Rat in a Cage

So yesterday I figured out that if I write a half-page of that ridiculously long paper for physics every day, it will be done before I need to turn it in. I forgot to factor in that today, February 28, is the last day of the month. That February is a trickster, but I'll still finish my paper the day before it is due by doing a half a page every day, so now it's not nearly as daunting, and with Chicago style notations, I'll have footnotes taking up some extra space at the bottom of each page, so it should be a piece of cake.

So after completing my half page and feeling pretty good about myself, and before catching up on TV shows, I stumbled upon (stumble uponned?), used Stumble Upon a couple of times.  I found a pretty fascinating and surprisingly intellectual yet humorous article on cracked.com.  It was about the techniques that video games use to get people addicted.  One of the things that they pointed out is that most video games are like virtual Skinner boxes.  The rewards aren't real but our brains react to them like they are.  Lots of games have people sitting and doing the same thing over and over until they get a reward.  Well, it got me thinking that this technique should be applied to people's jobs to a greater extent than getting a raise or a promotion.  If you work hard enough, your boss will buy you lunch or something. I haven't really figured out the exact details, but it just made me think that if someone will sit for hours clicking something repeatedly or whatever when they don't even have to, in order to get some reward that isn't tangible, it makes sense that when people have to repeat the same tasks over and over again at their job, then applying the same sort of reward system only with a tangible reward will make people want to keep working so they can get the next reward.  I employ the same technique when I'm studying. I'll tell myself that after I do a certain amount of work or work for some amount of time, then I can watch some tv or something.

So it's really not the different from what Nirvana says, "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage." Despite all our brains, we are still just rats in Skinner boxes.

Cookies for Breakfast

Because who doesn't love cookies? I'm not talking about eating Cookie Crisp either, although that cereal is fantastic. I'm talking about straight up cookies that aren't trying to pass themselves off as cereal. E.L. Fudge cookies from Keebler to be exact. They're delicious and they go great with Snapple Lemon Tea.

So unfortunately yesterday was woefully unproductive. I got nothing done. I didn't even open a Word document and put my name on it, much less actually start writing the paper. So today I am going to be remarkably productive even if it kills me, which it shouldn't. I have those virtual sticky notes all over my computer telling me to be productive and write my paper. Virtual sticky notes are great because it's all the reminderness of real sticky notes without the pesky adhesive on your computer screen. Spellcheck is telling me that reminderness is not a word, like I don't know that. Well guess what spellcheck, I invent words like fripperous and reminderness, so you can just deal with it. So I'm off to conquer, or last start to conquer this ridiculous paper. Wish me luck.

So I think I'm a little late on this whole celebrity look-alike thing but I did it anyway, and check out the results!

I guess I look like Emma Watson, but there's also two men. Take that as you will.

Here's another one, because this is really fun.

So 71% Emma Watson but also 71% Marcus Schenkenberg. Hmmm.

This one is the best one yet. Hilarious.

So when they first do it, they give you 10 options and you can pick which 5 you want. Well on this one, 7 out of 10 were men, and 5 out of 10 were old balding men, but Steve Vai's pretty cool, so at least there's that.

 

Bahahaha, they think I look like Rick James and Frankie Muniz. Yes, I do realize that these are all men. I guess I look like a guy? And I'm even wearing makeup in this one so who knows?

I'm not addicted, I swear. I can stop whenever I want to. I just don't want to yet!

I would stop, but they just keep getting better. Exhibit A:

I look like Vin Diesel! Funny, I don't see the resemblance. But hey, I got Lauren Graham and she's cool. She plays Lorelai on Gilmore Girls and she's really pretty too.

 

I think that it's plain to see from this one why I couldn't stop yet. Seriously, all 5 of them are pretty astounding. And Mother Teresa, what? Seriously? I think it's because I'm wearing a hat. But 72%? I think I look more like Emma Watson than Mother Teresa, personally. At any rate, this is the 2nd time I've gotten Ashley Tisdale as well as the second time I got Bam Margera.

Don't worry, that was the last one. It was pretty fun though and told me that I'm either pretty, old, or a man. Good to know, I suppose.

I Can Has Internetz!

I really have no idea why I decided to title this post like I'm an LOLcat but I did, so deal with it. My neighbors graciously shared their internet network password with me, so I have internet access again. Yay!  But for some reason it still won't work on my full sized computer so I have to use my little baby laptop. But it's alright, because I recently downloaded free antivirus for the baby laptop courtesy of my school.  The major downside to these mini laptops is the disturbing lack of a disk drive. Luckily for me, I can find downloads of the things I need for free on the Internet, mostly through my school.

