Dilapidated Old Buildings

Behind my wonderful house on Jefferson St there lies a slightly less wonderful house. Painted white and bordered on two sides by a parking lot and separated from our house by a row of foliage, this house belongs to the Southern Scholarship Foundation and houses students that attend the med school. This house is rather old. It doesn't quite look fit to live in, but I love seeing it anyway. There is no porch. The front door is unprotected from the elements, and the mailbox doesn't stay on it's pedestal. For some reason I adore this house. Twice a week I look out a back window as I clean the study room and see it's chimney. I can't help but think that perhaps this house resembles the humble abode of many Floridians over the centuries. It's simple, plain, but enchanting.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give up my current living situation for that house, but well, it's nice to know that a stones throw away is a house that isn't filled with more than ten people, that someone has a place to themselves in the chaos of a college campus. It's the image of a haven in the middle of a perpetually moving ocean.

Chocolate

Have you seen that commercial for Hershey's chocolate that's got this guy standing there saying something about girls and then he goes [in a girlie voice] "chocolate, oh my gosh, I love chocolate!"? This has become a semi-favorite commercial of my beloved roommate (who, oddly enough, loves chocolate), so tonight when I got back from Crusade, I was like "Hey dude, would you like some chocolate?" expecting her to say yes as I pulled my stash of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures from under my desk. She surprisingly responded "no" but I placed a golden wrapped piece on her desk anyway; I knew she wouldn't be able to refuse. Sure enough a few moments later, she leaned forward, grabbed the savory piece of heaven, unwrapped the foil, and partook [yes, it's a word, I looked it up] of the Lord's goodness. I responded by placing a second Peanut Butter Cup Miniature on her desk. She has yet to respond to my gracious gesture of love. I think I might take it back. "The Laura giveth, and the Laura taketh away" she said. But no, we'll see who wins this battle of wills. I think it will be me, because my roommate, as I said before, happens to love chocolate. She begs to differ (on me winning, not on her loving chocolate).

I'll keep you posted.

Frozen Fruit Cups and Such

You know those fruit cups you get at the grocery store that have mixed fruit or pineapple or pickled pigs feet? Well, I happen to love those a lot. It's really unnatural. Anyway, somebody put a couple of these in the freezer, and I was like, "Oh, sweet, it's like a popsicle!" There is a difference, however between these things an popsicles: the wrapper on popsicles is removable. With the fruit cups you have kind of lick to top until it starts getting soft enough to squeeze, but by that point it time, your tongue is pretty much numb from licking the icy surface, so you can't really taste it. It's cruel really. Like how you kill a wolf in winter. You know, put a bloody knife in the snow so that it freezes over then the wolf comes a long and licks it so by the time it gets to the knife it's tongue is numb, so it can't tell that it's actually bleeding to death. Or something like that. It's a little gross, and I honestly would rather not thing about it. Anyway, once it gets softened up and the feeling returns to your tongue it's really quite good. You should try it.

Last night I had a paper to write on Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. I was feeling in a rather artsy mood, and not in the mood to sit in front of a computer screen for hours on end, so I wrote the first draft by hand. And can you believe it, it took me less time to write it by hand then it would to write it on computer. Not because I write faster than I type, by no means, but I think it's that my brain could actually keep up with my writing speed, so I spent less time sitting idle and writing things like "Bertolt Brecht should die!" due to the lack of things to say. I don't think that really made any sense. Anyway, I typed up the paper in the half hour or so I had between my first and second class. But I was five words short, so I'm gonna go round out my conclusion. I hate conclusions. I never know what to say.

Morning Rituals

Everyone has some kind of morning ritual. My roommate gets up every morning several hours before she needs to go to class, eats breakfast while watching Golden Girls on Lifetime [aka the bane of my existence]. My morning ritual is quite different. I wake up and roll [literally] out of bed, hoping to miss the stack of plastic crates which is filled with random papers and school books, my backpack, and whatever vermin made it's home on my floor during the night. This, by the way, is after violently attacking my alarm clock for the last half hour or so for the ultimate sin of waking me up; how dare it! I seriously am about to go all Titus Andronicus on it's children. [Just a side note: if ever I become a famous musician, one of my songs/albums will be called "Just Like Titus Andronicus".] After the landslide that separates me from my bed, I partake in a warm shower. This part of my morning is not particularly interesting, I do it daily, and it never changes: lather, rinse, repeat. The remainder of my pre-class morning is usually filled with me trying in vain to avoid the squeaky spots on the floor as I rush about my room donning articles of clothing in an effort to arrive to class on time. I usually get downstairs around 8:50, spend a minute and a half searching the pantry for some form of sustenance which will not add to an expanding waist line, abandon the search, and grab a PopTart(r) as I make a mad dash out the front door, stopping only to lock it behind me.

