Final Grades for Fall!

Turns out I did a lot better in Biology than I thought, I ended up with a B! In Philosophy and English I got A-'s, which I'm happy with. So that brings my overall GPA up to 3.2!

I'm starting my house-sitting job on Saturday, and then I'll have internet more frequently, so I'm excited for that!

I got financial aid stuff figured out finally. Turns out I was missing some obscure form, but I have it now, and Dad and I just have to fill out a worksheet, turn in some tax forms, and then if the school has any awards left for this year I may get something for Spring Quarter! I doubt that will happen though since they usually give out awards at the beginning of the school year. But we shall see. And then Dad and I will fill out the FAFSA again in February, get it in by March, and do this tax form stuff all over again to hopefully get some financial aid for next school year.

Poor Loren got his wisdom teeth pulled yesterday morning and apparently he bled like crazy all day. Ick, I'm so glad I got that over with.

Anywho, I'm going to go home now and make hot cocoa with peppermint tea in it :)

Finals and break and stuff

My biology final is today. I'm nervous for it even though I studied a ton, but I guess we'll just have to see what happens... Then on Tuesday I have my English final which will be easy because all we have to do is hand in a portfolio and read 5 minutes from something we wrote. But then also on Tuesday I have my Philosophy final. That's the one I'm most nervous for because it's cumulative and I don't remember all the stuff we did at the beginning of the year! There's going to be a lot of different material on that test, so it's hard to study for.

Anywho, then after that final I'm going to be coming home for winter break! I can't wait! I'm going to be housesitting for one of mom's friends from the 18th to the new year. At first I didn't want to do it because I'll be alone in a house watching over 2 horses, 2 cats, and 2 dogs. But now I do want to because I read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and I'm excited now to just sit around and meditate and think and not be around too many people.

My friend is having a holiday party at her house on the 19th, and that's probably what I'm most looking forward to about the break (yeah that contradicts what I just said about being by myself a lot). I'm mostly excited for it because she wants everyone to dress up for it and I have this awesome dress that I got last year that I've only worn once because we never dress up for anything around here in Ellensburg!

CrockPot!

Today I made delicious chicken tortilla soup in the good ol' crock pot! Someone remind me please to make soups in it more often!

Christmas List

This is probably the first year in a while where I actually have things to put on a christmas list. The number one thing would have to be a pair of sorels. I really like this pair in particular (the black ones) because they're not much more expensive than the classic look ones, but are a little different. But they also have them at REI too, so if all else fails REI giftcards would be great :)

Another thing that would be great would be a pair of actual ski socks. I don't have any and the past few years I've just worn two pairs of regular socks, which really isn't the best for colder conditions. So a pair (or multiple) of ski socks would be awesome!

You know those glow-in-the-dark stars that you stick on your ceiling? Some of those would be awesome for our room! I've been craving them, but haven't been able to find them anywhere in Ellensburg... So I suppose that's on the list too!

Still more snow here, it's been snowing off and on all day. Now I'm off to make some christmas cookies!

Pictures

Here's our road in the snow right before we left for the airport!

Ellie on Tara, Sophie in the orange

Gigi and me making pickles before Thanksgiving

Debbie's yummy cinnamon coffee-cake/cinammonroll bread

Me ironing napkins, Nick reading recipes, and Ellie doing something!

Debbie and Nick working on making the stuffing

The table all set up for food

The giant bottle of wine!

 The beautiful turkey!

Girls at the piano

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.
And that's about it for now! There's a lot more though. It's snowing here right now, and apparently it's not supposed to stop until Friday! :)

I'm going to take pictures of the apartments tomorrow so you all can see what I mean when I say they look like ski condos :)

Thanksgiving

Made it back to Ellensburg yesterday. The pass was not nearly as bad as people were saying, it was mostly just rainy. Saw lots of skiiers though as I passed by Snoqualmie! There's quite a bit of snow here in Ellensburg! Last night Loren and I went on a walk down to campus and it was only 14 degrees. I'll take pictures of the apartments with the snow on them soon. Probably tomorrow since it's supposed to snow more tonight and tomorrow!

Thanksgiving in California was great! I have lots of pictures of that too, but I haven't looked through them all yet so I'm waiting to put them up. I made the mashed taters as usual, Nick made the stuffing as usual, and since Paul wasn't there, Carson barbecued the turkey and it was delicious as usual!

The day before Thanksgiving, we went to see Ellie's horse, Tara. She's all white and looks like a unicorn without the horn.

Twas very fun and nice to see everyone! Pictures to come

Snow in Them Thar Hills!

Alright, so I was planning on going back to school today because I have classes that I need to be in, but the pass is awful. People are sliding and fishtailing and skidding all over the place. It's traction tires required right now, which I don't have anyway so I guess I'm just going to stay home and then leave for Debbie's on Tuesday! I wanted to go back to grab some dresses and things I could wear in California, but unfortunately looks like I'm stuck with what I brought for the weekend. Which is fine I suppose...

Yesterday Kara and I went to the Miley Cyrus concert thing in Bellevue. We waited outside in the cold for 4 and a half hours and then Miley played for about half an hour which was a little disappointing. We were so close to the stage though! So that sort of made up for waiting in the cold... But not entirely.

Then we went and watched Harry Potter again which was AWESOME. I'm glad I got to see it again because there's a lot that I missed the first time around. Now I can't wait for the next movie to come out. Too bad I have to wait until July...

Oh, and it's snowing at mom's house! And in Issaquah!

Lately the car has been doing this thing where all the lights inside of it just randomly go off. Mom thinks it's a fuse problem. Last night I was driving back from Kara's in the dark and all the lights went out inside the car. Luckily I was about a mile away from the Preston Park and Ride so I pulled in there and turned it off and on again and the lights came back on and stayed on. But it's scary because everything's dark and I can't see how fast I'm going or how much gas I have! When I go to get the car looked at eventually I'll be sure to tell them about this little issue too.

Thanksgiving Potluck!

