College Life

Slightly Spicy Potato Soup!

2012-01-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

There's a foot of snow on the ground here (or at least there was before it warmed up a bit today), and when you're walking home from class in weather that's so cold it hurts to breathe, something thick and warm and yummy sounds like the best thing ever! So this week I decided to make potato soup in the crock pot, and since it turned out so yummy, I thought I should share!

The recipe was taken and modified from THIS one here, but I'll type it out here with my modifications.

3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled [I forgot this and it was still really good without]
4 red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks [I used 4 biggish ones and 2 smaller ones]
1/4 cup butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups milk
1 cup sour cream [I just used one big dollop, probably about half a cup]
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons seasoned salt [One teaspoon is PLENTY! This soup is very salty]
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes [DO NOT use a full tablespoon. I used one teaspoon and it was still VERY spicy]
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
chives for garnish (optional)

Directions

Preheat a large slow cooker by turning it to the High setting and covering with the lid.
Place the cut-up potatoes in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave on High for about 8 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked and steaming hot.
While the potatoes are cooking, place the butter in the preheated slow cooker, and cook and stir the onions and garlic for about 5 minutes, until the onions turn golden [I DID ALL THIS in a separate pan, then moved the onions over to the crock pot and continued]. Stir in 1/2 cup of milk, and whisk in the flour until smooth. Gradually whisk in the remaining 3 cups of milk, and let the mixture come to a simmer in the slow cooker [For me it took waaay too long to start simmering so I just added everything in once it got warm and it still turned out fine]. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until the soup begins to thicken.
Stir in the hot cooked potatoes, crumbled bacon, sour cream, Cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, seasoned salt, parsley, red pepper flakes, celery salt, and dried basil. Stir to mix the soup well, reduce the slow cooker setting to Low, cover, and cook for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with chives and serve.[I cooked for only an hour and a half on high, and it was delicious! I don't think it really needs to cook 3 whole hours]

Toward the end, the soup still wasn't as thick as I wanted so I whisked in a teeny bit more flour and it thickened up perfectly! I also put in more parsley than the recipe called for, and it definitely didn't hurt :)

Nothing like some potato soup to finish off a cold day!

Happy 2012!!

2012-01-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Ellensburg after being home for nearly a month! Winter break was pretty fantastic - mostly because the amount of skiing I did was an insane amount for pre-season. I usually never ski before Christmas, but I took my boyfriend up to Snoqualmie and got him hooked on the ski bug, so after that we went skiing quite a bit. I wish I had pictures of it, but I always seem to forget to bring my camera to the mountain!

Powderpigs starts up this weekend. Since I have no classes on Fridays, I'm going to teach Friday nights and Saturday lessons!

I usually don't have New Year's Resolutions, but this year I've decided that I'm going to constantly remind myself to do my best. I always find that with school papers and projects, I hand them in thinking "this would have been so much better if I had started it a week ago", or "I could've done better on this and I will next time". But I rarely hold myself to that. Somehow I manage to squeak by every time, but I know I can always do better. So to remind myself of this, I'm going to make some sort of collage on my wall. I have a nice big blank space that would be perfect!

Happy New Year everybody! Here's to a fantastic year :) (since it might be the last year on Earth)

Snow!

2011-11-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

The snow appeared very quickly here this Winter! Last Thursday the roommates and I went to the midnight premiere of the newest Twilight movie, and we had to wait in line for a bit outside in the cold. When the movie was over we came outside to find that it had been snowing while we were inside! The snow hasn't left since then. Saturday morning, I woke up to find this outside my bedroom window:

It was snowing so hard out!

On Saturday we had a Thanksgiving potluck like we did last year with our friends. By the early afternoon when I went to pick up potatoes at the store, even more snow had accumulated and it was still snowing!

Anyway, I'm getting really excited for Thanksgiving Break! I'm heading over the Pass early Tuesday afternoon (weather permitting) and then Wednesday we're flying down to visit the Californians for Thanksgiving! I can't wait to have a much needed break from schoolwork.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Classes for Winter 2012

2011-11-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

Signed up for classes this morning, and here's what I got:

English 371 - Literature and History. No idea what the class is about other than, well, literature and history, but it's with the same professor who teaches my Shakespeare class so it's bound to be good!

English 419 - British Lit Studies (or something like that). The class is going to focus on Jane Austen novels in particular!

And Psychology 314 - The Human Learner. This is the only class for the education part of my major that I could get into. All the other classes were full by the time I actually got to sign up.

I'm excited for this schedule because my first class from Monday to Thursdays is at eleven (no waking up super early!) and the best part is that I don't have classes on Fridays! Granted, English 419 is a 2-hour long class, but I think it'll be worth it to have that extra free day each week to catch up on homework and such. I know I've been wishing I had that this quarter since I feel like I'm always playing catch up.

I'm making Japanese curry for dinner tonight and this weekend I'm going to try to bake something new: Maple pecan cinnamon rolls! If they turn out well, I'll post the recipe with some pictures!

The Wasteland Blog

2011-11-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

Not much has been happening on the blog here, but everything else has been busy busy busy!

Today I had my first midterms of midterm season. Grammar has been pretty easy stuff, although it's turning me into a grammar nazi. I never used to correct people when they talked because I knew things sounded wrong but I didn't know why. Now that I know the technicalities of why someone's speech is wrong I've turned into an insufferable know-it-all.

Shakespeare class is a lot of fun, but boy it's difficult. This is the first class I've had where I actually feel like I'm in a college-level class. The professor expects more of us than any other professor I've ever had, and her grading system is super tough. Hopefully I'll still have a B in the class after she grades the midterm! I'm always scared to get grades from her.

Although Linguistics is the most boring class I've ever had, I have to say it's the one I'm doing the best in. We just got our latest test back today and I got a 94.7 on it!

That's the latest on my classes... I'm not sure what I'm taking next quarter yet, but there will most likely be some education classes thrown into the mix now! I'm really excited to take some classes other than English because although I love English, it would be nice to have a little variety like I did last year!

Oh, and have I mentioned how excited I am that there's snow in the mountains? Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook probably knows! It's pretty much all I can think about!

October!

2011-10-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

So, this month has been just as busy as anticipated. Dad and Deborah came and visited on the 7th, then last weekend I went home to carve pumpkins!

I made taffy apple cupcakes for the little party. They were pretty yummmyy :)

Tomorrow Grandpa is coming to visit! I'm trying to think of something yummy to bake... Maybe more pumpkin bread!

Here Comes October!

2011-09-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's almost October and that I've been living here for a month already! October is definitely my favorite month, and I'm going to make pumpkin-flavored things this weekend to celebrate. I think today I'm going to make pumpkin spice cupcakes and tomorrow or Sunday I'm going to make some pumpkin bread. I bought a BIG can of pumpkin, so I have to use it all up somehow!

October is going to be a busy busy month. I have all my weekends filled up with plans already. Next weekend, Dad and Deborah are coming to visit, the weekend after that I'm going home, the weekend after that Grandpa is visiting, and the weekend after that my friend Erin from high school is visiting and it's also Halloween!

Now, back to the homework pile!

Class Review

2011-09-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

After having three days of classes, I can officially say that this quarter is going to be a tough one.

Every morning at 9 I have English Grammar. The professor is a really nice old guy, and he's really funny but a lot of his sessions are unorganized and bounce all over the place. I really hope that it gets better as the quarter goes on! Then right after that class, I have English Linguistics at 10. Now, this is the class I know is going to be extra difficult. My professor is a Chinese guy who has a hard time speaking English so half the time I can't understand what he's saying. The textbook he requires for this class is really easy to read and understand though, so that's a plus. And he's making us have mandatory study groups once a week so that should help too.

And last but not least, I am taking a Shakespeare class. I think it must be a rule written somewhere deep in an old book in an old library that you have to be extremely cool to teach Shakespeare, because this professor is amazing! In this class we're going to be reading Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, and Hamlet. I'm pretty excited because I've never read any of those and I was worried that we might be going over the same old plays I've already read.

Hooray, it's Friday! On Friday's I only have my Grammar class, so I'm done by 10!

Back from Disneyland!

