shortcake bars and bring them to me, I would probably love them forever.

Life lesson 67 (Don't have a 68, though, sorry!)

If you are going to try and be healthy and eat fruit in your lunch, make sure you eat it. And if for some reason you don't eat this fruit at school and the aforementioned fruit is a banana... under NO circumstances should you put it in the outside pocket of your bag, forget it is there, and then let your bag lose balance, thereby squishing the banana underneath your gigantic microbiology book. Makes for fun times... but it will make your room smell good like bananas!

Where IS he?!?!

So I know that I am going to get a lot of flack for this post, but I just have to ask the audience at large, why are all the cute/nice ones already taken? Does that mean I am going to get left with a ugly/mean one? Where is my perfect dimple guy that I posted about earlier? Huh??

On the plus side, I got checked out by a cute paramedic the other day. That doesn't happen too often. Okay, girly ranting done now, I promise! Scout's honor!

Same ol' same ol'

School... life... work... church... blah blah blah.

Yes, I am still alive. I even have things that I want to post, but I was an idiot and took too many classes this quarter. *Sigh* Next spring will be really easy though, what goes around comes around I guess. Catch ya in a month!

Here is a picture of Peggy Sue for you guys to enjoy while I am busy surviving this quarter!

I want you all to take careful note of just how CUTE she is!!

Makes ya think

Why is it that "those people" are more concerned with the rights of laboratory animals than those of unborn fetuses? Today in the UW newspaper, they had an article highlighting the groups that protest animal cruelty in labs right along with an article saying how we should work to uphold Roe vs. Wade. Now I'm down with humane treatment of animals, but ... What kind of junk is this?!!?!??!?! Where people are more concerned about whether a lab animal is going to die than that we are actively killing humans? Fetuses grow up to be humans, but monkeys just grow up to be monkeys... I've never seen a monkey grow up to be a human... oh wait, so THAT is what they were trying to teach me in school. Hmmmm....

My face...

... is really quite red. I fear that I may look sort of like a lobster, but I have seen worse cases (not on me, mind you... ;) It doesn't hurt too bad, but you ask me in the morning whether or not I still feel that way. I wanted sun, I guess I found it.

It was sunny and warm today, not for the first time, but it was the first time that it was sunny and warm that I could actually take advantage of it. And take advantage of it I did. I went to the spring game (yes, more Husky football and guess what, more HMB... but I will spare you the details, except to say that I really do love Isaiah Stanback). And then I came home and washed my car and cleaned my car and vacuumed my car... she is looking absolutely beautiful now! (Anybody want to go for a ride?) And it was sunny and warm and the sky was that beautiful shade of blue with a few white puffy clouds and the grass was green and lush and soft underneath my bare feet. *ahem* Got a little carried away there, for a moment I thought I was writing a descriptive essay or something. And then we had BBQ for dinner. And now my window is open, letting in the slight breeze and the night sounds. Ah, days like this bring back so many good memories. I love night time, but there is nothing I love more than a good summer's night. Its getting there, but no, April is not quite summer, I know.

When will enough be enough?!?!

Why can my professor write a midterm that turns out a class average of ..... wait.....get this.....

42%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know of no other job where an overall success rate of less than half would be acceptable. And, no, this is not due to some major failing on our part's as students, I mean, it CAN'T be when the average is 42! I just don't get where the professors come off thinking that they can not teach us anything and get away with it. Fortunately for me, I was above the average, but I didn't do so hot either. I've been to every class, I read all the chapters, I did the homework and practice problems, I took diligent notes, I studied hard and reread all of my notes multiple times. And all to no avail, apparently. That, to me, is the grind, if you work, you should be able to have something to show for that work.

And why can't they make shortsleeve shirts with sleeves in them? You ever try shopping for a shortsleeve sweater that is appropriate to wear to church during the summer?? Yah, it's not fun. And why does it matter anyways? Does anybody REALLY find my armpits that enticing? I don't think so....

Oh, go palpate yourself!

I imagine that it must be time for a new post. I have been stressed out beyond belief, and unfortunately, I will probably continue to be so until this quarter is over. You already know why, but I am giving fair warning that I may not post as often as I did during the last two quarters.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!