Last night at Nathan's apartment, we all got together and had a potluck to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends. There were about 10 of us. Tom and Nathan got a 24 pound turkey and made delicious stuffing and vegetables. I brought mashed potatoes (of course!), Kara brought garlic bread, Rose brought sparkling cider. Among the other things brought there were also brownies, gravy, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. There might be more but I forget. Loren, Alex, and I also brought chairs and plates since Nathan and Tom are short on those things. Anyway, here's some pictures:

There's the turkey with its delicious stuffing inside it! Soooo yummy!

There's the table! It was much longer than that, and by the time we all sat down to eat there was a lot more food on it. I have another better picture, but this website won't let me upload it so that's all you get!

This weekend I'm going home because Miley Cyrus is playing in Bellevue on Saturday and Kara's mom got us tickets! After we see her perform (and hopefully meet her!!!) we're going to walk over to the movie theater to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 FOR THE SECOND TIME since we're going to be seeing it TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Then we're going home on Sunday, and  then I will go to class Monday and then drive myself back over the mountains because we are flying to Debbie's on Tuesday for Thanksgiving. Busy busy!

I have a test in Philosophy tomorrow. I'm going to take my study guide to study from while waiting in line tonight for Harry Potter :)

Classes

So I got into all the classes I wanted for next quarter!

Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 10:40 I have English 247 which I think is multicultural literature.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have Nutrition 245, which is basic nutrition. Apparently it's fun and easy and REALLY hard to get in to, so I'm excited about that one.
And then every day of the week from 12 to 12:50 I have Math 100B, which is a class I have to take before I can take Math 101. I have to take it because my math SAT scores weren't very good, so before I can take Math 101 to get my basic skills requirements done I have to take this 100B class. It shouldn't be too hard, though, I'm kind of excited about it.

Today in biology we dissected owl pellets. Haven't done that since 4th grade, so that was sorta fun. Kind of boring though. How many times in our lives do we have to dissect the vomit of owls? I think once is enough.

Sign up tomorrow!

Tomorrow at 8 a.m. I will be signing up for classes for next quarter! I'm really excited, but nervous because I'm afraid all the classes I want will be full by the time I get to register. It gives me headaches when I have to rush about to remake a new schedule when the classes I want are full...

In English class today we got our first poems back. I got a check + on mine, which I guess is good. He says he doesn't like giving letter grades to poems, and the check system goes from check - - to check ++, so I guess check + is good, right? I'm editing that snow poem like a crazy person today since in class we peer edited poems and the three people who reviewed mine weren't too thrilled about it. One girl called it "3rd grade" and cliche, which I suppose it sort of is, but still it's always frustrating to hear those sort of things. But everything you write can't be a winner!

So now I'm editing and trying to rework it to make it more interesting/entertaining/deep. Psh all this writing stuff is hardwork.

I've been looking at this one girls' fashion blog for the last hour or so, and I'm so inspired by it mainly because she travels all around the country in a big old RV and takes pictures of all the places she goes. Basically that's what I want my life to be like. At least for a little while. Traveling out of the country is cool, but there's so much here in the U.S. that we don't necessarily know about. I think it would be a great experience to travel around in an RV like that. And while I'm at it, maybe I'll actually get down to reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and be all hipster and deep and stuff.

We'll see what happens I suppose.

Veteran's Day Trek

Our internet has been out since Wednesday due to a power outage on campus. Apparently internet has been out all over the place.

Veteran’s Day was a lovely day off from classes. I slept in until 8:30, until I was rudely awakened and pushed off the bed. From about 10 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon, I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album and worked on a scarf that I started three or four years ago. I’m about halfway done with it now. It’s taken so long because I’m using tiny needles to make the stitches really small and close together.

At 1, I decided I needed to get out of the apartment, so I took my laptop to Starbucks for a few minutes to get some internet while I waited for my coffee. After that it was barely after 1, so I decided to drive around for a bit. I went up to the Umtanum Falls parking lot. Ran into a couple patches of snow on the road, but nothing major. I turned around at the parking lot, and went back down the hills. Then I decided to go into Manastash Canyon a ways. There was a lot more snow on the road there. Luckily I need some practice driving in snow since I haven’t done it before. So that was pretty fun and exhilarating. It’s so nice to have a car here in Ellensburg so I can go out and explore a bit. When I got back, it was about 4 in the afternoon. Alex wanted to go out and explore in the snow after I told him about my adventure, so we all piled into his Jeep and headed out to a road I’d never been to before, I think it was called Culockum Road. We got out onto a gravel road, and then up and up into the hills where it got pretty snowy.

Alex decided to chop down a tree for our apartment. Who knows how long it will last since it’s too early to be chopping down trees. I don’t think they’ve even gone dormant yet. I wanted to say something, but once again found myself in a situation where I didn’t want to sound like Ms. Know It All. I figure why not let him do his Alpha-Male thing and chop down a tree? Who cares how long it lasts anyway. We won’t even be here very much between now and Christmas, what with Thanksgiving break coming up and then Winter break lasting most of December. So he chopped down a nice tree, put two of the seats down in the back of the Jeep and shoved the tree in there. Since chivalry seems to be nonexistent these days and a certain boyfriend didn’t offer to sit in the back with the tree instead, I rode back the entire way with it encroaching upon my space and dripping snow all down my left thigh. Although I’m not really trying to complain about being stuck in the back seat. I like it better back there, I feel less obliged to talk to people. The silently dying tree and I got along just fine on the 45 or so minute ride back to civilization. By the time we got back into town my entire left leg was wet and I was sitting in a puddle due to the snow dripping off the tree. We stopped at Fred Meyer to buy some Christmas lights, and then at Safeway to get some pizzas for dinner. Now our tree is sitting in the corner of the living room looking Christmasy. My guess is that it will be a crispy fire-hazard by the time Thanksgiving break rolls around.

I'll take a picture of it inside once we get the lights on it  :)

Overall, Veteran’s Day was a great day for all of us, and I can’t wait to explore farther into Manastash Canyon. I wanted to go farther today, but I was running low on gas…

Snow!