My roommate doesn't understand how I get ready so fast. I don't perceive it as fast, but then again, I am the hare to her tortoise. I am up and out in under 30 minutes, depending on how long I sing in the shower. If I'm singing the first aria of La Traviata, it might take a little longer. And honestly, I don't know what that means or if La Traviata even has an aria. Anywho, it is now nearing the time at which I make a second mad dash for the door in hopes of being on time for my Play Analysis class. So farewell, my adoring public, may you have a wonderful day.

One of those rare days in which I post more than once...

So, as I said in the title for this post, I don't usually post in the same day. I'm usually not inspired to post more than once. I can only be so funny. But this post probably won't be on the funny side, just to give you some fair warning. (Wow, that is almost Brecht-ish.) I'm feeling a little melancholy at the moment. After browsing through a friend's live journal, my mind wandered to some other friends who also have live journals, and I spent the next half hour or so searching for them. Well, I found them in the vast jumble of people that is the live journal database, and proceeded to read their most recent posts. The posts were a little depressing to say the least for a few reasons:

1. The content of the post was depressing, addressing feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, etc etc. Anything that will make you depressed was in there.
2. The realization that I see these people around campus maybe once or twice a month, in comparison to the every day all day that used to be the reality.
3. Their lifestyle choices aren't exactly what I would consider moral. I'll leave it at that. I think all of us have friends that fall under a similar category.

So anyway, that has left me in this state of semi-depression/misery...that and the fact that I either can't go to Wal-Mart tonight or can't go to this extra credit thing for my Play Analysis class, not that I really need it, I just want a cushion if I happen to be late or absent one day, in case of getting hit by one of the crazy TalTran [I know, it's a tacky name, but I didn't come up with it, cause if I did the consequences would be grave] bus drivers.

Okay, so sorry for this whole post, I'm usually not this somber, in fact, I hate it being dark and gloomy. Life is too much fun to be taken seriously. So, back to my cheerful self next post. See you on the sunny side.

Garlic No More...and some Bragging

Since my last post the garlic scent which hovered around me like a cloud of mosquitoes on a warm summers night is now gone. Thank goodness, and I again apologize to everyone who has been in close contact with me, I know I smelled foul. Anyway. The bad thing about garlic is once it gets on something it stays there, people and objects alike. We all know that it is pretty much impossible to keep your hands off of things in general, unless you don't have hands, but most of the world does in fact have hands. If we tried to keep our hands off of things we would all be walking around like surgeons on ER with our hands in the air pushing open doors with our butts. I was not about to walk around like that until my hands smelled better. Not only would I look like an idiot for a few days (ok, look more like an idiot) but the garlic smell would be that much closer to my face. The latter prospect was the great issue in my opinion. As I was saying, essence of garlic stays on everything...forever!! Now all of the clothes I was wearing Thursday, Friday and Saturday smell like garlic; as well as the duvet cover on my comforter, my bed sheets, and my pillow case. Needless to say, laundry day this time around will take longer than usual.

And now for the bragging.
If you didn't watch the FSU v. UVA game this Saturday evening, you missed a great game, at least for us Seminoles. The popular chant from the student section? "OVER RATED!" (which was followed closely by "WYATT SEXTON!!") Yeah, we womped them, to say the least. All I have to say is, watch out world, we have a quarterback now.

Garlic Anyone?

I like the smell of garlic in moderation, but when it's eking out of my pores, well, it's not so nice.

Let me explain. Last night I made this rather tasty and scrumptious linguini with shrimp and garlic basil tomato sauce. I just have to go on record and say it was really good. One of my house mates described it as "the best meal she's ever had whilst living in this house." Anyway. This meal happens to have well, lets say a lot of garlic. Since I cooked this meal I was practically swimming in garlic for an hour and a half. Once dinner was over I thought that was the end of the garlic odor pervading the house, but no. Since all 17 of us ate garlic, all 17 of us smelled like garlic. And after it got into my system (I believe you know what system that is, no need for further explanation), my hands began to smell like garlic, nay my whole body began to smell like garlic. I take off my shoe: garlic. Wash my hands: garlic. Check my underarms: garlic. Yeah, garlic garlic garlic garlic. Ok, that's just a little bit of an exaggeration, it's just my hands that reek. It's like the scent that doesn't go away!!! I'm seriously going to have nightmares about garlic if I'm not careful. Last night I washed my hands five times hoping to be rid of the garlic smell and replace it with a nice light cucumber melon. But no. I still to this moment smell like garlic. So, if you smell me any time soon...I'm sorry.

Please don't let this incident with garlic change your opinion of the dish which has caused my olfactory distress, it was in fact quite good, and everyone thought so. So there. I'm a good cook. Don't doubt me or I will smite you with my garlic odors.