While I have been away, I finished reading two books. They were really really really really good. Then I realized that I have now read all of my books :( So I need to find some book swap buddies pronto. I can reread my books, but I've read all of them relatively recently and I like to forget what happens in them a little bit before I read them again.  So now I have a book wishlist: anything ever written by James Patterson, because he is an amazing writer, specifically the first book in the Women's Murder Club series, since I just finished the second two, also Fang, the latest book in the Maximum Ride series, then I want the third book in the Dean Koontz Frankenstein trilogy since the second one ends in a complete cliffhanger and I NEED to know what happens next.

In other news, I have a new favorite flavor of ice cream. Haagen Dazs came out with a few new flavors: chai latte, blueberry crumble, and caramel apple.  They're all pretty good but the caramel apple is amazing! I would marry this ice cream if I could.  I got some edamame today. I think that it's like baby soybeans. I used to eat this stuff for snacks when I was a kid and I loved it.

We have really nice weather again today. My room is the perfect temperature with both the window and the door open. And now I'm going to go conquer this physics paper. Well at least start to conquer it anyway.Have a good weekend everyone!

My Recent Absence

Hey everyone, my Internet hates me. Actually, I don't think that anyone who lives on my floor has working internet. Anyway, that's why I haven't posted anything for a couple of days. In case anyone was worried, I just thought I'd let you all know that I'm not dead. I'll probably be ignoring you all again for a while, since I have to write that paper for my physics class. I had my last midterm today and it's been snowing again. I really don't think I did very well on my midterm, but I did alright on the first one and they only keep the best score so that's good.  So I have to go write my physics paper now, since it's at least 6 pages single spaced. Thankfully, parkour is really interesting so it won't suck quite so much. Bye for who knows how long.

SNOW!!!

Guess what everyone? I'm not dead and it's snowing! I quit coughing up blood after a little bit yesterday and today I still have a sore throat and cough, but no fever.  I had physical therapy today and my legs are so tired that I can't even bend my knees now.  Today I only had one class, but in my mind it was Monday. On Mondays, I get a ride back from my first class at 11:45. On Tuesdays, I get a ride back from class at 11:25. So since I thought today was Monday, I missed my ride. The big problem is that since my phone isn't working, I couldn't call to get a ride. The other problem is that I only have their number on my phone.  So I went back in the building and there was this girl using a laptop. She let me use it to look up the number and then borrow her phone.  I had to wait an hour for my ride so we talked. She was pretty cool and she gave me her number in case I ever need a ride.  I had sweet potato fries at lunch and they were so delicious. Now it's snowing really hard.  There's an extra credit movie tonight for my Finnish class but I'm not going to go, because it is 3 hours long and this snow will really be piled up by then. I wouldn't want to get stuck across campus. Also, there's the issue of finding someone to give me a ride there in the snow. So I'm going to stay in my warm little dorm room and write a paper on the physics of parkour, which I just found out this morning needs to be 6-10 pages SINGLE-spaced.  For those of you who can't do math, that's like 12-20 pages double spaced. Yikes. I also have to write a paper for my drugs and society class, but that one's just 4 pages, double spaced.  And I still need to develop a basic understanding of relativity that's more than just light has the same speed no matter what, because that's all I understand about it now and my midterm is on Thursday. Maybe it will snow a ton and the midterm will be postponed. That would be nice. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I just found out that they're making an Odd Thomas movie! That's one of my favorite books ever! And I only have to wait until 2013 to see it.

You know what? After I start being able to walk again (well a while after, like when I'm capable of running), I'm going to start doing parkour. It might even help with my fear of heights. It might help with my asthma too. This Carolynn Grigsby girl over on youtube is pretty skilled and I happen to be competitive so I want to become as good at it as she is.

Nothing but Blue Skies

The weather is so nice again today.  And I am studying again. I'm reading physics for dummies.  It's supposedly written at a sixth grade level, but I still don't understand it.  It kind of makes me feel stupid.  My brain is just not wired for science.  I chatted with C on Facebook again yesterday and told him that I am pretty sure I'm going to fail my physics midterm.  He said that he's sure I'll do fine. It was really sweet, but I'm almost definitely going to fail. He's trying out for the music major on Friday. He's been playing piano for 11 years.  We're having dinner together tonight if he gets back from his brother's house early enough.  I'm in a good mood today because the weather is so nice. I'm not really worried about failing my midterm. It's just something that's going to happen, and I'll be okay with how I do as long as I do my best.  I hope I don't fail the class. I need to write a 10 page paper. I'm writing it on the physics of parkour/freerunning, and I'll just make sure I do a really good job on that. Have a great weekend, well what's left of it anyway.