It snowed here today! And it's supposed to snow more tonight! But then according to the weather report we aren't supposed to get more snow for awhile.

In English class we got our second papers back, and I got an A- on mine, which is pretty good considering the other people sitting around me all got C's and B-'s... So I'm pretty excited about that! It was supposed to be a fictionalized story, so I wrote about Sasquatch Festival. Now we're on our poem unit. We turned in one poem today, but mine was so terrible I'm just going to pretend it never happened. But for our next poem assignment we have the option to write from the point of  view of something nonhuman, so I came up with this today. It's called Plea From a Snowflake:

You all see me as light and fluffy,
Floating gently down to the ground
Where I land upon my brothers and sisters
And slowly begin to melt

To you, I float like cotton balls
Or feathers, but to me this journey
Is like a plane crash, I hurtle
Towards the ground, look out below!

My brothers and sisters and I
Pack together in an attempt to stay cold
And you slice through us with your skis and boards,
Separating families of powdery snow, you monsters!

You catch us on your tongues
And burn us. You pack us together and
Throw us through the air, as if
Our first fall from the sky wasn't enough.

When the air gets cold, and
We come around, we beg you to
Step lightly. In the meantime we shall
Endure the pain and pray for global warming.

Hopefully by the time it's due next week I will have edited it up some more and maybe make it a bit better, but I think the idea of it is entertaining. Anyway, I wasn't able to get a picture of the snow, but perhaps tomorrow morning I will if there's some left. But I did bake a mountain of cookies and got a picture of that!

They are so delicious!

OH in other news, Daisy escaped last night and was out in the cold all night long. We didn't realize she was gone until this morning, and we frantically ran around the apartment looking for her in all the nooks and crannies, but we couldn't find her anywhere! Luckily she was out in the apartment parking lot under a truck just waiting for her chance to get back inside. When our roommate Alex left for class this morning she came slinking up to the door to get back in. Poor thing was a little Daisy-sicle!

Weekend!

This weekend was pretty amazing! Yesterday Kara and I went to the Pacific Science Center for the Harry Potter Exhibition that they have there right now until January.It. Was. Amazing. They had props and costumes from all the movies! We wanted to touch everything, but of course that's not allowed... I would have taken pictures to post, but there were no cameras allowed, so that was a bit of a bummer. I feel like my infatuation with Harry Potter has come full circle now, even though it really hasn't. It's weird to think that from the time I was 8 or 9, I've read and re read all the books a hundred times! And then to actually see all the stuff from the movies that were made of the books that I love so much... It was just crazy!

After the Potter exhibit, we walked around the Science Center for a bit. We went into the butterfly house and a butterfly landed on my head. Then we left and went to the Northgate Mall for a bit before the Bo Burnham concert started. We went to a store called Forever 21, which is a nice store for college kids to shop at because everything is so super cheap. I bought a cute sweater and a pair of warm tights for 20 bucks. After we looked at everything in there, we went and ate at Panera Bread which is my new favorite place to eat. They have the most delicious black bean soup and bread bowls and the sandwich that Kara got looked amazing.

After eating, we went into the mall and walked around for a bit. We went into Zumiez (a store for skaters and boarders) so Kara could buy a beanie like mine. We talked to the guy in the store for awhile who was a bit pushy about trying to get me to buy something but I already have enough hats to last me a life time, so I had to keep coming up with reasons why I wasn't going to buy one from him. We kept walking around for bit, went into a REALLY expensive shoe store that had super cute boots, and then decided we should leave before we decide we want new shoes.

So we drove back to the Showbox Sodo. The doors opened at 7, but we didn't know that. So we got there at 6 and stood in line in the cold for an hour. It wasn't too bad though. When we finally got let in, it was open seating so we got to sit pretty close. After the show he always does meet and greets so we stood in line for half an hour afterwards to meet him again and get a picture with him. He was so funny to talk to in person!

Anywho, I have to go to homework now

Bo Burnham!

Today on our college radio station they were giving away a pair of tickets to go see Bo Burnham. Kara and I decided it would be pretty cool to see him again since we saw him last year and he has a whole bunch of new material now. So we drove around in her car for an hour and a half, listening to the radio and the crappy music they play, when FINALLY the DJ (who's a friend of ours) announced the ticket giveaway question. We were the first to call in and answer, and we won the tickets! So this Sunday, we're going to the Showbox in Seattle to see Bo Burnham again! So excited!

Pictures!

Ok, so here are some pictures from Halloweekend! Didn't get any pictures from the cornmaze, I forgot my camera and was too lazy to go back.

There's Daisy. She's such a relaxed cat, we can pretty much put whatever we want on her. So we stuck this bag on her and told people that she dressed up as a snail for Halloween.

That's Loren in his pumpkin costume. We found it at Goodwill for 4 bucks. He was pretty ferocious and scary in that costume.

Those are the pumpkins we carved at Nathan's on Sunday. The one on the top step is Rose's, the one on the right middle step is Kara's Harry Potter pumpkin, and the bottom one is Nathan's cyclops pumpkin.

And that's Kara dressed up as a fairy and me dressed as Ke$ha in Nathan's kitchen! Good times, good times!

And there's Daisy in the closet just because she's awesome :)

Why I Rarely Make Plans of Any Sort

Halloweekend didn't turn out at all as planned. First let me make it known that I'm not bitter or mad or sad or anything like that because in the end it turned out alright, just not what everyone was expecting. So anyway, let's start with Friday, shall we?

Friday we went to the same cornmaze we went to last year. I drove everyone in the Subaru (which was a little frightening because my driving in the dark experience is pretty slim). Before we went to pick everyone up at Kara's dorm, Loren and I were getting frustrated at each other for some stupid little thing which put us in weird "I want nothing to do with you right now" moods. Once we go to the cornmaze, Kara was too scared to go into it (she didn't have the best experience last year), so I stayed outside of the cornmaze with her. Instead we went on the tractor ride around the cornmaze like six times. Loren, Rose, and her friend Connie went into the cornmaze, then came back out to try and convince us to go in. Loren got even more frustrated with me because he was hungry and didn't really want to be there and the only reason he went with us was so he could go in the cornmaze with me. But I didn't go in so then we were super frustrated at each other and I felt terribly guilty about making him come along when I didn't even really need him to be there. Anyway, long story short it was just not a great night. And then we didn't end up going to Nathan's afterward because he got sick this weekend and wasn't feeling up to hanging out. So no dressing up as a faerie either.

