The One In Which The Muffin Makes A Delicious New Years' Dessert

Observe this picture from a prestigious culinary journal-

And then look at what I did, all by myself, while reading the recipe in the prestigious magazine-

Look at my amazing domestification skeels as I grate chocolate-

And then observe the product of the grating of the chocolate by seeing the chocolatey hands of the omnipotent, domesticated Muffin-

The Muffin will allow you to assume that that is, in fact, chocolate, and not the product of feculence.

Now that your life has been enriched, you may carry on.

I Think I'm Over Him....

This honestly could not come at a better time, either.

It's random and out of the blue, but tonight I was thinking about things, and I think I've decided that he's no longer who I thought he was. Or who he used to be. I don't know, and I honestly don't care at this point.

I think I'm just done.

And it kind of feels good.

Chavaleh

In addition to my laptop, I also got some movies to take with me to college, or if FMD ever gets around to sending me a letter, Paraguay. One of these was one of my very favorites, The Fiddler on the Roof.

This is just a clip of my favorite song and one of my favorite scenes from the whole movie, Chavaleh. It makes me tear up everytime.

Happy Boxing Day

I thought that because I was already celebrating the Jewish and Christian winter Holidays, I might as well throw in the Canadian holiday. I don't know what it is, but I know it's the day after Christmas, so there.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and I know that I did. I'm actually blogging in my room again, after getting a new laptop. One that actually has wireless. And that can play DVD's. It now has all of the files from my old computer on here. The only downside is that I can't play my Sims on here, but I'll live.

In addition, Dad and I have been rocking it out to Guitar Hero III  for the past couple days and beat the easy level on co-op career mode last night. We're close to beating the normal easy career mode. And Dad got Xbox Live, so we can download some more songs for the game. So, the various Christmas gifts are being put to good use.

Luxury

Anyone care to write a strongly worded letter to FMD for me?

Mistie? Tiffany? Carolyn? You guys don't sugar coat things. Want to write to them and ask them why I don't know if I'm going to Paraguay yet, even though they said I would two weeks ago?

Feliz Navidad Para Las Maestras (Y Un Maestro)

Our awesome teacher at the career center (not pictured, as she is taking this picture) took the whole Teacher Academy out for the Mexican buffet and some fried ice cream. We "had to" stay for an hour, just to say that we did school, but it was really a blast and I was reminded how awesome Mexican food was.

I still think that I have ruled out education as a future profession, but even if that is the only thing that I get out of this year, that's a good thing. It's just as valuable to rule something out as it is to actually find something that you're passionate about doing.

Heat or Snow Miser

I'm still waiting (and getting rather irate about still waiting) to hear about Paraguay. I'm sending them another email today if I don't have a letter when I get home and I may scream.

Anyway, especially now, I keep wondering about how I'm going to deal with being away from my friends and family during my favorite time of the year. Our assignment for senior soc. was to look up different cultures and how they celebrate Christmas (or Hannukah, or Ramadan, etc.) It seemed only natural for me to look up Paraguay and I'm actually really excited about their customs, but that still doesn't keep me from being bummed about not being home then. The picture above, according to Flickr, is a flor de coco, which is the coconut tree flower, very common during the Christmas season there, or so I've read online.

This is a picture my dad took in November 2005. Yes, those are roses. In our backyard. Covered in snow and ice. Beautiful.

So, freezing cold temperatures, or a rainforest paradise during the holidays?

Hmmm....maybe this won't be so bad. I've done the whole Snow Miser Christmas for the past 18 years. It's only fair to give Heat Miser a chance.

My really, really long excuse for the week I didn't write anything...

This past week has been one of the busiest I’ve had in a long time. Maybe not so much the week as the weekend, because I honestly do not remember at all what I did last week, except for being sick one of the days…I think that was Tuesday, because I didn’t go to Extended Day Kindergarten (praise God). But anyway, I don’t know why exactly I was so busy during the week. I just was. Anyway, this weekend pretty much killed me.

On Friday, I got home from school and left directly from home to church to help with the kids’ Christmas program rehearsals. Let’s not even go into what happened on Friday. I was incredibly ticked off and…well, let’s just not go there.

Saturday, I didn’t even get to sleep in after my for-some-reason-long week, because I had a debate tournament and had to be at the school at seven, the same time as I’m usually getting on the bus for school any other day. We had to go to Gahanna for this tournament and let me just say that I felt like an extraordinarily big hick there. This school has a flipping taxodermed (which isn’t a word, but that’s okay) lion in the lobby. Yeah. A lion. As in Simba. Ca-rap. My dad texted me back “Well, you guys could get a taxodermed bee”. Somehow, a “real, live” (although it wouldn’t really be live, would it?) yellow jacket doesn’t seem to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. Which is why our football team has only won one game while I’ve been at the high school, ringing nostalgic of Rydell High.

So, I went and competed, having (extremely) low expectations for myself and actually came out doing pretty well for myself, although not great. They awarded first through sixth, and I came in seventh (of course), but in my opinion, they had a really crappy system of awarding points. Something about charts and speeches, and you can’t speak too much, and if you give two dinky speeches in your sireny voice that makes people want to punch you, then you can come in third, while the girl who has a semi-normal voice and four killer speeches comes in seventh. Also, if you yell you get sixth. Purely a hypothetical situation.