Hello there Springtime, nice of you to stop by

It is such a beautiful day today. Sun shining and sparkling off the water of Elliot Bay. So beautiful, and it's warm too. I am taking advantage of this lovely weather by studying for physics in my room, but the curtains are open so I can see the nice weather complete with blue skies.  It's not like I could go for a walk or play frisbee anyway.

I chatted with C on Facebook for a while yesterday. We talked about spiders and falling asleep in class. Chatting about nothing for an hour seems like a sign that he likes me, or is at least interested in talking to me. I don't know though. I tend to be really bad at telling if guys like me. At any rate, we are two of the few people who are actually staying in the dorms for the 3 day weekend, so I'll probably bump into him at some point.

Crazy Awesome Sale

I went to Hot Topic today. Their lease is up so everything was on sale for 50-75% off.  I got $100 worth of stuff for $20! Here's some pictures of the stuff I got.

I also got a black skirt with studs and lace but I didn't take a picture of it.

I was checking out the keywords that people use to find my blog and they are too good not to share with everyone, so here they are: cute baby panda, cute baby pandas, baby panda, pandas fall, talesofrandomchild.blogspot.com, ego possum wtiting tattoos, panda baby fall, "i am learning latin", cute pictures of baby pandas, Translate: ego sum E pluribus unum, cutes panda, that s right there s thunder, the test when, amazon promotional code, chloe moretz, my agenda t shirt, that s right there.  You guys really like that panda picture don't you? I can tell by the quantity and variety of your searches for it, so I thought I would provide you with some more cute baby panda pictures, no thanks necessary.

not my photo; let me know if it's yours and I'll credit you for it

not my photo; let me know if it's yours and I'll credit you for it

via

via; this site has lots more adorable photos of pandas

not my photo; let me know if it's yours and I'll credit you for it

via

Have a great weekend.

Failing at Shopping

I went shopping with my friend this morning. We were going to go to Hot Topic so I could spend my birthday gift card, but the mall that we went to no longer has Hot Topic.  So we're going to try again tomorrow at a different place, hopefully with more success.  I want to get 3 rings to replace the 3 that I always wear but are made of cheap metal that changes my skin color and they pinch me sometimes because they're adjustable.  I also need to get a new wallet, because mine won't close anymore. It's not even because I have a lot of money. It's because I have too many business cards for doctors and such.

Now I have a four day weekend. Woohoo. It's supposed to snow. I kind of hope it doesn't, because I can't enjoy it.

Do you like things that are cute and adorable? Of course you do. Feast your eyes on these cute and adorable creatures. Caution: Contains so much cuteness, your head might explode.

not my photo; let me know if it's yours and I'll credit you

via

Look at the adorable things this girl sells: tizzalicious. I really want this awesome necklace she makes:



Check out this fantastic Etsy find. It's adorable and it's a steal at only $7.99!

That's all I have for you.

Today was Alright

Today was a lot better than yesterday. I'm not sure if I told you that my key broke almost in half in the bathroom door yesterday, but I got my key replaced today. I did my presentation for Finnish today and it went really well.  That's really all I have to share.  It was a pretty average day. Oh, and also, I got to sleep in until 11 since my physics professor had to go take care of family business in Russia. He's definitely in the Mafia. Well probably not but family business in Russia definitely sounds suspicious.

Can This Day Get Any Worse?

I think that it may finally be safe to think that this day can't possibly get any worse, since there are only 13 minutes left of it. I'm not superstitious either. Cue indoor thunderstorm.

So today: not good. To start with, I forgot to schedule a ride back from my physical therapy, so I had to go two hours before my appointment.  That was okay, because it gave me time to read my book and eat some sweet potato fries which I have been craving for about a month, yum. But all was not as wonderful as it seemed.  Little did I know that during my physical therapy session, I would be subjected to electroshock therapy.  And that the guy running it would start it out way too intense.  I also didn't know that afterward I would have a twitch in my leg and feel phantom electric shocks every so often for about an hour.  Another thing that I was blissfully unaware of was the fact that I would finish my book and there would be a cliffhanger ending and I don't have the next one in the series.  I would never have even guessed that I would have to wait outside in the cold for half an hour before finding out from the information desk that my ride had somehow been canceled.  That I would then have to wait outside in the cold for another half an hour for the bus and ride it for the first time in my wheelchair.  Nor was I aware that the closest bus stop to my dorm would leave me wheeling myself four blocks in the rain when already tired from physical therapy.  Or that the lock in the bathroom door would break my key.  Yep, I wasn't aware of any of that stuff, so I just sat there eating my sweet potato fries and reading my novel.