2011-09-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

Kara and I got back from Disneyland last Wednesday night! We met almost every single character while we were there. This is us with Ariel! We also have pictures of us with Pluto, Donald Duck, and almost all the Disney princesses.

This one is my favorite! Tigger is my all-time favorite character, and I was just as excited to meet him as the little kids in line were! This blog is about to get really sentimental, but I can honestly say that I had one of those cliche "disney moments" when I met Tigger. We hugged and danced around in a circle and I was so ecstatic for the rest of the day! Highlight of my life? I think yes!

This Tigger sweatshirt is the best thing I bought at Disneyland. They only come in little kid sizes, so I just bought a large and vowed to never ever put it in the dryer. The sleeves are a little short, but the fact that there are Tigger ears on the hood makes up for that completely!

In other news, classes start tomorrow! I got all my textbooks for under 100 dollars, which is a miracle. On Saturday I took the West-B test, which is a requirement to get into the teaching program. It's basically like the WASL. I won't know my scores until October, but I'm really hoping I passed because standardized testing is probably one of my least favorite things.

I'm getting really excited for fall, but the weather isn't cooperating. Yesterday I wanted to make pumpkin spice cupcakes, but it just feels wrong to make food with fall flavors when it's still 80 degrees outside! Of course as soon as the rainy weather sets in, I'll probably be complaining that it's not cold enough to snow and then when it snows I'll complain that it's not warm enough to wear shorts anymore. Ah, the vicious cycle of life!

Pictures!

2011-09-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

This is my door, covered in My Little Pony pictures that I colored in. For whatever reason, Blogspot won't let me flip the picture so it's upright, but you get the idea!

Here's the view of part of my room! It's a bit messy right now while I sort everything out, but it's not bad!

This is another view of my room. The lady hanging on the wall holds all my jewelry and my tutu. Her name is Lulu!

Here's our two bathroom sinks. Behind me in that closet is our very own washer and dryer (YAY no more saving quarters!) and on the left through that door is where the bathroom and shower is. 3 girls sharing one shower? Yikes!

This is our living room and kitchen. It's pretty spacious with REALLY tall ceilings! Guess who's going to have the tallest Christmas tree on the block!

Our pantry, sideways once again. We stocked up on food at the Costco in Yakima. We have plenty of rice, pasta, quinoa, oatmeal, and tons of frozen meat in our freezer, so I don't think we'll starve any time soon!

Out back we have a little patio area with a storage shed! I keep my bike in the shed, and we might bring a barbecue back from my mom's house so we can grill out back!

Kara and I on the Ferris Wheel at the fair!

Today we decided to make cupcakes. They're really really yummy!

That's all I have for pictures for now. Hope everyone had a good Labor Day!

We're Back!

2011-09-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

We're finally back in Ellensburg! We moved in yesterday and spent all day organizing and putting things away. We're working on hooking up internet still though, so I'm typing this all up at Starbucks. Our place is really nice and a lot more spacious than the apartment I lived in last year!

Today we're going to Costco in Yakima to stock up on some food. Tomorrow we're probably going to go to the Ellensburg Rodeo since that's going on right now and none of us have ever been to it! I'll probably have pictures from that, so I'll just do a massive picture post on Sunday night or Monday so you can see what our duplex looks like!

We'll be busybusybusy the next few days!

Back to the Burg!

2011-08-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly getting ready to head back to Ellensburg! We're moving in on the first of September even though school doesn't start until September 21st. On September 10th, Kara and I are going to a concert in Seattle and then the next day we're going to Disneyland until September 14th! Looks like September's going to be pretty busy.

Work this summer has been a ton of fun, and I actually got asked back by my boss for next summer. I told him we'll see, because if I get a good job in Ellensburg that I can keep over the summer I'll just stay there next summer. But who knows, that's a long way away from now!

Summer...?

2011-06-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

The weather on this side of the mountains is making me think it's still March! I'm starting to lose my nice Ellensburg tan (I know, feel sorry for me...haha). All is well here on the west side, Sunny is happy to have someone at home more often! We've been going on lots of walks in my spare time, so he's extra happy about that!

My grades have all been posted, and they aren't as fantastic as I had been hoping for, but they aren't horrible. I got an A in Poetry, an A in Math, and a C+ in my other English class. I'm not happy with that grade because I feel like I worked really hard in that class, but the instructor is such a tough grader! But oh well, at least now I know what to expect from him if I get in his class again. But anyway, that brought my cumulative GPA up a bit, so now I'm at a 3.215!

So that's all the news I have for now. Tomorrow I'm going in to work at 7 in the morning, but I think I'll be done by about noon, so that's not too bad!

Dead Day

2011-06-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today is Dead Day, the day before finals begin. I am working on the worst paper ever written (although I always say that and usually things turn out better than expected), and tomorrow I will be working on the paper for my other English class. It sucks to be stuck inside with such beautiful weather out there, but at least this is the last week of school work!

I dyed my hair a little lilac on Saturday. Luckily it's semi permanent and will wash out before I have to start work. I doubt I'd be able to have unnatural hair in this work environment.

You can see the lilac peeking out a little under my hair! I love it, and can't wait to be able to do it again. The stuff I used is pretty cheap so I can keep switching up colors. Next time I'm going to use turquoise!

This has been a procrastination post! I must go back to paper writing!

Sasquatch! 2011

2011-05-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

Had a great time at Sasquatch! The car didn't break down, the tent didn't leak or blow away, and surprisingly I'm not having too hard a time of assimilating back into the real world! So everything went better than expected.
Here's some pictures that Loren and I took of the festival:

There's our lovely little campsite. The tent Paul got me for my birthday was just the right size! Not too small, but not large enough to be a pain for two people to set up!

The main stage off to the right with a pretty view of the river in the distance! The clouds make for some wonderful pictures :)

This was a picture of a dance party going on behind where we were sitting. Lots of dancing to be had this weekend!

And there I am on the last day, being a smelly, dirty hippie! Had lots of fun!

And now back to the real world, where I have a paper to write and stories to read and laundry to do! This is the last week of classes before finals, and then I'm packing up and shipping back home for the summer probably on the 9th or 10th of June! College needs to slow down. Everything is going by waaaay too quickly!

NEW look

2011-05-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

I changed some stuff up (clearly) but this is still Hannah! Still the same blog, no you didn't type the URL wrong, no I didn't disappear, this is the same blog. Here I am, hello!

Haha didn't want anyone to be alarmed by the change. But the black background was a bit overbearing.

Classes for next Fall

2011-05-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just signed up for next year's classes. Looks like I'm going to be taking English Linguistics, English Grammar, and Shakespeare. Sounds like Fall quarter will be a stressful one!

But once I take linguistics and grammar, from there all the classes I need to take for this major sound pretty fun. So I'll just have to slog through Fall, I suppose.

It's 79 degrees out today! And it's Friday! Wooohoo!

Sonnet 2

2011-05-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

In my poetry class we were given an assignment to write a sonnet. Of course, a mixture of wonderful weather and an attitude of "I can bust that out in no time!" led to major procrastination. It's due today, and I just finished it, and I thought I might share it. Keep in mind though, the purpose of this assignment wasn't so much to pay attention to the words, but more to pay attention to the meter and the variations in the poem. So if the last line seems a little cliche, sorry, but we're being graded 20 points for meter and only 10 points for actual content of the poem.

It's about camping at Sasquatch Festival (which has been on my brain lately since it's only a week away!)

Festival Camping

Drove for an hour, and we've finally
Made it, been counting down days for a year.
Past the steel horses running wildly,
Now we're in a land where everything's clear.
I park the car, you pitch the tent, we've got
Provisions for days. We're not very near
To the entrance, but tomorrow we'll go walk
A mile just to buy nine-dollar beers.
It's now been four days, and I swear my hair
Is standing up all on its own. Could use a mirror,
Or maybe a shower, and a comfy chair
To fall asleep in. I won't find that here.
So now we take the tent apart and leave,
Wait for next year to come back and be free.

So that's that! Not the best, but I did write it in a sleepy stupor this morning, so I guess it's not bad for being half asleep! Not as good as The Craving, though. Nothing I write will ever compare to that magnificent eight-page-long beast!

