Awkward and Awesome-nerd themed. But mostly awesome.

AWESOME!

-Some people know me too well. I couldn't even finish typing the song before she caught me. It was supposed to be hilarious.

-Speaking of wicked...shortly after we decided to listen to wicked songs...Ali was taking off her makeup and had it all off on one side and mascara smeared all over the other side. She did a duet with herself- covering up the different sides of her face to be the two different people. Guess you had to be there?

-When I'm having a bad day and blasting music in my ipod to escape from it all. I bet most people don't know that I'm blasting Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

-Walking around in my flats that click like they are heels. It's super annoying to put up with the click of shoes without the satisfaction of them being heels. But I love it because it reminds me of my mom getting ready for church when I was a little girl. Just the sound of fancy shoes clicking on the tile every Sunday morning. :)

-My Sociology teacher playing the guess-my-personality game saying he bet I was a "studious and prestigious student. I'd even go as far as to say you've never gotten a grade below an A". Well- very intuitive about the girl who sits in the front row and raises her hand to comment every 10 seconds...but  it's nice that I look like a smarty-pants. :)

-Someone in the math lab asked me if I was head of the math tutoring department. Wow. Didn't know I looked that confident and in charge.

-Dreaming about having a beautiful German accent and speaking fluently (sub-conscious wish?)

-Recently I've been reading my Book of Mormon in the mornings instead of getting ready for school. I swear that the simple act is like magic pixie dust on my whole day and I get everything done that I need to and I'm not freaked out and I feel like I'm in control. 

AWKWARD

-Watching a movie for science in the library...the main character was Matthew Mcconaughey....the looks people were giving me...I swear it was homework!

-I was talking to Ali and the conversation went a little something like "I haven't showered in 3 days...but you can't tell right?" and right when I was saying that first part (rather loudly because she was walking away) I ran full into some poor kid. I promise I'm not really nasty. 

-I have this fear of those storm drain things. Walking home from campus late at night and this LOUD NOISE comes out of it. I probably jumped 3 feet. To the side and in the air. 

-Every time I want to post a comment on someone else's blog...and this "prove you're not a robot" thing comes up. It LITERALLY. takes me 7 times. 7. And that's not an exaggeration at all. Put it's not that embarrassing right? I mean- who can actually get those right on the first try? But the 7th...? And it's happened more than once. Well...like more than 5 times.
but I mean...take this one for example. Does that second part not look like an alien wrote it?

Lately in college

My life according to my camera...aka not the real bit where I'm living at the library...just the bit where I'm having fun.

Cold enough to wear scarfs, warm enough to not wear jackets.

Idaho is burning so the sun is RED-red every morning and night and it's because of the smoke I think. Beautiful but somewhat scary.

When life gets you feelin crazy stressed- the art gallery is the perfect place to unwind with their chill music and inspiring pictures. 

Biking to the farmers market- and some things we got sucked into...including cheap fruits and vegetables. Nothing like giant tomatoes and fresh peaches. :)

Off our "balcony" we have a fantastic view of construction next door...and the truck company sidumpr...? It's great. But mostly I just like throwing paper planes off. It's okay though because people at the bottom always steal the planes- so it's not littering? 

Not really much of a balcony- but I'll take what I can get.

We started this plan called- on Saturday and Sunday cook meals in bulk to eat for the rest of the week. So when we're cooking all these meals to freeze and put in the fridge it feels like Thanksgiving- and a thanksgiving amount of dishes.

Sometimes people are beautiful. This girl is my home-decorating-inspiration and the best cook ever. Today she made homemade whip-cream and french toast and waffles and strawberries...and then taco soup for dinner- and invited me to both. People are sweet.

Being lazy and taking the elevator + too lazy to even stand up.

"You don't have to drive me- I can go by myself. I walked back and forth all of Fall semester!"
"You never would have made it."

But I can still carry all the bags up from the car at once by myself.

And dance parties at the Hart :)

Day by day

Lately I've been having daily breakdowns due to the crazy stress of college finally feeling like it's coming into full swing. Once a day I get real stressed and I start having these thoughts like 'why can't I do anything right?' and 'how will I ever catch up' and 'you stupid girl for thinking you could handle 18 credits and a job' and the like. So when I'm thinking 'how will I ever handle this?' I am inspired (literally every day since I saw the movie) by this quote. 

 Because really what else can you do but take it one day at a time? So each day I tell myself 'don’t worry, today’s not the stressful one. Just get what you need to done today and you’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.' And so days pass by like that. And pretty soon the stressful days passed while you were telling yourself to take it day by day, and to not freak out about all the days at once. Not that they pass in a 'where did the time go, what have I done with my life?' kind of way. It's more like 'hey, I got everything done that I needed and life turned out to be great and enjoyable and everything I wanted at the same that I was worrying about all that stuff!" way. But you never even remember the thousands of to-do lists and the constant receipts, and the times where the only thing you wanted was to be done reading the hecka long chapter in your Social Work book so you could go home and eat the same leftovers that you’ve had for the past 4 nights (not to get too specific, but that was Tuesday).  So seriously. Don’t stress about ALL the homework assignments at once. And don’t stress about all the finances and things to do, and people to please, and blah ba blah ba blah. Because all you really can do is take it day by day.

Happy Wednesday and keep on keepin' on.

The Spice Challenge: Creole...Chicken Pasta

Once upon a time I had a dream of being this incredible cook who could have a million pots on the stove at once and cutting boards and throwing in random spices with NO RECIPE!!! and cooking by taste- something like that. And then it turned out I was quite untalented with that kind of thing- many attempts and failed disgusting dinners. And then add to that I was really bad at cooking meat- like I didn't even know what to do with chicken to cook it, the only time I ate meat was on dates (ps- there were some dinner dates that taught me how to cook meat, see! dates are good for something ;) ). Then another time my dad gave me a spice rack and I didn't use it for like, at least a semester. Long story short my goal for the semester is to use all of those spices at least once, and I bought a huge bag of chicken in order to force myself to learn to cook meat. Look at me. I'm becoming domestic and whatnot. 