For tonight, I do have something to post. I have an anatomy test tomorrow, so I am dutifully studying away. We have covered 350 pages in three weeks. Talk about a marathon race through almost all of the skeletal and muscular systems, not to mention a couple of joints thrown in there for good measure. Anyways, so I am reading along in my book and it will say something to the affect of, "If you touch just in front of your ear, you are touching your temporal bone." Except they don't say "touch", they say "palpate". And they don't say "in front of", they say "ventral to the ear." This is all well and good, as long as it is on my head or my arm or something, but then they say "The tuberosity can be palpated by sitting on your fingers." And I go "Whoa!!" (There are much worse examples of where they tell you to palpate, but I will spare you). Not to mention the fact that to me "palpate" already sounds a little bit odd... maybe an insult? How would you like it if someone said, "Oh, go palpate yourself!" Yah, sounds sorta mean to me. Anyways, that is all that is new and exciting in my life. Palpation. Yay.

On a side note, I really like my professor. First off, her name is Cat and anybody named Cat is cool. Secondly, she says things that everybody else is too worried about to say. Example: In our last powerpoint when we were discussing the muscles of the abdomen, she stole a picture of an Abercrombie&Fitch model and pointed out his muscles on her slide. But she was telling us where she got the picture and she said that these nearly naked models led to confusing advertising. And she said, I walk past the store and see these pictures and I am like, "What am I supposed to buy?!?!?" It was the best quote ever cause it is so true. Not to mention that it raises the question of wether or not you can go to Abercrombie&Fitch and come out with a nearly naked model as your purchase. Maybe I should go check it out...JUST KIDDING!!!!!

Is this really what it comes down to?

I have yet to post anything about school this quarter, even though I'm in the third week already. Suffice it to say, I have gone completely insane and am taking 4 classes and 17 credits. Doesn't sound too bad, until you stop to think that those classes consist of microbiology, anatomy, organic chemistry (with a lab) and a psychology lab (complete with rats!). Unfortunately, everybody that I speak with is quickly able to grasp that it is insane to be taking all of these biological sciences... why I couldn't figure that out when I was registering is beyond me. Never even crossed my mind.

But, I really did have a point to posting. I just wanted to share with you the warning that is in my organic chemistry lab manual for my lab today:

Safety Note: Alkyl halides are toxic. Some alkyl bromides are suspected carcinogens. Wear gloves and avoid skin contact. Add alkyl halides to the test tubes in a fume hood and do not breathe alkyl halide vapors.

So for all of my hard efforts... I am rewarded with the possibility of getting cancer from my chemistry class. Great.

Why oh why?

Why is it that only little old ladies ever comment on my dimples and tell me that they are cute? Why can't some amazingly hot, wonderfully funny and incredibly intelligent guy come up and say, "You have really nice dimples. They make you look like a hobbit and I think that is terribly cute." If he did, I would know that I had found the right guy =)

London

Warning: This is long. I am sorry, that is the only way I could not leave anything out. I have inserted pretty pictures to make the reading less tedious, but do not say that you were not fairly warned!

We left for London Thursday morning, the 16th. (In case you didn't know, "we" was Jessi, Shauna, Joe and I... all piccs, going to visit Lynn, who was a picc but graduated and is avoiding real life by moving to London for 6 months). Our first bit of excitement came when we realized that our flight leaving Seattle had been delayed so that we had 11 minutes to transfer in Detroit. Not good. We got to the airport and they said that they couldn't do anything about it, we just had to take the flight and hope for the best. But as we were standing at the counter, they said that they just got word that we were going to be put on a different flight that flew from Seattle to Amsterdam, and then to London. The cool part about all of this is that we had a long enough layover in Amsterdam that we actually left the airport for 2 hours or so and got to see some of the city. And what a city it is. *cough cough* Sodom and Gomorrah *cough cough* Actually, it is very beautiful and picturesque, but I am afraid that it does seem to live up to its reputation. And that was at 10am on a Friday morning, no less. (They have "coffee shops" where there are no minors allowed because they are actually pot smoking coffee shops or some such nonsense... I can't say that I ever got it actually figured out). In the airport I ran across something interesting too in that they had all of these little magnets of cute little Dutch shops that said things like "wooden shoes" or "cheese"... but I also found one that said "sex shop." I shudder to think what the guy next to me on the plane did once he got to Amsterdam... he was part of a group of 20 guys going to Amsterdam for the weekend for a bachelor's party. (Can you imagine that?!?! Flying clear to Amsterdam just for a bachelor's party?) He was an odd one... kept popping valium on the plane to stay asleep, among other interesting things.