The Cravin'

2011-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

I was looking through some old poems and unearthed this gem that I wrote for my junior year English class back in high school. A parody of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven", written at the kitchen counter with Paul whilst eating pizza that had questionable meat substances on it. The memories behind this poem made me laugh so hard as I was rereading it, I just have to share it.

The Craving

Once upon a meal-time dreary, whilst I pondered weak and weary,
Whether or not I should dare to open the great freezer door
While I sat working quotients, suddenly there came a notion
As if someone clearly motioned, motioned at my cupboard door
A trick of the light, I muttered, trick of the light at my cupboard door
Only this and nothing more.

Now, this I can hardly remember, my mind being so starved with hunger
And each algebraic number staring into my every pore
Eagerly I wished for bacon, yet there was none for the makin'
Instead I grabbed my algebra book and threw it down upon the floor
No food there among the floor.
Stomach rumbling evermore.

And this pathetic new position left me feeling opposition
To the five-second rule that was tested oh so many years before
And so now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating
"If I find something worth eating lying on my kitchen floor,
If I find some sweet morsel here upon my kitchen floor,
I will eat it evermore!"

Eventually my might grew stronger, and hesitating then no longer
I crawled and crept my way over to the inviting pantry door
Now at this spot I did lunge forward, hoping for some food-reward
Finally came open the door
Boxes falling from inside the door
Alas, empties, nothing more.

Sitting in a sea of boxes, longing, dreaming, of roast foxes
Doubting whether I would ever see another day or more;
Here the silence was only broken by the rustling of those empty tokens
And the only words here spoke were "Should I try the cupboard door?"
Answered back was the murmur, "Yes do try the cupboard door
For here lies boxes, nothing more."

Now here, back to the kitchen turning, all my limbs so weak were burning
I swear I saw another motion, clearer than the one before
"Surely... Surely this is just delusion what I do see at my cupboard door."
Here I heard a murmur issued from the cupboard door
"Don't call me Shirley." and nothing more.

Open here I flung the cupboard when with much a great shudder
20 or so packets of Top Ramen spilled out to the floor
"A turn of luck!" I had thought, but something made me turn and stop
To look at all the packages lying there all on the floor
I picked one up off of the kitchen floor.
Teriyaki flavor. Nothing more.

Now, teriyaki -being the worst flavor- was not something I did savor
So I flung the package down hard upon the kitchen floor
"Has this madness gone from bad to raving? What a sad thing to be craving!"
I did shout down at the pile on the floor
I shouted as I stomped down on the ramen on the floor.
Only crumbled; said nothing. Silent ever more.

Angrily now I did stare at the crunched ramen lying there
Crumbled with no answer to give me scattered on the kitchen floor
I think it is quite safe to say, no other human being the day
Felt so discouraged whilst looking at the ramen on the floor
Slowly I did make my way across the kitchen floor
Try the refrigerator, or I'd be no more.

At this spot I did hesitate, but seeing as it was getting late,
I figured I should just open that darn fridgerator door.
And at this point I must relate, almost every single item's pull date
Had once been passed years before
Who knows what I'd find in the fridgerator door?
Dates from 1994? Surely those should be no more.

Checking pull dates left and right I saw some ketchup and with a fright
Realized it was most likely not moldy when bought at the store.
The thing was putrid and smelled quite thickly, so I picked it up quite quickly
And threw it through the pantry door
What else would I find in the fridge door?
Nothing good, that's for sure.

I found some beef that was recalled, further into the fridge I crawled
Trying to find something to eat behind that great big door.
Things were getting old and older, also getting mold and molder
But I was growing bold and bolder
As the hunger made me sore
Fearing stomach pains forever more.

Searching now ever faster, found a chicken-y disaster
Hiding all the way in the back of the fridge door
Deciding, "Hey, what the heck? It's the best thing I've found yet"
I grabbed it and quickly shut the door
I sat down near the pantry door
"If I eat this and am no more, tell him I loved him more."

A Big Sigh of Relief

2011-05-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today is a gorgeous 75 degree day, and I have exciting news on multiple fronts! I suppose I'll start with the most recent:

In English 302 (the poetry one) we got our midterms back today. I got 90 out of 96, which is a 93 percent! I was so shocked when I got it back, I felt a little sick to my stomach like there must have been some mistake. But we went over it in class, and no mistake, I got an A on my first junior-level class midterm! Also we turned in our papers that I've been stressing over, so there's another thing I don't have to worry about anymore!

Second bit of news, today I went to the financial aid office to turn in some forms they needed. I have been awarded money for next year, but I won't know how much until these forms I turned in today get processed or filed or thrown away for shredded or whatever they do with all these bits of paper! So, fingers crossed that something good comes of that for next year!

And the final bit of news is that I have attained a summer job! I'd rather not give out too many specifics, since I don't even know the specifics of what I'll be doing are yet, but I'm guessing it'll be mostly a waitress job! Also, it will make my resume` look much better than it does now. CLARIFYING STATEMENT: Ok, I'm realizing that that description makes it sounds like I'm going to be a stripper or something, but I promise it's definitely nothing along those lines. I'd just rather not share details on a public website.

Jeez, when did this blog turn into nothing but work work work? I always feel like I'm boring everyone to death when I talk about nothing but school assignments, but maybe that's what you'd all rather hear about? Or perhaps I'm just in a funk because I feel like I never do anything fun anymore! Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe it's just a phase. Maybe I'm discovering adulthood? Maybe I need to take more philosophy classes!

Anywho, since the day is so nice again, I will be spending it doing homework in the sun! With plenty of sunscreen, of course, since I watched a video and am now absolutely terrified of melanoma. Although if sunscreen is a bunch of chemicals that you're rubbing into your skin, how good for you can that really be? But that's a theory that can be tested only by time and at the risk of skin cancer, so better not risk it, shall I?

First Truly Nice Day!

2011-05-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Today is the first truly nice day we've had here in a while. It's warm, not windy, and very sunny outside :) Unfortunately, today is also one of the busiest. I have a rough draft of a paper due by midnight tonight, a rough draft of a paper due by 11 tomorrow, a math test tomorrow, and a group project that we're working on today. I'm excited for the day when I can truly say I have nothing to think about!

Yesterday I had my Poetry midterm, which was tough but I don't think I did too bad, especially after hearing some of the other kids in the class today talking about how they guessed on everything! I knew most of the stuff on the test, I'm just worried I didn't completely explain myself when answering the questions, since I tend to oversimplify things. Hopefully we'll get the grades back soon!

Speaking of grades, we got the our first papers back in my other English class. I got 80 out of 100, which I suppose isn't too bad for a tough teacher and the first paper of the class. I didn't feel too bad about it until I heard the kid in front of me say he got a 97 on his. I don't know why I've become so competitive over grades lately! I guess it isn't such a bad thing, but it does make for a lot of extra stressing on my part, which is very uncharacteristic of me.

In my Poetry class we're working on a group project about Postmodernism. The so-called "basic" definitions of it are just as hard to understand as the postmodern poetry itself! It's all very confusing and has gotten my brain all twisted up in knots, but luckily the project isn't due for another week and a half or so, so I have some more time to try and figure it out!

Going to work on one of my papers outside in the sun today since the warmth is too precious to waste!

Sakura Con!

2011-04-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Sakura Con on Saturday was a ton of fun! The costume my friend made me turned out amazing, and we had a lot of pictures taken of us. Here's some that I managed to get on my camera:

On the far left is Erin, the one who made my costume and hers as well. She's dressed as Sailor Jupiter, I'm Sailor Venus, and far right is Sarah as Sailor Mars. She made her own costume.

There's a group shot of Erin, Kara, and I. Kara dressed up as Minnie Mouse (clearly). I had some orange high heels to match my costume better, but by this point in the day they were hurting so bad I had to change back into my good old Vans :)

Blowing kisses! Because Sailor Venus is the Goddess of Love, after all :)

We couldn't have asked for nicer weather to walk around Seattle in short Sailor skirts! On Easter Kara and I went to a woman's house (family friend of Kara's), and had Easter food. Although I wouldn't really call crab casserole an Easter dish, but at least there were deviled eggs!