Saturday was a bit better. Loren and I went shopping for ingredients for cider beef stew and oatmeal scotchies, then we came back and I made delicious stew. While the stew was simmering we did laundry, since it takes something like 2 hours to cook. Once it was done, we ate it while watching The Crazies, a scary movie about a disease in this farm town in Iowa that makes people go crazy and become creepy zombie-looking murderers. We watched the remake from 2009, not the original. It was sufficiently creepy. Then I made about 50 oatmeal butterscotch cookies that were sooo delicious and addicting. There's only a few left now because the boys swarmed on them before I could even finish all the batches. We were going to go to a party on Saturday night, but we found out that it was actually on Sunday, so we ended up watching another movie called The Insider which was really good. I didn't really realize how old Al Pacino is though. I just watched The Godfather a couple weeks ago, and I don't know, I guess I just expected him to still be that young and good-looking. But that's life, right? Overall, Saturday was a nice cozy day spent staying out of the rain and cooking all day.

Then Sunday came along. Loren had an ultimate frisbee game at 3 where everyone was supposed to play in costume. So we went to that. I dressed up as Ke$ha and Kara dressed up as a faerie and we sat on a blanket and were spectators to the game. It was pretty fun and there were some good creative costumes. Later that night, Nathan and Rose invited us over to Nathan's place for pumpkin carving and scary movie watching. On the way there Loren and I were arguing again about something stupid and made us in weird moods again. I ended up just staying at Nathan's with Kara and Rose and everyone while Loren left and went to the party that we were going to go to together. Nathan's place was fun though. We carved pumpkins and watched a stupid scary movie from the 90's called Candyman. We ate pizza and watched another movie from the 80's called My Bloody Valentine which was MUCH better than Candyman. Then I drove Rose and Kara back to their dorm and came back to the apartment, talked to Loren for a bit, then went to sleep!

So overall, it wasn't a terrible Halloweekend, just not what we all planned.

I'll post picture later today, but right now I have to get ready for class!

Halloween Weekend

So Halloween is quickly approaching and Kara and I have been planning our costumes. Tomorrow night we're going to the same haunted cornmaze that we went to last year in Yakima, which should be pretty scary and awesome! After that Kara and I are going to come back and dress up as faeries then go over to Nathan's to have a Halloween costume party. I actually don't know if anyone's going to dress up other than us, but oh well. I always have so many ideas for Halloween costumes but only one day to dress up! So this year I'm making a whole weekend of it. So Friday it will be faerie, Saturday I'm going as Ke$ha, who is a pretty big popstar right now. This is what she looks like:

So yeah, that's Ke$ha (Pronounced Kesha), she basically just wears a lot of ripped up clothes and has crazy hair and glitter all over her all the time, so it shouldn't be too hard to pull off.

Anyway, Sunday we probably won't do too much since the next day is class. We might go back to the cornmaze with another group of people, but not sure on that yet. Should be some good pictures though, so hopefully I'll have some to post.

Tomorrow I only have one class. I'm kind of sad about that because my other class got cancelled and I wish this one would get cancelled too so I would just have a long weekend.

GRAWR!

I don't know if it's just been the weather lately or what, but I'm seriously itching to ski right now. For the past week it's been a bit cooler and crisper here which makes it feel like I'm walking around in a little ski town, particularly Sun Valley. It feels like I should be walking down the sidewalk with all my gear on ready to hit the mountain instead of going to school. This might be because the scenery here looks a LOT like Sun Valley, pretty open sky with low rolling hills surrounding the town... And our apartments look kind of like little ski condos. When it snows here (which should be very soon), I'll post pictures so you can all see what I mean.

Speaking of snow, it's been snowing up at Snoqualmie! Not much, and on the webcams it just looks like rain, but hey I'll take it. It's supposed to snow here on Wednesday, although it'll be mostly rain...


I am so tired today, I just need to sleep now. I didn't get the best sleep this weekend and it's starting to accumulate. I got the paper about the family schism thing back from my English teacher and he suggested revisions but I think it's fine the way it is. The revisions would just make it like... way better, but I'm too tired to care. So if you want to read it I shall send it to you via e-mail. If I don't have your e-mail, send me an e-mail first, hannahryker@gmail.com

Prima Donna

So for the past 19 years of my life, I always thought that Prima Donna was spelled Pre-Madonna. Which of course doesn't really make sense when you're calling someone a prima donna, but today I just looked it up finally because I used it to describe Loren and he asked what it meant and I had a vague idea of the meaning, but I googled it just to be safe. Thanks Wikipedia for teaching me something new everyday!

In other news, I got on to TypeTrigger.com It's an invitation-only writing site that gives you a short prompt and then challenges you to write about that prompt in under 300 words (Paul told me about it). As far as I can tell, it seems fairly easy to get in, as long as you give them your e-mail they'll eventually e-mail you back, whether you consider yourself a writer or a plumber or a dragon-slayer, it doesn't matter. So don't congratulate me, it's not like I won some sort of award for my amazing and abundant prestige.

Paul also told me about 750words.com which is a site that challenges you to write 750 words a day on whatever you want, just as long as you do it. You get points for daily streaks of writing. So I'm doing that as well, which is pretty cool and super helpful for my English class right now. We have an assignment to write a fictionalized story and I was having some trouble with it, but when I'm writing on this website page instead of on a Word document, I've found it's a lot easier to get the creative juices flowing. So that website has so far been pretty useful. Although I spend all day in my classes daydreaming about what I'll write about when I get back to the apartment, so that's the only downside I suppose.