That part of the day was not good, but then my good friend Jessica came over and had dinner with me. My cheeseburger was burnt and the mac and cheese was spicy for some reason. But then we watched The Office and I did my laundry and now there's a mountain of clothes calling to me to fold it.

I Can Do Anything

Don't try this one at home, even though I did.  I gave myself an industrial piercing.  It was going really great until it was stuck like this for at least a half hour.

Grrrrr, I am not an elf

If you can't tell, there's just one very thin layer of skin left that it would not go through.  It was making me have a pointy elf ear.  After at least half on hour of pushing and pulling and yanking and frustration, my roommate came back.  I told her what was going on and she said maybe I should look for help on the Internet.  Then she asked me to show her what I was trying exactly and I showed her and it actually finally went through.  She was kind of disgusted by the noise it made.  Anyway, I'm all done now.

All done, yay!

Up close and personal

In other news, I planned to have myself a Freddy Krueger marathon yesterday but the movie wouldn't finish buffering so I didn't even finish the first one.  I did however finish making my presentation for Finnish.  It was supposed to be tomorrow, but my teacher is sick, so we don't have class tomorrow. Oh yeah, I got a whole bunch of clothing today too.  I got a whole bunch of shirts at Goodwill for about $3 each and a really cute dress there too.

DIY

My friend was going to take me to do some errands today, but she mixed up today's work schedule with tomorrow's, so she's going to take me tomorrow.  I decided that I am going to do my own industrial piercing. Then it will only cost $10 for the jewelry.  I want to get something like this for it, except it's wavier and there's a loop.

I am going to have a marathon of Freddy Kruger on my mini laptop while working on a presentation for my finnish class on this one.

My latin word of the day is melior.  It means better.

Shopping Adventure

Today my friend Monica from my physics class took me to the mall.  I got two pairs of jeans for only $8 each! And they both fit perfectly.  The second pair of jeans I tried on fit.  It was pretty cool, since the last time I bought jeans, I had to try on 40 pairs before I found 3 that fit.  I saved $70 today! Everything was super marked down, like 80% off.  After we got back to my dorm, my friend realized that she had accidentally left my wheelchair cushion on top of the car and it wasn't there anymore when we got back.  We seriously doubted that we would be able to find it if we went back so she bought me a new one. It turns out that the old one was worth $500! That's insane! I didn't let her spend $500 on a replacement.  I got the cheapest one, which was still $90.  Eep.  After getting back to my dorm for the second time, we bid one another farewell.  I got up to my room and then I noticed that the store forgot to remove one of the anti-theft tags from my jeans.  It's one of the ones that explodes ink if you mess with it, so I'm going to go back and get it removed tomorrow.  I'm looking into places to get an industrial piercing. I found a place that does them for $25, which I can actually afford, as long as I provide my own jewelry. Sounds good to me, so hopefully I'll be getting that done soon.

The one thing that I really hated about the mall is the bombardment of hearts and lovey-dovey Valentine's stuff.

I've got Sunshine on a Sunny Day

It is cold outside though, no month of May for me, but it's so sunny. It makes me wish I could go for a walk.

I forgot to share the best news about yesterday. I got a totally unexpected birthday present. It was a $10 iTunes gift card from my friend who I happened to run into yesterday and hadn't seen for a while.  And "run into" is being used as an expression, I didn't literally run into him. Anyway, I get to download some new music, yay!

I'm all done with classes today and I'm eating some delicious pita bread with roasted red pepper hummus.  I'm actually going to do some schoolwork too. I have to pick a topic for my physics paper and work on my half of the presentation for my Finnish class.  And tomorrow I'm hanging out with my friend Monica from physics. And tomorrow is my weekend.  And my mom mailed me my new phone so I'll get it soon.

All this good stuff almost makes me forgot how much it sucks to be single on Valentine's Day. Almost, but not quite.  Because guess what, it sucks. Not that I have ever not been single on Valentine's Day, or not been single at all.  Of course, there is C, but I'm still not ready to tell him how I feel about him.  I really don't want to get rejected again.