Anyways, we managed to get to Gatwick airport without much problem and then we rode the Thameslink into London, which was about 45 minutes away. Once in London, we took the tube (otherwise known as the London Underground, but never the subway!) to the station near Lynn's flat. Then we walked the 10 minutes or so that it took to get to her place. All of this with luggage in tow... for future reference, I would try to avoid this sort of situation. The British have never heard of the American's with Disabilities Act (rightly so, seeing as how they are not Americans) and inevitably, the tube station you need will not have an elevator or even an escalator, just a never ending stair case leading up into the abyss.

Seeing as how Lynn does have a real "fake" job in London, she had to get all of her good touristing in with us over the weekend. We went on what we came to lovingly call "forced tourism marches"... she walks rather fast and is like 6'1" or something, so it takes two of my steps to keep up with one of hers. We went to a cool food market Saturday morning, Borough Market... of sort of Harry Potter fame. Apparently the street outside the Leaky Cauldron in the 3rd movie is filmed in the market somewhere, although we never actually figured out where. And then we went to Greenwich that afternoon, where they "make time." It was lovely and although it is only like a 20 minute DLR ride from Lynn's flat, you feel like you are in the country. Sunday we went to Hampton Court, which is a palacy thing with beautiful gardens and is about 45 minutes out of London. When we got back to the city, we went on the Jack the Ripper walking tour, which basically consisted of taking us to street corners and houses where the victims' bodies were found. It was really interesting, actually, cause it was set up like a history lecture and you learned a lot... it just happened to be about some awful murders.

Monday Lynn went back to work and we had already decided that we were going to go to Bath for the day. Bath is where the ancient Romans built spas or "baths" using the hot spring found there, and it is about 90 minutes from London. Sunday we got our whole itinerary figured out and we purchased our tickets online, leave at 10:00 am, return at 5:42 pm. Monday morning we left the flat on time, and we caught the tube early, but something went terribly wrong. The line that we got on went incredibly slow (the Circle line, incase you ever have need to avoid it while in a rush). We are pretty sure that at one point the driver stopped the train in the middle of the tunnel and got out, although what he was doing, I am not sure exactly. The minutes ticked by as we got more and more worried that we weren't going to get to the station on time, because once we got there, we still had to print our tickets. We finally got there and I think it was like 9:52 or something. We ran to the ticket place and Jessi got her tickets, cause she had put hers on her credit card, and Joe started to print the rest of ours, cause they were on his credit card. Joe handed us what we thought were our tickets, and we ran for the train... Seriously, the porter had only one door open still. We barely managed to get on the train (my ticket says it was printed at 9:58 am) and we realized that Joe wasn't on the train. Come to find out, a ticket, when purchased online, consists of 5 pieces of paper. So Joe had to wait while 15 pieces of paper printed, therefore making him miss the train. As we were sitting on the train, I started looking at my ticket, which actually was a ticket, and I realized that it said we were coming back on March 21 at 0542. And then it hit me... Lynn, the expert on travel and everything European... had made the STUPIDEST mistake possible and forgot about military time, thus booking us a ticket for 542, unfortunately that meant 5:42 am the next morning. So 18 pounds later (which, as you all remember from our previous discussions equals roughly 36 dollars) we had changed our tickets to come back at 1742 on March 20. Joe did catch up with us in Bath, but he had to change his ticket to even get there, cause we were booked for the 10:00 train, so he ended up spending 36 pounds on the whole ordeal. Bath was worth it, but it was sort of grey and cloudy and cold... we definitely could have had a better day.