Then we headed back to school and now here I am, trying to work on all the things I have to do for my English classes. In Poetry, Powell assigned 3 things all due within the same week, and in my other English class we already have a second paper assigned even though we haven't got our first ones back yet! Today my professor (Olson) was talking about the papers he's graded so far and said that a lot of us aren't going to like the grades we got. So now I'm a little nervous. Everyone says that Olson and Powell are two of the toughest graders in the whole English department, which makes me even MORE nervous! Although I had Powell for creative writing class and got an A out of it, so perhaps I shouldn't be nervous at all. Who knows.

Been awhile!

2011-04-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I've updated here! I've been pretty darn busy, and sick as well. I don't know what's wrong with me! I was sick over Spring break, then I got better for a few days when I was back at school then got sick again, and now I'm sick all over again! So that makes it 3 times in the past month. Getting a little frustrated with all this sickness!

But anywho, the return of some warmer weather has led to lots of fun outdoor activities, mostly running outside (instead of at the gym! woohoo!) in the mornings before class and hiking and longboarding. Although the sickness has put a hold on all that yet again.

This coming weekend is Sakura Con; a Japanese anime convention in Seattle. My friend from back home and I are going to cosplay (dress up as anime characters) Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter from Sailor Moon. I don't remember liking Sailor Moon a lot, but I'm excited to dress up as Sailor Venus anyway! The pictures from this weekend should be pretty good!

Hope all has been well with everyone!

Busybusybusy

2011-04-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

Classes have been very busy! Between the two English classes, I have a ton of reading each night and then with the math class on top of that... There's a lot of work to be done!

Both English classes are going well, the poetry one is fun because all we've done so far is pick apart poems. Although tomorrow we're starting to learn all the nitty gritty details of meter and accents and feet and all that fun stuff. In the other English class, we've started reading a book called Critical Theory Today, and it's all about the various literary theories there are and how to apply them to texts. All very interesting stuff!

The weather has been teasing us a bit here. It looks gorgeous out, with a few big fluffy white clouds scattered amongst the blue sky. But as soon as I step outside and the wind hits, BRRR it's chilly! Can't wait for it to be hot out!

Last Thursday it was actually a nice temperature outside, so Kara and I drove to Yakima and longboarded on that same trail that she got hurt on so badly last year. We went 2 miles on the trail before deciding we were tired and should probably turn back! The wind on the way back made it really hard because we had to push against it the whole way, but overall it was really fun!

First Day of Classes

2011-03-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of classes, and boy is it good to be back in the swing of things! Every morning at 9, Loren and I have Math 101. The professor is from Georgia, so she has a bit of a southern accent, but her parents were from Minnesota, so she also has that accent as well and the two on top of each other make for a very interesting voice to listen to. Which is good I suppose, since otherwise I wouldn't pay attention at all. Math is not my subject.

That was done at 10, then I had a break until 11 while I waited for my first English class. I used the break to go to the store to buy the books I'm going to need for this English class, and holy crow I didn't expect them to be so much! $97 for 3 books. And that's just one class! But they're textbooks, and I can't get them from the library so I suppose buying them had to be done. The class itself (English 302 - Poetry and Poetics) is going to be a fun one. It's with the same professor I had Creative Writing with back in Fall, so it's nice to have a professor that I know. We're going to be talking a lot of poetry and getting into the nitty gritty details of stressed and unstressed syllables and meter and rhyme and blah blah blah, but it should be entertaining and at least it's all information that I'll use in the future!

Tomorrow I have math again, then right after that at 10 I have the other English class, English 303. I'm not sure what the title of it is.

OH, and my grades for last quarter were 2 B's, and an A in math! Woohoo! I'm really trying for all A's this quarter, especially since math is easy for me and the English classes should be interesting (in theory).

Goals for Spring Break

2011-03-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Eat Safeway Chinese Food
Run everyday
Go on hikes with Sunny
Get job applications in town
Have a doggy play date with Sunny and my friend's dog at Marymoor Park
Go to the Powderpigs end-of-the-year party
Hang out with my friends back home a little maybe
Maybe go spring skiing with my brother if he wants to

And that's all I can think of so far. Today I'm working on my take home English final which is due tomorrow, then Wednesday at 8 I have my Nutrition final and then Thursday at noon I have my math final and then I'm done and can get started on this little list of my goals for Spring Break :) Yay!

Projects, Essays, and Computer Viruses!

2011-03-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

Started off this week really well with a project in math (that I presented today), an essay in English (that I turned in yesterday), and a computer virus which I just got fixed today. Luckily CWU has a great ITS help desk and the guy there fixed it up in about an hour and a half. So all is well on that front. The wave of stress has passed now that all I have to do is study for finals! They shouldn't be too difficult. My Nutrition final is the same as the rest of the tests we've had this quarter so far, so I'm predicting I'll get a B on it since I've gotten a B on all the other tests. Math will be easy since it's all stuff I already knew before coming to college anyway. And English... Who knows? My professor for that class hasn't really posted any of our previous grades, so I have no idea how she scores our writings.

As far as overall grades go, I'm predicting an A in math, a B in Nutrition, and anywhere between a C and a B in English. But we'll see in a couple weeks!

Spring break is coming soon! Huzzah!

Happy March (or, Is It Spring Break Yet???)

2011-03-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

The end of this quarter has been more stressful than the ends of the other quarters I've taken here. I have a project in all 3 classes, essays in 2 of the classes, plus all the homework and reading they assign on top of those things. It's crazy! And it all came on so fast. All the projects were assigned on the same day, so it was like BAM instant stress. In the other classes I've taken, we haven't really had to do projects or presentations, so this was a little unexpected.

Finals week starts on Monday the 14th, and then Spring Break is the following week. We go back to classes on March 29th. I'm excited for Spring classes! But I'm more excited for Spring Break right now. I just want to be at home and go on hikes with Sunny and take him on walks and just relax a little! I'm going crazy.

Powderpigs is almost over too. Last day of Saturday lessons is the 19th, then the end of the year party is on the 26th I think. And then hopefully after that the snow will stop falling and we can have some warmer weather! I'm sick of wearing jackets all the time!

ok, done complaining. I have to go get ready for class.

Vegetarian Chili Recipe!

2011-02-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

I know most people in the family know me as "the meat and potatoes girl", but lately I've been eating less meat. I think being in this nutrition class this quarter has helped me see that meat raises cholestrol, can raise blood pressure, etc. I've been eating less meat for the environmental reasons, but either way if you're vegetarian or not, this chili is pretty darn delicious and cheap to make. I think it only cost me like 6 bucks.

The recipe didn't call for quinoa, but I decided to serve it over quinoa for some extra protein and fiber (and deliciousness)! I cooked it in a separate pot, but since these are the leftovers, the leftover quinoa was just mixed in to conserve fridge space.

1 can black or pinto beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bell pepper, diced (any color)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
dash cayenne pepper (optional)
dash red pepper flakes (optional)

In a medium or large soup pot, saute the bell pepper (I used a yellow one), onion, and garlic in the olive oil.

Add the tomatoes, vegetable broth, and spices and stir for a few minutes.

Reduce heat to medium low and add the beans. Stir occasionally and let cook for 20 minutes. The longer you let it simmer, the more flavorful it will be. I think I let mine simmer about 30 minutes, but stopped after that because the veggies were getting too squishy for my liking.

If you're making quinoa with it, then you just boil water (2 parts water to 1 part quinoa), and add the quinoa. Turn the heat down a bit and let it bubble until most of the water is gone, then turn the heat down more and put the lid on it until it's soaked up all the water. Or you could serve it with rice, or just eat it as it is! They yellow bell pepper was really tasty. I thought it might be too sweet, but it turned out having a great flavor!

The Times Are A Changin'!

2011-02-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

So last Friday I declared my major! That's right, I am officially an English major now! To celebrate, I went home for the weekend to my Dad's house and filled out the FAFSA for next year. It's nice to know that's out of the way for awhile!

