Back To School

Another Semester has begun here at the Alpha Delta Kappa Scholarship House. Everyone is still getting adjusted to having 4 new girls in the house, and not having 4 old friends here as well. The dynamic has changed, but hopefully it will normalize within a week or two. With the new girls has come new conflicts within the house, including the first need for fines, both housewide and individual. So here's the story behind the housewide. Everyone knows that college campuses aren't exactly the safest place on the face of the planet, therefore we lock our doors all the time, and everyone is aware of this rule. But some people, being entirely unsensetive, thought it necessary to leave several doors unlocked. We don't know who keeps doing it, only that it is a problem. Also, no one is allowed to touch the thermostat, because it wastes electricity every time it is changed. So someone went and changed it, even after several house warnings. This I am not happy about at all. The signs were posted all over the house, even under the thermostat, so there is absolutely no way that someone could be ignorant of the policy. It just agrivates me that someone would be that incondiderate.

The personal fine went to one of the new girls, a Chinese Music major who is not new to the Foundation. The rule violated? No guys can enter in the back doors, and what does she do??? Brings a guy through the back doors, and doesn't even sign him in. One of the officers saw her sleeping during the house meeting, which is probably why she is completely ignorant of most of the rules, even the ones that are aimed directly at her. She's giving her roommate fits because she talks on her cell phone loud and late into the night. Her roommate is by the way a nursing student who has to get up early every single day. What I don't understand is how she has stayed in the foundation. She's completely inconciderate of her fellow housemates, and she is constantly breaking rules, and it's not like they are difficult rules to follow.

On a completely different note, I was watching "You've Got Mail" on the tube this evening, wishing for a boyfriend, and wishing for someone to converse with online from time to time. I have friends that I talk to, but they are seldomly on when I am, because I really don't have much time to spend online during the evenings, mostly because I don't have internet access in my room, but that's besides the point. There is something appealing about being able to connect with someone where you are able to erase your words and rephrase them before sending, especially when you tend to ramble on incesantly, getting nowhere in live conversations, and generally sounding like a fool when I do. Sigh, why can't life be full of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks-like couples living their lives together in utter happiness, never really having to worry about certain things (like hair and makeup because there is always someone to do it for them). And why can't we all be so cute and slender having that perfectly innocent smile? Oh fooey. Maybe some day I'll find a man.

January 21, 2004
So again today we had some house problems. Someone put something into the microwave which is not compatible with microwaves. It’s really one of those ridiculously stupid moments in life. But I have to wonder why EVERYTHING is going wrong in the house at the same time: all the mess with the furniture and the office, the consistent breakage of rules which leads to fines, and now the destruction of an otherwise perfectly fine microwave. We were all standing in the kitchen after the microwave blew up talking about having another house meeting and going over in detail all of the notes that decorate the walls in the common areas. It’s actually quite comical to see them all, different hand writing and fonts sprawled across each one addressing a different problem within the house. Seriously, why can’t people just follow directions?

A Not So Debilitating Disability

I was born with slightly different bone structure than most people. My mother's first reaction (well, perhaps not first) at my birth was, 'oh no, she has her father's fingers.' You see, my father and I share something (whose scientific word I don't know) called stiff fingers, which means six of my fingers bend only at the top joint. This 'disability' has made sure that I: 1) will stay out of the military 2) will never be able to climb ropes 3) won't live a normal life because everywhere I go someone will say, 'what happened to your fingers?' and 4) will not be able to play stringed instruments...or will I?!? Up until today, I was thoroughly convinced that I would never be able to play guitar to any extent. Then today happened, and I picked up my brother's guitar, found an old Chord chart and began manipulating my fingers to fit the little dots on the 6 vertical lines. And low and behold, I could do it!! Some chords are harder than others, and some I am not physically able to do, but most of them are mine!!! Most of them can be played by me, the one who should never have been able to play guitar at all! Sure, I will probably never be the best guitarist in the world, but the fact that I can do even one song on the guitar is amazing. Like whoa, and thank you God.

PS-My fingers hurt, but for once, I DON'T CARE!!!!!!

The Gang's All Home

This evening was the first reunion of 'the gang,' my rather small group of high school and now college friends, since school began. We had all seen one another from time to time, but nothing compares to having everyone under the same roof again, even the [un]fortunate few who attend school out-of-state. We once again segregated ourselves into the guys and girls. The boys chose to huddle around the (3) television[s] watching "Randy the Reindeer" (it is Christmas after all), and playing two different games. The girls played cards at the kitchen table and talked between frantic rounds of Nerts. I actually won a couple of times too. After several rounds of Nerts, most of the girls adjourned to the living room where we discussed boys and our periods (well what else is there to talk about?), for which we were duly mocked by our male friends. Then someone decided to whip out this balance board thing. I took it upon myself to entertain everyone by wobbling around on this thing then shooting it out from under myself and falling (rather hard) on my butt/side. After that initial ouch...and what am I doing on the floor, I found it quite funny, as did my good friend who was doing her best not to explode in a burst of laughter whilst I writhed with pain on the floor. Actually the writhing didn't really happen, it looked more like lying in a big heap moaning, but writhing is such a nice word, no? I have many times fallen before, but never so hard, and never on concrete covered in carpet. Needless to say, I remained relatively inactive for the remainder of the evening. So now I'm lying in bed a few hours later, wondering if I'm going to get a nice shiny bruise for my trouble.