So, even though I didn't win anything, I still had to stay for the awards ceremony, slated to begin at 4 PM, but after saying "Give us 5 minutes, we're running late", they started at around 4:45. Come to find out, there were final rounds still going on when the awards were supposed to happen. So, I didn't win anything, but James and Corey took fifth in Public Forum, which is really good, considering that this is one of the largest tournaments that we have been to. but because the stupid award ceremony wasn't over until about 5, and we were scheduled to get back at 5, we didn't get back until a little after 6, meaning that I missed my brother and sister's Christmas program. I was ticked.

I did get to see it on Sunday though, and the video is all here. I love YouTube. Gabrielle was amazing at hitting her notes on Silent Night, Michael was an awesome Joseph, and I particularly like the exchange between Mary and Joseph-

"How can this happen? I don't understand. I need sometime to think about it."
"Oh. Okay, Joseph."

After that, I spent all afternoon, from 1-9, doing my stupid Teacher Academy PRAXIS stuff and the developmental profile of a fourteen year old. Here's (paraphrased) what the material I had said-

"Fourteen year olds are conceited, vain little brats who will most likely do drugs, participate in fornication, and go out and get drunk, and then they will resent their parents. But that's okay, because they're just trying to find themselves."

Can I just say one thing? I really have an issue with that being "okay" and if I have kids who think they have to go "find themselves"....well, I'm not sure what I would have to do, but it wouldn't be good.

Along with the many things that I have issues with today, this happy and cheery article was on the front of Yahoo! today. I honestly can't stand Obama, but really? Why is it that the guy has to pander to everyone for his inauguration? He's having an evangelical minister speak. So what? I'm by no means anti-gay,as I have several friends who are, but seriously. Obama's choosing of an evangelical minister is not degrading to the gays, for the love of all that is holy. Why is it that every group has to okay something before someone chooses to do something? Why does he have to circle what he does around who one group does and does not like? It's his presidency and not theirs. They need to chill.

And now, if you'll allow me to jump down from my soapbox, I need to go do something constructive. Like the Student Congress research that I'm supposed to be doing. Or finding some place that sells stuff for Hannukah.

I didn't mention that, did I? I'm doing Hannukah this year. And Christmas. Sure, it seems contradictory, but I have the weird addiction to Jewish culture and history and for some reason, this year I feel like going out and buying a menorah. Which I have to find soon, because it starts on Sunday. But, as I'm technically not Jewish, I have no idea where to find one. Maybe I could buy a dreidal, too. And sing.

Prayer, please

Still waiting to hear from Foreign Missions about whether I'm going to Paraguay or not. I'm really freaking out, because I was supposed to find out last week. I need to find out soon so I can get my passport/visa, raise my budget, and get my plane ticket.

Girls' Day Out!

I haven't had a girls' day out in forever, and this weekend has been pretty much all about girliness. Carolyn, Alison, Brittany, Abby, and I all went into Columbus for some Christmas shopping and a ton of fun. I have pretty much everyone bought for now. I am most proud of Mistie and Rachel's presents.

I am especially proud because I HATE Jacob with a fiery passion and threw up a little in my mouth while buying Mistie's present. So I bought two Edward pins to balance it out (I have one like Rachel's).

Before going out and shopping, I spent the night at the Redmonds' with Alison. We had too much fun, too.

Yeah, it isn't supposed to make any sense. If you're not on MySpace, you won't understand the whole "Meaning Of..." thing. But that's okay. You can still appreciate the stupidity of myself while slap happy.

CLEP Fever

I am trying desperately to find a way out of AP Spanish.

I need to know the language in order to go to Paraguay, but I can easily converse and understand people when they speak at a normal pace and am getting absolutely nothing out of the class. So, I am basically allowing my parents to pay ungodly amounts of money in order for me to sit in a class, feel stupid, and get blown off by a teacher that couldn't care less about my success, because my class is full of loud, obnoxious, snobby girls and one loud, obnoxious boy who plans to drop the class.

So, I'm currently trying to talk my parents into making a deal with me.

I will take the CLEP test, which will have a much greater benefit to me than the AP exam, and if I pass, I can drop AP Spanish at the semester's end. I looked at some sample questions for the CLEP-Spanish Language test, and it is a piece of pastel/torta.  I am pumped. I could have several credit hours and not have to leave AP Spanish crying every day because I hate it so flippin' much.

So, I decided to look at some of the other tests. I am hooked. There's one devoted to GRAMMAR! And English Lit. And American Lit. There are TWO for US History, which I spent a year on last year. Some of the sociology is common knowledge. I am beside myself. I didn't know such a wonderful world existed.

Pinch me.

Toma Leche?

I'm doing research for my speech on the whole milk ban thing (So stupid. I have no idea why I am doing this.) and so for the first time I went on the Got Milk? website. Fairly cool actually, but the Spanish version is stinking awesome. A little harder to navigate, yes, but the English version hurts my head. Plus, the milk man on the Spanish one is awesome and reminds me of Jeeves, you know, before he retired. (P.S. He ended up doing the cruise thing. I was a huge Jeeves fan and was quite distraught when he "retired".)

Anyway. This milk ban thing is annoying me. Does anyone have any good reason why the FDA should investigate milk's benefits? Anyone?