The next thing I have to apply for is admission into the Teacher Education Program, which is a lot more extensive (and expensive!) than just filling out a piece of paper and have it signed by the head of the English department! Admission into the T.E.P. involves taking the West-B test, disposition surveys, having my fingerprints taken, getting recommendation forms filled by non-family members, along with a myriad of other things. So this week and next week I'm going to printing out a lot of papers and ferrying them off to various people.

Also last Friday I signed up for Spring quarter classes! I only have one more basic skills requirement to fill, and that's Math 101, so I'm taking Math 101 at 9 in the morning Monday through Friday. The other two classes I'm taking are towards my major, English 302 and English 303. 302 is Introduction to English Studies, basically an introduction to what's expected of an English major and such. 303 is Poetry and Poetics with the same English teacher I had Fall quarter. I'm excited to be taking major classes now. I already know I'm not going to be a mathematician or scientist, so I'm sick of taking those classes.

Kara, Rose, and I are going to have a tour of the duplex we'll be living in next year! I already have so many plans on how I'm going to decorate my room!

Loren and I just got back from a really well-done presentation by a girl who graduated CWU in 2009. She was in Tunisia teaching some classes when all the revolution stuff started happening, and the presentation was basically about her experience there during all the turmoil. She also went into the background of what happened there, so it was really interesting. She graduated as a Sociology major I think, and travels all over the world teaching classes about American Culture to other cultures to broaden understanding between nations. I'd really like to do that someday, but who knows. It was really interesting to hear her perspective on it, especially in light of the events going on in Libya right now. I've been getting most of my info from Al Jazeera.

More snow?

2011-02-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

So after a week and a half or so of nice sunny weather and Spring-like rain, it started snowing yesterday afternoon. And when I say snowing, I don't mean the occasional flake, I mean holy crow it's SNOWING! I was at Fred Meyer and walked from my car to the door of the store and I was covered in huge white flakes of snow! Today is going to be a cold one, but it's sunny out!

Here's the street behind our apartments. I love the look of the hills with snow on them!

There's the apartments. Don't they look like little ski condos with the snow? Or maybe I'm just crazy. But either way, it still makes me homesick for Schweitzer and Sun Valley...

Looks like it's going to be a gorgeous day here! Woohoo!

This weekend there's no ski lessons, so instead I'm going to my dad's house to work on the FAFSA for this next school year. A weekend away from Ellensburg will be nice. I love it here, but I miss the West side every now and then too.

Oh, also I dyed my hair! Mostly just to get rid of my 3-inch long roots, a little bit because I was bored with my hair color. So now it's just a tad lighter than my actual hair color and a little more red. I don't know why but every time I dye my hair it ends up much more red than expected. But anyway, enough about that!

Running is going good! I've got my mile time down, and now working on better stamina. That's always been the hard part for me. Some people can just run and run and run, but not me. My legs feel like they could go forever, it's my lungs that give me trouble! Don't know why that is, but maybe with more practice they'll get used to it.

The Weather's A-Changin'

2011-02-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

It's starting to get really windy around here, and generally when it gets windy in Ellensburg that means the weather is changing. It's starting to get warmer and rainier, although the wind makes it really cold to walk to class in so we still have to bundle up. Hopefully it will snow in the mountains though, because these last two weekends of ski teaching have been pretty miserable weather-wise. There's patches of dirt and rocks all over and a bunch of unmarked holes that if you're not careful you might ski right into them.

Still been going to the gym, probably won't be up for the Smelt Run. I was thinking perhaps though trying to make it to the Tulip Run in April because I've always wanted to go to the Tulip Festival anyway.

A couple weeks ago we took our first exam in my Nutrition class and I totally thought I did awful on it, but we got our grades back last week and turns out I got an 86%! Much better than I had expected! Our next exam is tomorrow and I studied a lot more this time around, so my grade should be even better. I have no clue what my English grade is, and I have an A in math (duh.). English class has actually been challenging this time around. We're reading some really challenging stuff, or at least I think it's challenging. The last book we read was Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua, which was probably the most difficult thing I've ever read. It's definitely interesting though.

Cold

2011-01-27T15:10:00.000-08:00

It's been so cold the last couple days, but of course no snow. It's just painfully cold with nothing to brighten up the grey. I'm hoping it will snow soon or else just get warm already!

This week I started going to the gym so that I can get back into the habit of running again. I hadn't ran since the summer, so Monday was a little difficult, but yesterday was great and hopefully I'll be able to get up early enough to go again tomorrow morning! I only like to go when it first opens in the morning at 6 a.m. because the rest of the day it's so crowded that I can barely run on the indoor track without getting run over by all the football players training and whatnot!

I'm getting pretty pumped for next school year. Rose and Kara and I are going to be living together in either a 3-bedroom apartment or duplex. We're hoping for the duplex because it's the same price as the 3 bedroom apartment, but they allow pets under 25 pounds so Kara could bring her dog. And maybe I can get a ferret! I've been really missing Scooter (the farm's old ferret) lately and have been watching videos of them on youtube and they're just such great little pets! If I got a girl one I would definitely name her Eris, after the goddess of discord since ferrets are little troublemakers! But yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow, Rose and Kara and I are going to the office of the people that own the duplexes and apartments and pay the deposit to hold our spots for next school year!

Finally!

2011-01-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

Just received an e-mail from the school saying that I have been awarded financial aid for Spring quarter! It'll pay for about half of tuition, so that's a start! I'm going to fill out the FAFSA for next year soon, hopefully I'll get more grants for next year.

There were 3 loans and 1 grant, so I accepted the grant because I wasn't sure about the loans. Interest rates and payback dates and things that I don't really understand so I decided to just go with the grant for now. I can always check the information for the loans again and accept them if they're good, but I just wasn't sure.

Anyway, today is basically the best day ever! So happy not to have to stress over that anymore.

Tomorrow I will be up at the pass, in hopefully nice weather. I completely forgot I was even teaching until just a couple hours ago. I was making plans for tomorrow with some people and then my brain clicked on and went "hey wait a minute I have a job to go to don't I...."

RainRainRainRant

2011-01-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

Ski teaching is canceled today due to the heavy rains at the pass, so I'm going to spend today doing homework and cleaning instead!

Classes are going good. I have English 247, Nutrition 245, and Math 100B. English is nice because it's only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 10:40. My teacher is a really funny lady who swears a lot, so of course we all like her. There's probably about 25 people in the class. Nutrition is a class of about 100 people. The stuff we're learning now is pretty much common sense stuff, like don't eat too much butter and sugar and red meat yada yada yada. Eventually we'll get into more interesting things.

And then there's math. Where do I even begin. I know I'm not the best mathematician, but I think I need to be in a different math class. I'm in this one because I did horrible on the math portion of the SAT, but that doesn't mean I need refreshers on how to add 4-digit numbers. Honestly, that's all we've been doing so far. We're going over how to add fractions and how to find the area and perimeter of a rectangle. The whole class I'm just sitting there thinking how did I end up here?? In senior year of highschool I was in Advanced Algebra & Trig, and now I'm learning the same elementary stuff I learned in 4th grade.

I feel that this is a good example of how SAT scores don't necessarily show a student's full potential. SAT day wasn't the best day for me. We got up at something like 6 in the morning on a Saturday to go take the test in the middle of nowhere because there was nowhere closer to our house to take it, so I was all tired and not at all in the mood to take a test. The writing portion was first and I got that out of the way quickly, but by the time we got to the math section (which I think was last or second to last) I just didn't care anymore. I just wanted to go home, go back to bed, forget the SAT even existed.

But once I pass this Math100B course, then I'll be free to take Math 101 and then since I'm an English major I don't have to take anymore math! Woooohoo!

Speaking of major, I think I'll go to the English department sometime next week to get an application for declaring. Then I have to get into the teaching program and do West-E and West-B tests and personality tests and make a teaching portfolio and student teach and blargblargblarg.

So sleepy

2011-01-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

I'm so tired right now, but in a good way I think. Today was the first day of lessons at Powderpigs, and I'm super happy with my class. Only three out of seven showed up. Normally I get five year olds, but this year I have nine and ten year olds! Hallelujah! Although now I actually have to think about what to teach since I've never taught kids at this level before...