So spice number one, aka, the one that smelled the best. 

And so you know...I did this with NO RECIPE! I made it up by taste and no one told me what to do!!! So I basically fulfilled my dreams. Even though it doesn't look incredibly colorful and delicious- it was good.

Noodles, 1 TBS butter, creole, salt, tomatoes. And the chicken was cooked in oil and creole. 

Cooking hint I learned on a date: cover chicken to make it cook faster...and only flip it once so that it's tender. Well it seems to work- not that I've cooked chicken a ton.

Pasta! :) I did it!

This is the good life to me

Obviously it's the first week of college so real life hasn't quite set in yet. Like the fact that I had time to go play guitar at the park today is obviously unreal. Just you wait until work and homework REALLY start. And then my days will be behind a computer desk at the library. And hopefully a little bit in the greenhouse. Anyways. So random stuff that I love.

When packing I discovered that I own a million magazines- when did I become a magazine person? But it's fine because they're all flower ones- so they're technically educational for me?

The apartment building I live is brand spankin new. So they're still waiting for some furniture pieces to arrive. Like chairs. So it's Japanese style eating for us. And while we're sitting on the floor to eat dinner we might as well use chopsticks. Is that way stereotyped? Do Japanese people even eat on the floor? I thought it was their culture anyways.

Food experiments from pinterest. 

A bit of cake batter, white chocolate, some shortening, and popcorn. Super good. Super sugary. Don't plan on eating it all in one sitting. Even if you have two movies to watch and plenty of people.

I'm sure you could look up some kind of recipe somewhere if you really wanted to get specific.

We have a "balcony". Really it's a sliding door with a railing stuck on the side of it. You can not step outside one bit. Trust me. I've tried. And the door will not close even if you stand on the railing all the way. But it's totally great for people watching and throwing paper planes off- and I can see the sun rise every morning (well, the ones with early classes) and the temple (which stays lit past midnight) and trees and a bunch of good stuff.

And this is Ali painting by it.

Stretching shoes. Me and Cara both had two pairs of shoes that were a bit too small and really hurt to wear. So challenge accepted. Luckily after a few painful days of wearing them we learned a method called 'wear your biggest socks, stuff them in your shoes, blowdry those shoes til hot, and then walk around. Repeat' And you know what? It worked ever so slightly. It was just a bit bearable to wear the lovely shoes around campus. Which is good because just the name OXFORDS makes me feel smarter.

But boy oh boy did the shoe stretching make for some awkward looking pictures.

"This wont go anywhere right?" "Please cara, you know exactly where it's going". Too good to pass up. Sorry dear.

9-11 memorial in the center of campus.

For me it was the fourth grade. My teacher turned on the news to see what was going on. And then after we were all sufficiently scared and crying she turned it off because she just couldn't bear to see it.

And when grown ups are scared you know it's a big deal.

flags and flags and flags. 

The new place is very well decorated. I'm impressed every time I see a new room. Though it still feels like a Marriott hotel and not a home yet.

Time in the gardens. Does that goofy looking satyr even know how charming his fellow statue thinks he is? Oh. She's impressed and it's not hard to tell- she's looking straight at him. And this is why I can't get homework done in the gardens.

 But really. This is my favorite spot. Maybe because it's Italian architecture-looking. Maybe because it's covered by willow trees and geraniums, maybe because I just fell in love with the statues.

And then obviously getting to read and play the guitar in the park. :) I love a day that's cold enough to wear a scarf to school in the morning and then to be barefoot in the park in the afternoon to soak up the sun.

 If any scene in life feels lovely it's this one to me. Having a park all to myself. And just listening to all the sounds it makes. And then being able to sing as loud as I want because everyone's inside eating dinner or something lame.

Mmmmmhmmmmm. I like having free time and being able to go to school and have some homework at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if this is what life would be like it I didn't take so many dang classes and didn't have a job. And then I stop thinking about it. Because how can you not take a billion classes when there is just so much that needs to be learned. There's just too much stuff to know to not be constantly learning it. And work. Well. I have a good job- so I'm grateful.

Also- because it's hard to cook in small quantities....who doesn't want to eat Hawaiian Haystacks five nights in a row? Well I like it that much at least. :)

first day of school ramble-rant

Here is my first day of college ramble-rant.

All the little freshmen boys look like they are 12 years old. The sociology professors are so chill and interesting I get all confused about what major I should be choosing- because I love what I have, but this is just so interesting to learn about. OOOOh the spelling mistakes I'm prone to notice in textbooks that have not been edited (self written by teachers, my oh my) and in the syllabus. Here's my favorite. And it's talking about plagiarism "Learning such behavior in school can lead to practices that would cause job termination, or even loss of life later in your career, so we will adhere to strict standards now." did you catch it? Because according to that word mix up, plagiarism is a DEADLY thing. After this very teacher scared all the good hopes of college out of my day this syllabus mistake made the day a little better. And then I went to my next class and the teacher was wearing a tie with skulls on it- foreshadowing probably- and all the expectations of that class were a bit intimidating. And I started to think why on earth did I think I could handle this many credits? Really.
And then I started doing homework that said complicated sciencey things which I wasn't understanding including "this is the scientific method you should remember from high school"

And I remember nothing of the sort. My high school science was a lot more simple.

But then I ended the day feeling fine because of a talk with my dad, my roommate saying she was equally scared of this science class and has the same textbook, and remembering this quotey thing....

and to avoid loss of life caused by plagiarism: credit given to here.