And just to tickle my ego a little, here are a few more comments on the greatness of the meal:
"Better than Olive Garden"
"The best meal I've ever had whilst living in this house" (I know you already read that one, but I seriously just had to say it again.)
"Really stinking good."
"definitely repeatable!"
"Much better than the spaghetti-Os I had for lunch!"
"Absolutely divine!!"

Ok, so that last one was mine, but I can't help it if I have good taste.

The Correlation between Cool and Comments

This post has sprung from a mini conversation between myself and my best friend [but only on the bus] about comments. This conversation is actually under the comments [go figure] of the previous post. Anyway, now to what I really want to talk about.

The number of comments on any particular post has the power to change the coolness levels of any particular person with a blog/livejournal/website/pulse. It seems like there should be a formula to figure the coolness of a person. Something [but only something] like this:

If # of comments ≥ 3, then coolness exists
If # of comments < 3, then floppery exists; flop=loser

The problem with this equation [other than it's illogicality] is whether or not you count your response posts in the total count. I, for example, like to reply to the comments that people post, frequently doubling the number of comments. And furthermore, do repeat commenters count once or as many times as they post? Is the 3 in the equation the total number or the number of people. This is in fact why I didn't get into mathematics in college. Can you tell that I was in a "special" program in high school? I wanted to use limits and derivatives (the limit of exists as comments (x) approaches 3...), but neither my word processor or my brain has that capability. So as you can see by the above equation, everything depends on how many comments you have, even your status as a living breathing human being. A harsh but necessary standard by which to live. Seriously. No, not seriously. Gosh, people take me too seriously. I don't even take myself seriously. Why am I using seriously so much? Seriously. Anyway, sorry about that little tangent there. Comments and coolness. Does it really have anything to do with how "cool" the author of the post is? Not really, I personally believe the actual contents of the post is what determines "coolness". This post for example has forever earned me the "nerd" label, in which case I am decidedly uncool, in more than a few circles. In the nerd circles however, I could possibly considered "hilariously funny," "intellectual and mirthful," and [dare I dream?] "cool".

Well, that is my treatise on cool and comments. To be sure, I am not talking about comments all the time because of the lack of comments on my posts, seriously [let us not start that again].

Cheerio. (Farewell. Not breakfast cereal.)

Greetings My Adoring Public!

Hello, my adoring public, all four of you. So glad to be communicating with you again. Not that I've been out of communication with you, but well, it's been a week or so since my last post, mostly because I have not been inspired for a week. A whole week. Is that bad that I am devoid of inspiration for that long? I guess its better than never being inspired at all. Lack of inspiration must be the most depressing thing ever. Maybe that's why I was in the dumps this past week, but let us not go there, it's a painful experience and I don't want to talk about it!!!!!! Gosh, you people never stop pushing!

Moving on to greener pastures.

Have you ever used dictionary.com? I have, and let me tell you, it's dangerous. Don't do it! You get sucked in to this vortex of knowledge and you're unable to escape until something more interesting comes your way! Dictionary.com is out to get us! Seriously though, you look up the definition for something which provides this huge list of synonyms, and once you click on one, you've got to click on the next. It's crazy, really. I literally spent an hour one day this past week on dictionary.com! Who knew that words could be so addictive?

[changing the subject]

My roommate has sleep problems. She like keels over and DIES if she doesn't get a certain amount of sleep. This evening, for example, I enter my room at roughly 9:12 pm to find her already in bed! Can you believe that? I haven't gone to bed before 9:00 since that one time in high school when I fell asleep on my math book and didn't wake up till 6:00 am the next morning. Am I weird to think she's weird? To be fair, I also have some serious sleep issues, cause I can live on like 2 hours of sleep and still function properly for the day. But honestly, 9:00 pm? You have got to be kidding me.

[yet another change of subject, could this mean that I lack focus?]

I saw a bluejay and three cardinals today whilst roaming around campus. The cardinals were playing in this garden I walk past on the way to my first class. I wish they had been playing baseball, because that would have been incredibly funny, but I must remind myself that birds don't play baseball. The bluejay perched on the tree outside my window and watched me play Minesweeper (yes, I'm that much of a dork) for a few minutes before being frightened away by my celebration dance once I finally beat the expert level. Ok, so that last part didn't happen, but I did see a bluejay on the tree outside my window. And I wasn't playing Minesweeper...it was Freecell.

[change of subject #4; lack of focus definitely a possibility]

If you like the new "favorite post" section on my side bar let me know, cause I like it, and I figured out how to do the HTML editing all on my own!! Isn't that nifty? I'm so proud of myself. If you're proud of me too, you might consider leaving a comment for me...seriously, it would be cool. I like getting comments, they make me feel slightly less loser-ish.

[If you're not Squirty, this doesn't concern you]
Hey le squirt,
Found some good info on Harvest Moon if you're interested at all. Check it out. And yes, I know I'm a dork.