Weekly Updates and Random Thoughts

When I got my trusty computer this summer, I discovered something call Sound Recorder among the programs that come in the Windows XP default package, and I had a blast recording things on it. When I departed for college, I decided that I wanted to maintain more than just e-mail communication with my two best friends (who just happen to be roommates) at the other Florida school, so I have used that medium to let them hear my voice every once in a while. It's actually kind of fun, I highly recommend it.

I hung out with Ruth and Amanda tonight, it was fun, and something I haven't done in years...literally. We baked cookies and talked about stuff, the cookies weren't so great, but talking was fun.

This afternoon I didn't get up until really late, cause I went to Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King last night. It was awesome.

I love Christmas vacation, especially since it means that I don't have to be in school.

Being a doctor is a hard enough profession as is without having to worry about law suits all the time....hence, people need to back off and cut them some slack, they are people too who make mistakes. PS-my BP is down now that I'm off that medication that my doctor prescribed.

I have horrible posture, maybe I should work on that.

I really like butterscotch.

That's all for now, maybe write more later.

A Moment Of Disbelief

This morning as I awoke (about 3 hours after I had intended), the first thing to cross my mind was inevitably what where my grades like this semester? I acted upon this thought by going downstairs (I'm home again, BTW) and getting online to the FSU website and checking my grades. Much to my surprise (and joy) I discovered that I had all 'A's except for one A- in my British Literature class, in which I had expected to get a C. You can imagine how extatic I was to discover this. After a full semester of moaning and groaning about my professor, I have finally come to the end, and I have an A to boot. Ok, A-....but does it really matter that much? I certainly hope not.

On A Totally Different Subject
If you're like me you know that the final installment of "Lord Of The Rings" premiered today. And if you are like me you probably went and saw it, just like I did, at midnight. If you're not like me, you really missed out, cause it was great. Orlando Bloom was incredibly sexy as he took down an Oliphant single handedly, and Karl Urban looked awesome riding around on his horse and spearing this badguy. In short, it was awesome. I already said that, but it is no less true.

Ok, well, it's really late (or early, whichever you prefer) so I think I'm gonna go hit the sack, because I'm tired, and have been awake for far far too long.

Home For The Holidays

As a child I never quite realized how great the holidays are...And frankly, I don't think anyone realizes how great they are until they have moved away from home, whether to college or otherwise. When you're little, Thanksgiving and Christmas just happen; nothing changes in your life except there's less space to draw on the walls cause of the decorations your mother insists in putting up every year (not that that's a bad thing). But when you don't live there anymore it's great to come home and see that stuff up already, as opposed to your rather monotonous dorm or apartment. And the whole 5 day weekend is always good. I don't think I've ever been this excited at the prospect of consuming too much food. I just feels sorry for the people who don't have families to come home to like mine...my Korean roommate for example. She doesn't get to go home (not that they have Thanksgiving in Korea). I can't imagine not being excited to go home for Thanksgiving.

This year, I know what I'm thankful for: Thanksgiving itself, a family to come home to, and friends to bake pies with.

The Joys of the Holidays

This evening 4 of my house mates and I decided to carve pumpkins in celebration of Halloween. I carved a bat (not of my own design, we had this kit thing) and Kerry carved ADK into one side of hers and a face into the other. It was her first time. She was excited. After we were done carving, we thought it would be a good idea to make a pumpkin pie from the flesh we had cut away. We didn't realize that this would take several hours. Try 3 hours. And I missed ER. Dang it. But anyway, that is why I'm still awake at 2 in the morning, and I have a class in 7 hours, and I need my beauty sleep. We ended up not having enough pumpkin, so we added sugar. We were only 1/4th of a cup short, but still. On the other hand, more sugar isn't necessarily bad.

The great thing about cooking in college is you never have all of the ingredients that you need. For example, we don't have any shortening/lard, so we substituted butter. Thankfully we have a nutrition major in our house, so she can tells us if we can sub something like that. The crust isn't as fluffy and light, but it works and tastes good.

5 minutes later.....
ok, we just pulled it out of the oven and it looks GREAT!!!!! The baking crew has succeeded again!!!! It's AWESOME. And it was even Kerry's first pie. It's amazing how well things turn out when you follow directions. yay, that makes me happy. Anyway, now that that's over, I think I'm gonna go enjoy some pie!