Anyway, skiing today was great and tiring. I was going to stay later for dinner and then more skiing, but I was just ready to be home for naptime! So that's what I'm going to be doing now, after eating almost an entire box of macaroni and cheese. NAPTIME!

Welcome 2011!

2011-01-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

Today I am officially back in Ellensburg! Driving over the pass today was fantastic with the sun and the snow! Although driving past Snoqualmie Summit and not stopping for some runs on my new skis was literally painful. I'm thinking of driving back up there tomorrow to go skiing since classes don't start until Tuesday.

Made gingerbread houses over break with my friends. The one on the left was mine and Nick's, the middle one was Katy and Erin's, and the one on the right was Kara's.

Sunny and me in front of the tree!

And then I went and did the housesitting job for my mom's friend. I was there about a week when one morning we woke up to find all this snow outside! We got about 2 or 3 inches overnight.

Also over break we did the annual march around downtown Seattle! Twas just as fun as ever!

Hope everyone had a great holiday! Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll post some pictures of Ellensburg in all its snowy beauty. It's very cold here, currently 15 degrees outside and supposed to be down to 3 degrees tonight! Luckily I got a down jacket from Debbie and gang! Thanks a bunch to them for that, it will be SUPER handy around here when the weather is so darn cold all the time!

Final Grades for Fall!

2010-12-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-12-01T18:53:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-29T19:49:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-11-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-11-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-10-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-10-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-02T15:47:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-06-28T09:26:00.001-07:00

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

Grades

2010-06-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-06-09T18:23:00.001-07:00

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

2010-06-08T18:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

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 :(

2010-06-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2010-06-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-05-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

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 :)

Woooooooooo

2010-05-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

Alright, so the hike started out really great! We went along the creek in the canyon, nice and flat, had to jump across the creek to stay with the trail every once in awhile, it was really fun.

But Robinson Canyon has a lot of old logging roads, so it's hard to tell where the hiking trail and the logging roads differ. So we ended up going up the side of the canyon on what we thought was the trail but ended up just being one of the many old roads. At the top, we lost the trail and were in a big grassy meadow with lots of ponderosa pines around, and it was really pretty. So we bushwhacked our way down the steep canyon to try and find the trail again down by the creek. We crossed the creek when we got to the bottom and found another trail.

We went along it for a loooong time, because the map we had told us that it would loop back around and we would end up back where we started. But it wasn't looping, so we sat and rested for awhile while Eric went ahead to scout out the trail. Nathan got bored and decided to climb up the canyon wall to try and find the trail that would take us back to the cars. But after awhile he didn't come back so we climbed up there too to try and find him. After a good long time of looking, we found the trail that would take us back. Rose called Nathan and figured out that he was on that trail too. So we left a little rock pyramid with an arrow in the middle of the trail for him to find so he would know which way we had gone. Eventually he caught up to us and we all made it back alive.

Loren and Jarrod and I were all wearing our Vibrams, and they were great up until the last bit. The trail along the top ridge of the canyon on the way back was alllllll rocks. They weren't small enough to not hurt my feet, but they weren't big enough to be able to jump from one to the other, so by the time we got down I was about ready to never walk again.

But other than us losing the trail multiple times, losing Nathan, and pained feet, the hike was great! I was really bummed that I forgot my camera, because when we got to the top of the ridge it was a really pretty alpine desert and flowers were blooming, and the grass was green, and there were ponderosa pines everywhere, and you could see the snowcovered mountains in the distance! It was soooo pretty. We didn't see any snakes, although I was extremely nervous about them when we were bushwhacking our way through tall grass!!

Hiking Today!

2010-05-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

Hiking today at Robinson Canyon. I read some reviews of it, and apparently there's a lot of wildlife, so the pictures should be good! Hopefully we don't see too many rattlesnakes.

I found this funny website called The Oatmeal, and there's this one comic they did about printers and it's so funny. Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell to Make Us Miserable.

Also, my friend showed Loren an extremely funny video via facebook and I think everyone in the world should watch it because it's SO funny. Definitely made my morning: Kangaroo

I hope those links work, if they don't I will be mucho sad because the kangaroo video is SOOOO FUNNY

Ugh

2010-05-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

This weather is making me tired and irritable. Bring back the sun!! Although the little bit of thunder was kind of fun :)

I'm getting really excited for Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge! It's not this weekend, but the next and I can't wait! I got my tickets back in January and they've just been sitting by my computer staring at me. The pictures from that are going to be crazy!!

Plans for the rest of today: laundry, read, nap, eat, maybe watch a movie or something. Tomorrow is Nathan's birthday so Rose, Kara, Loren, Nathan, and I are going to dinner and a movie to celebrate. Then hiking on Saturday!

Finally Back!

2010-05-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Finally back from Lake Chelan! It was really fun, and I got nice and sizzly in the sun and I wanted to swim, but the water is still veryveryvery cold, so no swimming. We stayed with Katie's family right on the lake. The first night we were there we went bowling and the bowling alley there was so much nicer than the one here in Ellensburg. It was all colorful and there was a blacklight and it was just a lot of fun. We played 4 games one right after the other, and we were the last ones in there! Then the next day, Saturday, we sizzled in the sun for most of the day. On Sunday the weather was pretty cloudy, so we played video games most of the day. Then yesterday it was rainy too, so we played videogames and then packed up to go and went to have lunch and then left.

Last night we got back in time for my 6:30 theatre class. Usually the class only goes until about 8 or so, but last night we were watching a live production of The Secret Garden, so it went until 9:45-ish. It was a good play, but I was just not in the mood to sit there and watch that, so Nathan and I made fun of it pretty much the entire time. I really have no patience to sit through anything that's over an hour anymore. Even if it's a movie I want to watch, I just can't sit through it! I don't know why that is.

I got 86 out of 100 on my Anthropology exam on Friday! Yay! Today is Anthropology, then bowling, then English, and then I'm done! It is very rainy here today. When we got back yesterday it was hot and sunny and now it's windy and rainy. Hopefully the weather will get better

Day 30, Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

2010-05-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

LAKE CHELAN! Heading there today after one more test. Just took my Biological Anthropology test and I think I did ok on it... Lunch with Loren at noonish then English test, then heading out!

That website I posted a little bit ago called Zen Habits is supplying me with a large amount of zen quotes. Here's one for today: "If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich."

Goals for this weekend: Sit in the sun and sizzle. Swim in the lake if it's not too cold. Have fun on the beach. Relax a little :)

Day 29, Your Hopes, Dreams, and Plans for the Next 365 Days

2010-05-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

Alright, well my plans are to get a job this summer that pays well so I can save up some money for next school year. Next year, I'm going to be living in an apartment off campus with friends Alex and Loren. Should be exciting. Also planning to get a kitten over the summer that I can take with me to the apartment. Next school year, I plan to declare my major and get fantastic grades!

My hopes are that me and Loren will maintain our streak of having no fights. We have been dating since October and so far we haven't had any fights at all really, which is good. I hope it will stay that way for the most part. I hope that living off campus will be the best thing ever. I hope that over the summer I become a better longboarder. I hope that I will get back to the way I used to think about everything on such a deeper level. I hope that I can pitch a tent in the backyard all summer and sleep in it every night.

As for dreams, I don't know. I dream of getting a camper van and driving onto a beach somewhere and living there in that van for awhile. I dream of being amazing at longboarding. I dream of disappearing for awhile. I dream of flying. I've dreamt of these things for years, though.

Today has been perfect. Went to class, learned some stuff. After class, I met up with Loren and we practiced our frisbee skills until it was time to go to bowling, and then we went to bowling and then Nathan and Loren and I went and had lunch. Then I went to English, which was the veryveryvery last thing I wanted to do because Loren was playing frisbee outside and Nathan and Rose went and threw the football around and I just wanted to longboard and lay in the sun. So after class I zoomed out of there and went to my dorm to grab my board and a blanket and went to the big lawn in front of Rose and Kara's dorm where they play frisbee and sat in the sun and studied for my anthropology exam tomorrow. Went with Kara to get her prescription for vicodin filled, then sat in the sun some more. Tonight we're going to go see Iron Man 2 again, because we just loved it so so so much!