Tuesday was our first real day in London to be tourists and we spent it going to the British Museum, walking down White Hall and seeing Parliament/Big Ben/10 Downing Street, and capping it all off with Westminster Abbey. The British Museum was interesting, but after a while you began wondering why it was so cool to be looking at all of these things that Britain had stolen from other countries and brought here for their own evil purposes. At least it was free =). Parliament/Big Ben were magnificent, as was to be expected. And Wesminster Abbey was pretty awesome, although I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside... boo =(. I saw Chaucer's grave and Handel's grave and Rudyard Kipling's grave and Dicken's grave and a bunch of old king's graves. You can tell that I am being very irreverent here, but after awhile, it was just a bunch of graves. Although the architecture was amazing, and the history is pretty daunting too... its just that after you have been in London for awhile, you become a little acclimated to it. Unfortunately, this day was rather grey and cloudy again, so my pictures aren't as cool as I would like them to be. Tuesday night we met Lynn and went to a show. We were going to go to The Producers, or something cool like that, but we ended up going to this spoofy, all male ballet where they do their best impression of female ballet dancers. It was mildly entertaining and even funny at times, not really my thing... but hey, compromise is good, right? (P.S. If anyone ever wants to go to The Producers, I will gladly go with you).

Wednesday we went to St. Paul's Cathedral and then did some shopping in Soho. St. Paul's was amazing, especially in contrast with Westminster. Westminster is definitely Gothic, whereas St. Paul's has an enlightened feel to it, with soaring roofs and lighter marble. Something interesting, there is an entire chapel devoted to America in honor of our involvement during WWII, I never saw that one coming. We climbed to the top of the dome, doesn't seem like much, I know, but if you look at a picture, you can tell that it is a feat. I think it is like 550 steps or something. I really enjoyed St. Paul's Cathedral... maybe it is just hearkening back to my obsession with Mary Poppins. After St. Paul's, we ate lunch at a pub called "Ye Old Cock." I'm sorry, but I have to say that I love pubs. They are really cool with great character and are usually very unique. They all have funny names, I could list but I am not going to, and they are usually decorated very nicely with homey sorts of things. They also have a lot of history and many of them are OLD... one we went to was rebuilt in 1667, after the great fire of 1666. The shopping was not my idea of the best use of our time, but hey, sometimes you have to just go with the flow. On the plus side, I got a really cool jacket at H&M for only 20 pounds. I don't remember what we did Wednesday night, but I'm thinking that it probably doesn't matter to you anyway at this point.

Thursday, we went to some more markets in the morning that were rather boring to me... but again, compromise, right? (It seems to me that I did a lot of compromising on this trip...) We walked along the Thames in the afternoon because it had turned into a lovely day. We went on the London Eye, which is a big Ferris wheel which offers great views of the city. We went to Tate Modern, which is a modern art museum. I have to say that I was rather unimpressed, except that I got to see a Monet in real life... and that was pretty awesome. By this point in time, I had caught my cold, but I was telling myself that I wasn't really sick. I mean, I was in London, after all, who wants to be sick? That night, I managed to convince people to go see the Tower of London, although the best I could do was take pictures of the outside of it. I also got some really cool pictures of Tower Bridge (which many people think is actually London Bridge) while the majority of my party went and entertained themselves by stuffing their own fists in their mouths at Dickens' Inn, yet another pub (and no, I am not kidding). And Friday I came home. We left Lynn's flat about 930 and I got to my house about 2300, although I had been up for about 23 hours by this point in time.

If you have made it this far, I am impressed. I really am. My trip was awesome and it was a once in a lifetime experience that I would love to repeat again if I ever had the opportunity. I am sad in that I have really just given you a blow by blow of what we did, and not what I *thought* about what we did or the funny things that happened. If I think of something pertinent, I may post it up here. But for now, this has already taken way too long... goodnight!

Greetings Earthlings

I have returned from the other side of the sea and I am letting you know that I am alive. I would have liked to type "alive and well," but alas, I am not well. I caught a nasty cold my last day in London, and now I am feeling rather miserable and I have a horrible cough. Let's just say that traveling for 24 hours with a cold is about number 3 on my list of things that I would like to never have to do again. I got home about 11pm last night and went to bed, where I promptly slept for 11 hours or so. It was wonderful. And today I am sort of living in that limbo land of post-vacation disorientation. Fortunately school doesn't start until Monday, and I can take it easy this weekend.