Weekend (edited)

Watched Nick's soccer game on Saturday! His team is so much better than the last time I watched them play. They have red jerseys, so they decided their team name would be Russia, which is pretty funny. The whole time I was watching, I just kept making communist jokes.

After the game, we went back and carved pumpkins. Mom made cider beef stew, Paul brought bread, and Erin brought pumpkins. My pumpkin turned out looking stupid as always, but Erin made a cute one that looked like Frosty the Snowman (unintentionally). I'll get some picture up in the next post. Right now I have to rush over to Kara's to study for our Philosophy exam at 2.

All the questions that were asked in the comments on the last post, I answered with another comment so that's where all the answers are! I'll put up pictures from the pumpkins later today most likely.

EDIT: Here's some pictures :)

 Nick with his "peace sign" pumpkin. Haha, it reminded me of the comic "Zits" where the son is wearing a shirt with the Mercedes logo on it and he thinks it's a peace sign and he says "give me peace, or give me a Mercedes, either way I win."

 Carvers at work!

The finished pumpkins! The one in the front on the left is Kara's Harry Potter pumpkin, the one next to it is Erin's ghost pumpkin. Behind those left to right are Nick's, Erin's, Paul's, mine, and Paul's again. I think if you click the images they get bigger in another window or tab or whatever everyone uses these days.

And here's a picture of Daisy, just because I think she's great. And fat. And very entertaining.

Sick

I'm sick. Bleck. Sore throat, super stuffy nose, "sick breath", etc. And I'm going home this weekend to carve pumpkins and get new license tabs for the car and whatnot. It seems like I always get sick right before I go home for a weekend. Maybe my subconscious mind makes me sick to get more attention or pampering or something? I don't know. The nice thing about college is that it's taught me how to suck it up and get on with life when you're sick. Like at home in high school, you have your parents who are like "oh you're sick, you don't have to go to school, here let me make you some soup." But in college no one cares so eventually I realize that and get out of my little cave of self-pity and move on with it. It's just a cold. I'm not dying. I don't need anyone to make me soup, I can do it myself now. So yeah, if I've learned anything from college so far, it's that no one really cares if you have a cold. Life goes on.

I love Fridays because I don't have class until noon. Which is good because on Thursday nights Jersey Shore is on and I usually don't get to bed until midnight because I go over to Kara's to watch it, and then get all worked up about it (I know, how silly of me), and then I can't sleep for awhile. So I got to sleep in today, which is nice.

On another note, I can't imagine how some girls manage to wear cute clothes every day. Like, really, it's a lot of effort. Why bother trying so hard? On Monday, I wore a dress with tights and some cute boots and my warm purple jacket and it was super cute, but so much effort to think about. I just don't get how some girls can spend that much time and thought on what they look like when there's so many other things to think about. But maybe it's just me. Maybe living on the Plateau didn't rub off on me like it did on so many of my other friends. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm off to make me a delicious egg for breakfast!

36 Degrees

It is currently 36 degrees out, and since Loren left the window open last night, it's absolutely freezing in here too. I turned on the heat for a little bit, which the cat appreciated.

Yesterday we got out energy bill for the first month. It was 32 dollars! Which split between 3 people is completely manageable, so we're all happy for that :) But as the weather gets colder we're going to need the heaters more soooo....

Today I don't have class until noon!

CheezBallz (a.k.a. the longest post EVER)

Instead of saying something is cheesey, I've taken to saying it's cheezballz. At the dollar store here, they sell Cheezballz in a can that looks like a Pringles can, except it's wider thus allowing even the fattest of fatties to fit their hands in there so they can get to their fake-cheesey puffs of saturated and trans fat. Cheezballz are basically a rip-off of Cheetos Puffs, except worse. So yeah. That's the story behind cheezballz. I felt the need to tell it because I have the feeling this post is going to be kind of cheezballz.

Alex and Loren and I went exploring through the Manastash canyon today. We found lots of campgrounds that I plan on going back to when the weather gets nice next spring/summer. If any of you ever drove up to our house in Carnation, imagine that hill of gravel road and steep drop-offs and all the bumps and holes and how narrow the road got in some places. Now multiply that hilly road by liiiike 100. We drove on a gravel road for probably 30 miles or so and it was really bumpy and there were cliffs on the side and parts of it were pretty scary. But overall it was really fun and nice to get back to the wilderness (here comes the cheezballz part).
Being out there in the woods really put my life back into perspective. Lately I've been acting kind of crazy, like overreacting to stupid little things Loren does or overreacting to the way the weather is or how many gnats there are flying around. Like everything has been making me mad lately and I've just not been a happy hannah. But getting back to the woods and being out there in the middle of nowhere pretty much turned all of that around. When you lose perspective on what's really important, it's nice be surrounded by things that are all a lot bigger than you. It was so peaceful to be surrounded by old mountains and old trees who have been there through all the rough weather and the snow and rain and forest fires and whatever else has happened in the time that they've been there. It's just a nice reminder that our lives go on regardless of the little (or big) things that make us mad.

So we drove out there and explored nearly empty campgrounds and old logging roads and such for about an hour and a half before we decided to turn around and find a place to build a fire so we could cook up dinner. We brought some chicken breasts that had been marinading for a couple days in some delicious concoction that Alex made, and they were SO good roasted in tinfoil on the campfire coals. I whittled some sticks into spears with my pocket knife so we could make s'mores with giant marshmallows. It was really fun!
It's kind of funny to go and do outdoorsy things with people who don't necessarily know my background. I guess at first glance I don't come off as the outdoorsy type to most, because it seems like they underestimate me in these sort of situations. It's like, I know how to pitch a tent, I know how to light a fire (I mean those things literally, not in any other way for those of you with your heads in the gutter), lord knows I've done those things about a thousand times in my life thanks to camping with my dad and then being a camp counselor. I know the fine art of cooking things over a fire, it's like I've been there, I've done that so many times. But in order not to sound like a stupid know-it-all girl I kept my mouth shut tonight. I figured tonight was the Alex Show, he can do it his way and next time I go camping without him I'll do it all my way. I just don't like being underestimated or being pushed aside as "a girl who wouldn't know a thing about camping". Pshaw biotches I know what I'm doing.