Since we are now at about midterms, I suppose I'll do a grade update.
Bowling: Pretty sure I have an A. If I don't, I'm going to cry
English: Pretty sure I have an A, although she doesn't post grades online so I could be wrong. But I've gotten A's on both tests so far, so I'm not worried.
Theatre: A for sure
Biological Anthropology: C+ because I messed up pretty bad on the past few quizzes. But hopefully I can make up for it with this exam we have tomorrow. I feel like I'm going to do well on it, especially after studying earlier today.

So that's that. I probably won't be able to update all weekend because I will be in CHELAN!! I can't wait, it's going to be so nice. We're leaving sometime in the afternoon tomorrow!

Day 28, This Year In Great Detail

2010-05-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hmm let's see. January was snowy and there was much fun had in the snow. But then it melted and refroze so walking to class was extremely scary. I worked at Snoqualmie and hung out in the PigPen every now and then and helped them out a little too. February I went to Vashon Island for the first time in liiiike 10 years or so, so that was exciting. Met Loren's pets and his grandpa and some of his friends and went to the zoo. March... jeez I don't even remember. Obviously nothing too exciting happened. April, started longboarding. May, got better at longboarding and got my own longboard. Also, sat in the hospital for a good 2 hours. The rest of this month is going to be really fun though, because this coming weekend I'm going to Lake Chelan with Kara to stay at our friend's house. And then the weekend after that is Nathan's birthday and we're going hiking. And then the weekend after that Loren and I are going to Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge! So this month is only just beginning :)

Today, Nathan, Rose, and I longboarded around everywhere for about 3 hours! We went around campus, then down into town to go to the skateboard shop in town because Nathan wanted to check up on his crummy old board. Then we went around and back to Nathan's dorm for a bit and then we longboarded around campus some more. We sat down for a little rest at the South end of campus, and met up with one of Nathan's friends and one of Rose's friends and we sat and talked with them for a bit. Then we boarded back to Kara and Rose's dorm, got food, hung out, and now I'm back to my own dorm! My longboard is a lot of fun! It flexes a lot more that Kara or Nathan's boards, so turning is way easier. Although still not too easy to do some of the sharper-cornered turns around campus, but I'm getting a lot better than when I started!

Day 27, Your Month In Great Detail

2010-05-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

This month started with my friends coming for a visit. We went on a hike, saw some snakes, ate some sketchy mexican food, and had fun with henna! The next week, I longboarded a lot, watched some movies, saw IRON MAN 2 WHICH WAS AWESOME, and now we're at the present.

Today Kara drove me to Yakima and I got a longboard!!! It's oh so fantastic!

The bottom is a graphic of a buddha-looking guy on a lotus smoking. And then higher up is a normal looking guy, but you can't really see it.

The top is just plain black griptape. I was sort of hoping for what Kara has, which is a clear-ish griptape, so it shows the wood instead of just black. But this is nice because when it gets dirty it won't be so noticeable!
I can't wait to go try it out more tomorrow. We went to the Greenway in Yakima, which is just a nice paved trail along the river. But it started out with a deceivingly steep hill. We thought it wasn't that steep, it looked like a nice gentle downhill to start off, but Kara went down first and got going too fast and fell pretty bad. So we went to the hospital back in Ellensburg. No broken bones or anything, just some pretty bad scrapes. So I haven't had much of a chance to try it out yet. Although tomorrow Rose and Nathan and I are going to go boarding so I'll have a better feel of it tomorrow!

After Kara fell, I was thinking about how shocking it is that I've never been seriously injured. I mean, in all my years of skiing (most of the time recklessly and out of control) and my years of playing soccer and just being active in general, all I've had is a fractured elbow and a bruise from being kicked by a horse in the thigh. Nothing major, nothing emergency room worthy, nothing that's involved leaving skin on pavement, or bloodstains on pavement. I don't know how I've gotten that lucky. Let's hope I stay that lucky!

I'm off to bed early tonight. I've hardly been able to sleep the last few nights. Restless Leg Syndrome kept me up most of the night last night. That, and the fact that Loren scared me so bad I was afraid I was going to have nightmares.

Day 26, Your Week In Great Detail

2010-05-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I skipped a few days, mostly because I have just been so tired lately. Last night I was exhausted, but I couldn't fall asleep until 2 in the morning, and then I got up at 6:30, and my sleeping schedule is just all messed up. Hopefully it will get back on track this week. So, since I already write what I do most every day, this "week in detail" thing will just be a recap I suppose.

Monday May 3rd: Went with Kara and Rose and Nathan to Yakima to buy Kara her longboard. Also bought a hat, and hair dye. Dyed my hair after watching a semi-stupid interpretation of a Beatrix Potter story in my theatre class. Got made fun of by Nathan for being super blonde now, and I think Loren and I watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Maybe. I don't remember.

Tuesday May 4th: Skipped English and longboarded with Kara around the neighborhood for a good 2 hours. Kara hurt her leg from all the longboarding, and I got super excited about the idea of getting my own longboard. Loren and I watched Fargo that night. Also got accused of still being in highschool during bowling class.

Wednesday May 5th: Didn't do anything for Cinco de Mayo. Instead, sat around most of the day since I only had one early morning class, and then went to Kara's and watched Ponyo. I think that's about all I did that day. Don't remember doing anything else.

Thursday May 6th: Twas Rose's birthday! I had a terrible bowling score, and was in a bad mood most of the day. Nathan accused me of being a "grouchypants" which of course didn't help. NOTE: When a girl is grouchy, don't joke around about how grouchy she is. She will bite you. Then I started feeling better later in the day and went to Kara's. We went and picked up Rose's surprise birthday cake, and watched the Lovely Bones. Kara made a scavenger hunt for Rose, and I made her a rose out of pipecleaners. I helped Nathan on a secret mission. The mission was to put a bouquet of roses, chocolates, and a stuffed animal on her desk while he took her out to dinner. So I went and met him outside where he gave me the stuff and then he took her to his car and then I went in and put all the stuff on her desk. Was very cute. Nathan is showing up Loren in the romance department, haha

Friday May 7th: Left to go back home right after Kara and I finished our Anthropology quizzes. Got home pretty early, ran errands with mom and had lunch, blahblahblah.

Saturday May 8th: Helped out around the house with Laurie, Dan, Derek, and mom. Saw Nick for the first time since Spring Break. Had dinner at a Mexican place in North Bend and went to bed very late.

Sunday May 9th: Mom went to church while I slept. Then we went out for lunch, then I met Kara at the park and ride and headed back to Ellensburg.

Monday May 10th: Went to Anthropology, went to get some breakfast with Loren. Went back to his room, where I read my English homework and he studied for his math test. Then I slept on his bed while he kept studying. His roommate walked in while I was sleeping and it was kind of funny. We had a short conversation about longboards, and then Loren and I left, me to go to English, and he to go to math. After English I went to eat lunch with Nathan, Rose, and Audra. Then I came back here and now I'm doing this! Later tonight I have theatre class, and then I think Loren and I are going to watch a movie.

OH and also, Kara is driving me to Yakima to get a longboard tomorrow :) :) :) Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!!! I will be sure to post pictures as soon as I can :)

Day 25, Your Day in Great Detail

2010-05-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

Well, got up at 6:30, showered, packed up all my stuff that I'm taking home with me this weekend. Walked with Loren on my way to Biological Anthropology and said bye for the weekend and all that. Then I went to class, took a quiz, and dropped it when I was handing it to the professor's assistant, which was awkward so I got out of there pretty quick. Then I went back to Kara's dorm with her to help her carry her stuff to her car at about 9:30.

Then we drove up to my dorm, grabbed all my stuff, went to Hollywood Video to drop off a movie she had rented, went to put gas in the car, and then got on the freeway heading towards Yakima on accident. So we turned around and headed back the other way. Didn't really have too much trouble with the construction traffic that's going on on that one section of freeway, although usually we do.