What about my trip, you say? It was absolutely wonderful. London was awesome (and is still awesome, I am assuming. Although, maybe my leaving makes it less awesome?!?) I saw and did a lot of cool stuff. I am debating how to actually write about this, though. I mean, 8 days with lots of miniscule little details, do you guys really want that much info? I will leave it up to you for tonight, as I need to go to bed so I can beat this cold. Let me know what you want... either way, I will post tomorrow! In the mean time, here is a cool picture. I uploaded some others to bebo if you want to check out more. Final count for the trip? 477... yah, that's right. I am the master!

P.S. Extra bonus points if you can identify the things in the picture =)

Greetings from the other side of the pond!!

So I am not really a big fan of traveling to far off places and yet still maintaining my non-exotic life back at home, but here I am, blogging again... all because of you guys. Feel happy!

Anyways, I made it to London safely and it is now 10:54am, Saturday morning. I am not sure exactly what time that means for you guys, but I am pretty sure it is sometime around 3am or so. I was up for a total of 32+ hours straight, and then slept for 10 hours, so the jetlag is pretty much defeated. Our trip was interesting in that we made it to Amsterdam.... totally not in our plans, but I will talk more about this later. Suffice it to say that I have now spent one whole hour in Amsterdam city itself. The guy next to me on the plane was interesting, he kept popping valium so that he could pass out and sleep. We are going to the market now... if I don't post again, you all behave until I get home. (I know that I am, Chris!!!)

Free at last...

Free at last, praise God Almighty, I'm free at last!!!

And that, in a nut shell, is how I felt this morning once my last final was over. I have been so focused on classes lately that I had totally not had the opportunity to get properly excited about London. But I packed tonight and let's just say that I am now dutifully excited. I really should be in bed right now, as I face an endlessly long day tomorrow since half way through the day I will suddenly change from March 16 to March 17, having only really completed 12 hours or so of the 16th. And rumor has it that Lynn won't let us sleep once we get to London, so this should be interesting. Honestly, if you can hack it, though, just staying up for the whole 24 hours or whatever it ends up being, is the best way to adjust to a major time change.

Once we get to London it should be interesting in that we are flying into an airport that is actually 45 mins or so out of the city and we are taking a train in. From there, we take the tube to Lynn's flat... all of this accomplished with luggage in tow. Sounds like great fun, doesn't it? I should probably go attempt to sleep some. ETD: 12 hours and 56 mins!!!

Official update on my life

1. I miss Japan
2. I am so ready to be in London
3. The exchange rate from dollars to pounds SUCKS!
4. I want my finals done and over with

Random question of the day:

Why is is that whenever the doorbell rings, I freak out and run away? Apparently my parents taught me well and got across the point that I should never answer the door unless I knew who was behind it. Somehow I have never managed to grow past this stage. I think I need express permission from my parents saying that I am now big enough to possibly answer the door. It is absolutely ridiculous, I will be sitting at home, by myself, minding my own business and the doorbell rings. Instant shock wave through my body... feel the need to hide... run to my parents' bedroom to peek out the window to see who it is... hide in the corner while the random person continues to ring the bell...stay there until it has been at least 5 minutes since they last rang the bell...heartbeat finally returns to normal and I go on with my day. If I am brave, I will open the door to see if they left something. Usually it is a package from the UPS man. How stupid am I?? A 20-year old who is scared of the doorbell.

AAAGGGHH!!²

Since Chris has so kindly pointed out that my life has been stuck on "AAAGGGHH!" for the past week, I figured that I should post. Although, really, my life has been stuck on "AAAGGGHH!", so the post is technically still accurate. I knew that a time would come when I would regret the fact that I had been posting so often recently. I've got you guys trained to expect it now or something.