Anyway, enough about that. I've sort of decided that this blog needs to have more of my thoughts behind it (as you may have guessed by all my thoughts in the previous paragraphs). I feel like I've been writing a lot of what I've been doing but not so much my thoughts on it. So that's that.

I would have taken pictures of the adventure but as usual in my rush to get ready to go I forgot it. But there will be much more adventuring there in the future. OH I almost forgot! On Thursday I went on a hike to Umtanum Falls with Alex, Loren, and our friend Eric. I'll post some pictures of that below.

I have more but the internet is being dumb and not loading them right. But you get the idea, it was lovely Fall colors at the falls!

Daisy and Me!

Here's a picture of Daisy and me! Not the best quality since it was taken with my webcam, but at least you'll get the idea of what she looks like :)

Creative NonFiction

In English, my teacher gave us an assignment last week. We have to write a creative nonfiction narrative about something in our lives with emotional complexity. While I have no shortage of those things, I decided to go with the biggest and most current one. The Family Schism.

I have to say, it's a difficult thing to write about. Not really because it's emotional for me, more just because I can't really get it all in within the limit of 6 pages. I mean, it's emotional too, but gee whiz, it's kind of a long story to write! It's weird to think that I could go on and on for pages, but it all happened within a fairly short amount of time. Although who knows how long it will all drag out.

On Monday night, my professor was doing a reading of some of the poems in his latest published collection of poems, and since I'm in his class he wants us to go to the readings. So I went and it was pretty good! It was definitely a good experience I think, to listen to someone's poems and hear how they flow out loud rather than just in my head. In between poems he talked a little about why he wrote poetry and where his inspiration for each poem came from. He's a pretty funny guy. He called poetry "the cultural skunk in the road that people swerve to avoid", which I thought was hilarious and very true. He explained how he feels that it's his job to write good poetry since so few people out there do it well these days.

Very interesting. His name is Joseph Powell if any of you are interesting in Googling him. I'm off to finish this narrative before it's due tomorrow.

Insta-Fall

It literally turned into Fall over night here last night. Since I've been here, it's been 80 degrees most everyday and sunny and warm which is nice and all, but I am SO ready for the crisp cooler weather. I'm ready to wear sweaters and hats and mittens and snow boots. But I hate wearing long pants, so that's the only downside....

But yeah, yesterday was warm and it was a nice warm night and then I woke up this morning, and it was cloudy and all the leaves were falling and it's much cooler. So yay!

Anyway, who cares about the weather. Yesterday Kara and I went to Yakima to go longboarding at the same place where she fell last year and got hurt so bad. But we walked down the big hills and stuck mostly to the flat stuff so no one was hurt this time! It was a lot of fun, and we're both getting a lot better. I'm still not confident enough to ride it to class, but riding around campus when it's not too crowded is pretty nice :)

OH! I almost forgot! On Friday, Loren's parents dropped by on their way to Selah and dropped off Loren's cat from home! Her name is Daisy and she is a very fat calico. She's about 3, but she still acts like a young playful kitty so she's a lot of fun to play with! I'll try to get some pictures of everything up soon. I always feel like a tourist (or in this case a freshman) when I take pictures of things, but I'm trying to overcome that.

Still don't know what I'm going to write about for a serious blog. Not even sure if I was serious about making a serious blog. But thanks for the serious suggestions anyway! I have filed them away in the back corners of my brain where they shall stew for awhile.

Ah and one more thing. My creative writing teacher is da bomb. We have a lot of similar ideas when it comes to writing. Ideas like don't push the reader's emotional buttons too hard and stop writing stupid cliches. Of course I say that, but then I probably write stupid cliches all over the place. But whatever. I like the way he teaches, and I think his class will help my writing be a lot more raw and authentic and a little less hollow.

Blog Ideas

Sooo I want to start a serious blog. I know I'm kind of late in following that trend, but I want to write about something and gain a lot of followers and make it something with a specific audience and all that. The only problem is that every single thing I can think of to blog about has pretty much already been done. Soooo if anyone can give me any original ideas, that would be grrrreat! I'm thinking maybe a blog about skiing? Buuut then I'd actually have to travel around more to ski at places that I've never been before! Which really isn't in the current budget plan.

So, any ideas would be great! comment with ideas! I think anonymous people can comment too, but if not emails are good too

First Day of Class!

Alright, so just got back from my first day of class a little bit ago! Here's the rundown on teachers/classes.

10 a.m. - Creative Writing.

• teacher didn't show up so I don't know what he's like, but he did send someone else to hand out the syllabus. She said he's an accomplished writer and poet, so he MUST be a pretty cool dude.

12 p.m. - Biology 101

• I appreciated the professor's honesty about the class. She flat out said that the class is going to be difficult and it's going to take a lot of time and effort to do well in it.

2 p.m. - Intro to Logic

• the teacher seems great, he's pretty funny and smart. We'll see how it goes. Logic is a lot like math with equations and things so I'm not 100% sure that I'll be very good at it, but I'm going to try and not think about that too much so as to not subconsciously ruin my chances at a good grade.

I'd write more about the classes themselves, but I'm pretty tired. I'm sure there will be much more to come though as the classes progress.

Facebook

My friend and I have decided to boycott facebook. Mainly because people take it too seriously, but also because it's just an annoying waste of time. I mean, it is nice to have to look at pictures and to post pictures and blahblahblah but for the most part it just irks me. Example: tons of people thought me and Loren broke up awhile back just because we took our relationship status off of our profiles. Really? If you really want to know what I'm doing, just e-mail me or text me (but don't call me because I have limited phone minutes and I don't really enjoy talking). It annoys me that people assume things about people's lives just because of some cryptic status update they posted on facebook or because someone took down a relationship status or because someone is no longer facebook friends with someone else. Like...really? Gee whiz.