Then we got to the Preston Park and Ride where we waited for my mom for a few minutes and then she showed up and I got in the truck with my stuff and we headed back home for a bit before heading back to Issaquah to run some errands. First we ate at the teriyaki place right next to Fred Meyer, which is oh so delicious. Then we went to Fred Meyer and bought some plants. Then we went to Michael's where I got canvas and paint. Then we went to Kara's so I could give her some stuff I forgot I had of hers. Then we came back, and mom got ready to go to a church rehearsal thingy and I've just been here, listening to music, browsing the internet, and watching South Park online. I will probably be going to bed soon.

Tomorrow is the whole week in detail! Oh jeez, I don't even remember all the things I did! I'll have to backtrack through the other blog entries to remind myself!

Day 24, Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

2010-05-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Alright, so out of this entire list, I only have to type that obnoxious "tickle your fancy" phrase one more time after this! I looked up definitions of the phrase and the first one that came up was kinda dirty, and the next one said "something that appeals to you, or you want to try it or have it". So going by that definition, I would have to say what tickles my fancy right now is this: LONGBOARDS! I keep trying to justify to myself how I possibly have enough money to buy one of these, but I really don't. Especially since this quarter dad is saving all the child support to go towards my wisdom-teeth-pulling fund. So my bank account is stuck at 400 bucks and I can't buy one of these puppies. All the ones on line are more expensive than the ones in the store that we went to for Kara's. She bought hers for 130 something and I found the same board online for 160 something.

Anyways, I got up really early this morning! It really helps that it's light out now at 6:30 when I wake up every morning. I started waking up at 6:30 whether there's an alarm clock or not, which is pretty nice because I like getting up early. I feel like I waste the day when I sleep in.

The last few times we've gone bowling, my scores have been really good for me. 2 classes ago, I scored 110. Then I scored 107 the next time. And then I had an off day on Tuesday and scored a 96. Bleh. Hopefully today I can get 3 strikes in a row! For our bowling names, Nathan and Loren like to make the letters spell something obscene so when you look on the big screen it's funny. Although on Tuesday, some girl on the team playing next to us saw it and asked, "So do you guys, like, come up from the highschool to play?" and we were like, "ummm no we're in college, duh." She was baffled by our immaturity. But newsflash to crabby girl: We're not immature, we're having fun. You should try it some time. What are you, like 500 years old? Jeez lighten up.

There's a creepy child-molester looking van right outside my window. Luckily I'm on the second floor so I don't have to be creeped out by it. Speaking of creeps, I could really go for a crepe. Haven't had one in probably two years!

Day 23, A Youtube Video

2010-05-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well, most of the Youtube videos that I've been watching recently are whatever Nathan or Kara has shown me, which is usually something offensive. Sooo now I have to think of something else. Well if any of you have heard of Tilt-Shift Photography, this is a pretty cool video of some! It looks fake, but it's real people and real cars and boats and it's just crazy!

Yesterday, Kara and I longboarded around the neighborhood across from the University for about 2 hours. I'm getting REALLY good, although I wish I had my own longboard because using Nathan's means that he has to use his short skateboard which isn't really as much fun for cruising around because it's mostly supposed to be used for tricks and things like that.

Last night Loren and I watched Fargo. I hadn't seen it in awhile so I pretty much forgot everything that happened. But it's a good movie, I like it a lot.

Today, since me and Kara are both done with classes, I'm going over to her dorm to watch Ponyo and then maybe longboard some more. Although perhaps not because she thinks she pulled something in her leg and was having a hard time moving around last night after our longboarding fun of the day.

Day 22, A Website

2010-05-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

Woops, I skipped yesterday! But there was just so much fun stuff happening I didn't make it back to my dorm until late. So a website. I highly recommend zenhabits.net. Loren showed it to me and I check it every few days now because there are some good tips on there.

Alright so anyway, yesterday was pretty busy. Kara was able to convince her mom to giver her the money for the longboard we found in Yakima last week, so after my English class Kara, Rose, Nathan, and I headed down to Yakima to buy it. It's such a nice longboard! It was $165 including wheels and trucks and the board itself, but I had a 20% off card for the store so it ended up being more like $133 or something like that, which was nice. I bought a really really cool blue hat there that I had seen last time and loved so I figured if it was the only one and it was still at the store, then we were meant to be! Either that or I just have really bad taste in hats.

We also stopped at the Target at Yakima and got hairdye :) I am now much blonder than I was in that picture from Sunday that I posted on here! Much much much blonder. Taking some time getting used to it, I don't really recognize my own reflection and it freaked me out this morning! Kara dyed my hair for me last night after Nathan and I were finished with our Theater class.

So now on this list of things I suppose I'm a day behind! Oh well, I figured I would miss a day or two anyway.

Day 21, A Recipe

2010-05-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, recipes! I can't wait to have a kitchen to use recipes in next year! There's only so much I can do with limited resources, a crock pot, and a rice cooker. Although mac and cheese in the rice cooker and cider in the crock pot is a wonderful dorm combination :)

So I suppose I'll do my recipe for Chocolate No-Bake Cookies. My current favorite cookies that are oh so easy and fast to make!

2 cups granulated sugar
3 tbs cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
3 cups oats
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanutbutter (I usually do less than that. More like a small spoonful)

Bring sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter to boil in a pot, stirring constantly for 3 minutes
Remove from heat and add oats, peanut butter, and vanilla
Drop by teaspoonful onto waxed paper or foil
Let them cool/harden and enjoy! I like to eat any leftovers right out of the pot while it's still warm :) Or freeze any leftovers and put it on ice cream!

Alright, so my friends all stayed the night last night at Kara's again, and left very early this morning so I wasn't able to say bye. But Erin left her DVD's of Totoro and Ponyo here for me to watch! I watched Totoro today while I cleaned my room, and am planning on watching Ponyo sometime this week. I love Totoro, but I can't stand the redone voice-acting. They redid the theme song, and gave Satsuki and Mei annoying American voices, and it just doesn't sound right. They also changed the dialogue quite a bit and took out key parts that I remember from watching it when I was younger. Such as changing the "dust-bunnies" to "soot gremlins". LAME. The whole time I was watching I was just like, "NONONO those are SOOT SPRITES not soot GREMLINS, and Mei calls them DUST-BUNNIES not gremlins!!!" It was almost too frustrating to watch. Why must they change everything that was once perfect?

I also took pictures of my room today! This is a lot for my sake, as I will surely miss this room next year. It has been a great little space for me to wrap christmas lights all around and put up posters and have my own nice little hang out spot. Although it would have been kind of cool to have a roommate, I'm still pretty glad that I didn't have to share :) even though it would have been no big deal.

And so here is my room in pictures:

My bed with my posters and collages on the wall!

Crazy colorful stuffed closet :)

My mostly uncluttered desk

Moi on the bed!

And that is all! I will miss this tiny itty bitty little room

Day 20, A Hobby of Yours

2010-05-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I think I have a lot of hobbies. Longboarding, hiking, having fun... All of which are things I did today!

With all my friends here, we decided to go for a hike to Umtanum Falls, which was a lot of fun. We drove REALLY fast down a gravel road for quite awhile to get to the trail head, and then hiked in probably about a mile, although it felt less than that because it was so flat. Once we got to the falls we just climbed around and watched the wind nearly knock over a tree and rock climbed up the cliffs by the waterfall and all sorts of fun things like that! Since the weather has gotten warmer since my last hike here, we had to watch out for snakes and ticks. We didn't see any ticks. But on the way back to the trail head Erin almost stepped on a snake, and then we saw another one nearby in the grass on the side of the trail. It wasn't a rattler though, it was a yellow-bellied racer, which for those of you who don't know, they look like this:

Yes, we saw 2 of those. Eek! I never thought I was scared of snakes until I moved to an area where they are actually poisonous instead of just garter snakes!! Yellow-bellies though are nonvenomous, so I guess that's not too bad. I was scared we'd see rattlers, but maybe it's not quite warm enough for them yet?

Anyway, the hike was good and then we went out shopping and to a mexican place for dinner and I have my fridge all stocked with everyone's leftovers that they didn't want :) I'll be eating good for a couple days!

No pictures of my room yet, I haven't cleaned it.