Anyways, my life can be summed up in about 10 words: Organic Chemistry, Irish History, Statistics, Essay, Church, Work, Dog & LONDON! I am down to 8 days left in the quarter and my world feels as if it is spiraling out of control. On top of classes/work/church, I had an essay to write, two tests to take, a dog to watch for 13 days and a trip to London to plan. The future is looking brighter now, though... as the tests are over, the paper is done, my dear little doggy friend goes home on Friday (it's not hard to watch him or anything, I just have to make sure I work walking him and stuff into my days), and I finally have an idea of some of the things I want to do while I am in London. All I have to do now is study for finals, but I have a week and a half. Then I get to get ready to leave! I am so stoked to be going... T-Minus 15 days.

That really is all that is new with me. This is a lame post and for that I apologize. But to answer Stacy's question from like a week ago, yes, I did get my classes for spring quarter and I get a pet rat!!! (More to come on this, I promise)

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

That, in one word, was my day today. Check back in tomorrow... hopefully I will have regained my sanity by then! And I promise I will tell you the answer to the MsPoppins question.

MsPoppins?

I have a question... anybody know why my blog title is MsPoppins? Just curious... I want to see how well you all know me and if you have got it figured out yet. My family assures me that it is blatantly obvious why I picked that name, but what do you think?

In other news, yesterday in Sunday School the lesson was on asking God for things. I was going over with my primaries things that were appropriate to ask God for and things that probably were inappropriate. I was trying to get them to say that asking God to let you win your game (whatever it may be) probably was not totally appropriate, so I decided to use the example of the Super Bowl. I wanted them to guess, so I started giving them clues, and Nicholas got it right away. He said, "Yah, it was Super Bowl XL and the Steelers CHEATED!" He said it with such authority and passion... I burst out laughing. And then somehow I had to get my kids off the subject of how the Steelers "cheated" in the Super Bowl, because they all really wanted to talk about that. Ahhh.... got to love that innocent, black and white sort of logic.

It's 5:51 am...

...on President's Day. When I wouldn't normally have to be up until like 10:00 am at the earliest. But here I sit at my computer. Why? Because I was SUPPOSED to register for classes for spring quarter today. And I have learned from bad experiences in the past that it is best to register as early as you can on the day that your registration period starts. That would be 6 in the morning, today. But it appears that someone in their brilliance decided that today would be a good day to take the WHOLE STUPID SYSTEM OFF LINE!! Yes, you heard me. So on this day when I got up way too early and am way too cold and just want to register for my stupid classes, I can't even do it. Goodness... why in the world don't people think this stuff through? Goodnight people, I'm going back to bed.

Good cruising music!

So is it a bad thing that I am in love with techno music? If that isn't, is it bad that I can see how attending a rave would be fun... minus the alcohol and drugs? Hehehe...Just curious. Goodnight ya'll!!

That day we all love to hate...

First things first, this post is dedicated to Rational Icthus, due to a recent conversation.

Yes yes yes, I will admit it, I am not the world's biggest fan of Valentine's Day. You may say that this is cause I am a cynical single, but I would beg to differ. I have never really been fond of Valentine's Day. Sure it serves well to give us some bright color in the middle of boring and drab February, but beyond that, what is the point? And now for the argument.

Argument #1: If you need a specific day to share your love for somebody, then you should probably rethink your relationship. I would like for my significant other to be willing to buy me flowers, send me chocolate or take me out for dinner any time... not just because it is Valentine's Day and it is expected. I am actually of the opinion that if you do something big for Valentine's Day, then that action should be nullified because you weren't doing it of your own accord. I want to be loved because somebody loves me, and not because the retail industry is telling us that it is time to show our love.

Which brings me to Argument #2. I think that sometimes people lose sight of the fact that they are supposed to be doing special things for their significant other because they love them. As my 16 year-old, not so delicate, brother says about these people "What is the least amount that I have to do that will still get me laid?" I feel that our culture has taken Valentine's Day and turned it into a giant gift-giving contest with no real significance behind it, only that people feel it is what they are supposed to be doing. My brother is also of the opinion that Valentine's Day was created by Hallmark... but that is another story.

I could come up with more arguments, but I still think my main problem with V-Day is that it is totally LAME that some people try to stuff all of their loving for one year into one day. If that isn't you... more power to ya. But I have found a loop hole in this system. Valentine's Day's ONLY saving grace is discounted chocolate... and lots of it =)