On a different note, today I walked around campus, paid tuition, went to the bank, and made a delicious sandwich. Later today, Kara and I are going to drop off resumes. Later tonight a big group of friends are going to see Iron Man 2 for free, so I suppose I'll crawl out of my warm and dark cave to go to that too. 

visits

Got back from visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Bow yesterday! Good times and food and conversation as usual :) Got lots of delicious cheese and salami and bread which Nick and I both think is fantastic despite not being Haggens bread.

All my friends are finally back in Ellensburg, so hopefully this blog will get more entertaining again. School starts Wednesday so that will add to the entertainment factor as well.

Home Alone!

Today I have the apartment all to myself! Alex went back to Seattle for some stuff, and Loren decided to go with him and catch a ferry home to get some stuff that would be useful here. They're coming back tomorrow, but I might be gone before they get here since I'm picking Nick up when he gets out of school and then driving out to Bow for a visit! Hopefully I won't get lost :)

aaaand hopefully the car won't explode on the freeway.

Buuuuut I doubt that will happen!

Yesterday I found a mug at Goodwill exactly like one of the ones I used to eat soup out of at the old farmhouse in sammamish. Needless to say I bought it for nostalgic reasons. That and I needed a good soup mug :) That and it was only 69 cents.

Also, I think trail mix should be made with no raisins. How about chocolate chips instead.

Move In Day!

We are all moved in to the apartment! Now just doing the finishing touches!

First night, Alex made dinner for us and now he and his girlfriend are making homemade chocolate chip cookies! After dinner we rode our bikes around campus. It's really cool to be back and see everything all empty before all the freshmen get here.

Pictures to come!

Packin' Up

So I'm leaving this week for Ellensburg! I was supposed to head over Wednesday, but now I will be heading back Friday. One of my roommates is heading over on Wednesday though, so he can get the internet and electricity and everything all set up! I can't wait to be over there. Here it's cold and rainy, but it's supposed to be pretty nice over there! Friday it's supposed to be 69 and sunny!

Speaking of Sunny, the poor dog knows that I'm leaving again and is all sad and neurotic. He won't leave my room when I'm in there and he keeps looking at me with the saddest eyes. It's so depressing!

Loren was looking at Ellensburg craigslist last night and found FREE KITTENS that need homes by early October. Guess who's most likely going to have a kitten :)

Drivers License

I gots it! Finally, 3 years in the making, I have my license and am insured! So tonight I am driving to Paul's house, and then taking Loren down to the ferry! Woohoo

Summer Life

I don't think I've ever said this before in my life, but I can't wait for summer to end! I can't wait to get back to real life! Summer life feels like old hannah's life and I'm done with it. I'm ready to get back to school and get back in the swing of things.

I got a letter from school the other day saying that I have made it onto the Dean's list because my grades in Spring quarter were so good! So woohoo yay me! I have a feeling that this coming year is going to be even better. They have scholarships for 4.0 students right? I'll try for that :)

Went to take my drive test 2 days ago. Twas a failure of epic proportion. I got so nervous I messed up EVERYTHING but whatever. By the time I get my license cars will be obsolete anyway. I'm scheduled to take it again September second because that was the soonest opening they have. Mom says that if I get it that time though, I might be able to take the car with me to Ellensburg which would mean more skiing in the winter and I'd have more options of places to look for finding a job since otherwise I'd have to go someplace within biking distance.

Getting my wisdom teeth out in 19 days! I'm excited to have my first ever surgery! My dad says that getting knocked out by drugs is horrible, but his experience with it has been MUCH different so I'm not worried.

Fourth of July

Went over to Vashon to hang with Loren and his friends for the 4th. We made a campsite at some random spot we hiked down to while it was still light out, then went to the Lagoon to watch the firework show in the harbor. There were about 20 of us all together. When we all got back to the campsite, we lit off more fireworks of our own, and danced to techno all night long. Literally. We didn't sleep a single minute.

We cleaned up the camp spot and got back to Loren's house at about 8 in the morning. Went to sleep at 8:15 and didn't wake up again until 5 that evening. Ate some dinner, and went back to bed again at 9. And now I'm back home and the weather is nice! Woo!

Vashon Ultra!

The ultra was on Saturday, and I just got back from Vashon yesterday. Loren completed all 31 miles in 5 hours!

Grades

So far, all my teachers have posted except Bowling. So so far I have an A, an A-, and a B! Woooo.

Tomorrow Loren and Nathan are coming over from Vashon and me, Kara, and Rose are going to meet up with them and go bowling and then eat at Triple X! Then Loren is going to stay with me for a couple of nights! I can't wait to see everybody! It hasn't even been a week yet, but I miss them all a lot.

Back home!

Moved everything out and am now at home unpacking my stuff. Most of it is all out, now I have to do some extension cord rearranging so I can put up my lights and stuff.

This Time Tomorrow

By this time tomorrow, I will be home!

Today was so nice! Took my final, got breakfast, helped Kara move stuff to her car, hung out, ate lunch, sat on Barto Lawn for the last time EVER (they're tearing down Barto next year), did some henna, watched some ultimate frisbee, ate with Loren, had yummy ice cream... Mmmm! All that's left on my list of things to do is finish packing and cleaning and run to the water tower tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise.

Then it will be sayoonara Ellensburg! Until midsummer when I come back to try and secure a job for next school year :)

Beautiful Day

It's warm and sunny out but I've been inside all day packing. Anthropology final tomorrow at 8 in the morning and then I'm done! My grades, as far as I know so far, are an A, A-, and then whatever I got for bowling and whatever I get for Anthropology.

Anthropology has been a tough one this quarter, there's only so much I can hear about monkeys and genetics before I start to zone out. Cultural Anthropology back in winter quarter was so much better! This one was too science-y. Luckily my major requires no science so I can go on living my life being blissfully unaware of my genetic relation to chimpanzees.

Here I go, back to more packing! I'm out of boxes so I've resorted to just shoving things in garbage bags.

Obligatory Sad Face :(

This is the last weekend of my freshman year of college!!! I can't believe it went by so fast. Tomorrow me and Loren are going to walk to Goodwill. Then I don't know what the rest of my plans are. Probably just packing up my room... My only final is going to be open note, so I don't even really have to study for it at all.

Plans for this summer:

• Get a job
• Run a lot
• Sleep outside in a tent most of the time
• Buy most of my clothes at goodwill or value village

Aaaand that's about it. The first thing I want to do when I get back is go to Value Village in Redmond. It's super huge and they have a much better selection than the goodwill here. 

Sasquatch pics

So here's a few pictures from the Gorge. After the first day I stopped carrying my camera with me though, because it was just too much to keep track of in such a big crowd of people.

Those are the metal wild horses up on the hill! We stopped here to wait for our caravan of people, and then hiked up to the top where it was so windy we thought we were going to get blown right over the cliff!

There's the main stage with the Gorge behind it! I think if you click the picture it will get bigger, so you can see some of the detail of the river and everything. It was Gorge-ous! haha, I'm so pun-derful!

And finally, here's a picture of the beautiful sunset over the Gorge, and all the trash that was left behind after day 1. They cleaned it up each night and the next day there was minimal trash on the ground, but not outside in the camping area! I stumbled over other people's beer cans the whole time in the campground area.

And that's that! I only have one final to study for, so this week is mostly being spent packing up more stuff. I've thrown out so much junk already, and yet still have so much!! It's mindboggling.

Sasquatch!!!

There are no words in the english language to describe how amazing it was! The camping was crazy, and there were dance parties all night long, then during the days we would walk about a mile to get into the venue and see all the bands. There were 4 stages with different bands playing all day long. I met all of Loren's friends from Vashon, and camped with them and it was so much fun! By the end of 4 days without showering though, we were all pretty disgusting. I'll upload a couple pictures I took of the Gorge later.

And now it's back to the real world where things actually matter... It's so hard for me to switch gears so quick like that. I just want to be camping still and seeing bands everyday and partying all night long. But whatever, there's only a week of school left.

T-Minus 8 Hours

8 hours until Loren and I are getting picked up for Sasquatch!!! I can hardly contain myself. Last night I was watching videos of Deadmau5 (the main dude we're going to see) and I was just bouncing in my seat I can't wait!

Didn't run this morning, but ran yesterday morning. Hopefully all the concerts I go to this weekend will count as some sort of workout :) especially deadmau5, cuz you're pretty much jumping up and down the whoooole time! The main video I've been watching to get myself psyched about it is this one where he was live at Coachella about a month ago I think. It's crazy! AGH!

Exactly One Month

I have exactly one month from today to get my running stamina up enough to run 10 miles straight. On June 26th, Loren is doing the Vashon Island Ultramarathon, and I'm planning on being his pacer for the last 10 miles because he doesn't have one yet. So this month will be spent running running running!! I'm going to be so nervous and excited and aagh! I hope I can do it without my foot acting up again...

Loren got a brand new pair of Vibrams today called the Bikila's. They're the first Vibram shoe specifically designed for running, and I tried them on and they're pretty awesome! Tonight I'm going to go run in my Vibrams as the first day of training for my 10 miles. Haha, I feel so lame being my age and not being able to run 10 miles. Oh well, whateverrrr

Packing Up

In preparation for move out day the second week of June, I've slowly been packing up my room and throwing out the things I don't need/want anymore. It's funny, I've been finding things that I brought here that I didn't even remember bringing, such as my doublespaced written all over copy of Harry Pothead. I must have meant to finish editing it and rewrite bits, but I guess I forgot. Perhaps I'll finish that over the summer. Hopefully I haven't lost my ability to be completely random and weird. 8th grade when I wrote that was such a long time ago...

Getting rid of things is so hard for me! Even things I don't use ever. Or like the collages I've made, or drawings I've done. I have so many pieces of paper that I have nothing to do with but throw out. It's ridiculous. If I could go back in time and tell my past self anything, I would tell me to not hold on to things so much. It's just a pain to lug around with you everywhere you go, and a pain to get rid of when the time to get rid of it comes. The past moves I've done over the past couple years or so have really helped me to narrow everything down to what I need and what I don't, but I'm STILL wading through papers and "art pieces" and silly little things. Ugh, whatever.

I signed up for my Fall Quarter classes yesterday. I have English 263, which is a creative writing class required for my intended major. I also have Biology 101, since it's under the General Education requirements that I still have to fulfill. And I'm also taking Philosophy 201, introduction to logic. I've heard that one is pretty hard, so we'll see. It fulfills one of the sections of Basic Skills requirements. After that, I only have to take a math class and one more science class, and then I can declare my major and start taking classes towards it. Pretty exciting!

I can't believe Freshman year is almost over. It feels like Hogfarts. Like, I live here and have adventures and stuff, then I go back home for the summer to live in my cupboard under the sink with my pet platypus, Hedgepig. I like the dark. It's cold and cramped and damp and that's where I'm staying!! Haha, oh Harry Pothead, I have missed you my dear character friend :)

Thanks Facebook!

Thanks to the wonderfulness of Facebook and Eric's picture taking skills, I now have a few pictures of the hike! I promise this will be the last post about the stupid hike, I know it probably seems like I won't shut up about it.

But anyway, here's a few visuals, since descriptions have never been my strong point:

So this is us at the starting gate. There were 8 of us total, but here it's just me, Alex, and Loren running up to us.

Here's a picture of me, Loren, Jarrod, and his girlyfriend. We weren't too far along the trail at this point.

We found this abandoned house/shack thing along the side of the trail! Pretty cool. Right after we saw this was where we lost the trail I think.

This is the view from one of the ridges we walked along trying to find where the trail would loop back around.

This is us once we finally found the right trail and were headed back to the car.

And finally, here's that rocky part of trail that I was talking about. NOT so good for Vibrams. Anyone who wore normal shoes and complained about their feet hurting on this hike honestly does not understand the true meaning of pain.

And that's the last post about the hike, I promise :)