Wow, for being such an optimist, I'm being a real Negative Nancy today.

I had a pretty good day after all. I made some new friends and killed some zombies in Call of Duty: Black Ops, which I've never played before but I'm actually pretty good.  I actually got first place every time except three.  We played like 20 games of it.

I'm learning my Latin. I know all of my numbers 1-10 and my colors are still a little bit shaky but I'm working on them. The numbers are: unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem.  I also subscribed to a Latin word of the day to be emailed to me along with a sentence.

Yummy Yummy Yum

I had my second to last midterm today.  Then tonight was the delicious Finnish Crepe Party. I had two delicious crepes with strawberries and whipped cream and some blood orange soda.  I don't really drink much soda, but it was really good.  That's pretty much all I have to share today.

And here's some answers to some questions about how I talk:

- What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
TPing

- What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
a potato bug

- What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
soda

- What do you call gym shoes?
shoes?

- What do you say to address a group of people?
you all, not y' all

- What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
daddy longlegs

- What do you call your grandparents?
grandma and grandpa

- What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
a shopping cart

- What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
I call it rain. What else would I call it?

- What is the thing you change the TV channel with?
a remote

Fun fact: When I was first learning to talk, I had a Southern accent. I had it until I was 4.  I have never been to the South and nobody in my family has a Southern accent, so we have no idea why I had it.  I also couldn't say the letter r properly until I was about seven years old.

Um, so yeah, that's it. Valete.

Because You are Important to Me

I should be writing an essay right now, because it is due tomorrow. However it is only the rough draft of a self-reflective essay that only needs to be 2-5 pages long so I'll have plenty of time to do it. I feel bad for neglecting you yesterday, so I'm going to attempt to make it up to you today with an extraordinary post of epic proportions.  Speaking of epic, I'm not really sure what the difference is between epic poetry and normal poetry, except that epic poetry is longer.  Here's one more thing I'm not sure about: Why do Americans buy milk in gallons and soda in liters? I don't know. It seems strange to me.  Fun fact: For the United States to switch over to the metric system, it would cost $9 billion!

Let's go back in time now, shall we? Do you remember the Super Bowl? I would understand if you didn't since it was two whole days ago.  Well I had planned to discuss it in my post yesterday, but then I was too busy, so I'm going to discuss it now.  I wanted the Packers to win, so I am happy with the outcome.  It seemed like it would be a runaway game after those first two touchdowns, but then the Steelers came back and made it interesting.  They would have made history if they won, but they didn't.  It was still a valiant effort anyway.  And how about that halftime show? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas, so I was really surprised that I have actually heard all of those songs before.  The light up outfits were very unique. I'm still debating about whether they're cool or just over the top.  So for a while there, I was feeling pretty meh about the halftime show and then all of a sudden Slash appeared and played my favorite song ever! How cool is that? Pretty cool, but then Fergie started grinding on him and he got freaked out and left.  Everyone knows that football is only part of the Super Bowl watching experience.  The other part is the commercials.  There were some good ones this year, as well as some that made me think "What the heck?"  One strange commercial was the trailer for the new movie Cowboys and Aliens. Yep, that's right, Cowboys and Aliens. I don't even know what to say about that. I really can't wait to see what the sequel is, perhaps Cowboys and Zombies, or maybe Cowboys and Robots, or perhaps Cowboys and Pirates, but deep down I really know that it will without a doubt be Cowboys and Vampires, because somehow everyone still loves Twilight, which I still haven't watched and criticized, er, critiqued, by the way.  On a sidenote, Eclipse gum has jumped on the Twilight bandwagon along with Sweethearts. You know those heart shaped Valentine's candies that have cute little sayings on them like Marry Me and LOVE? Well now there are Twilight themed ones that feature such sayings like I <3 EC. I wish I were making this up, but it is true.  Now where was I again? Oh yes, Super Bowl commercials.  That one with Ozzy talking about 3G, 4G, and 5G was pretty awesome and then Justin Bieber showed up to sell 6G and Ozzy said that he looks like a girl. That one was great. I don't have any idea what they were trying to advertise but it was great.  Doritos really did a good job this year. They made me laugh, then they made me cry (from laughing so much). See for yourself.






This one didn't air, but it's pretty funny.


Fun fact: The Green Bay coach was from Philadelphia.

Also, during the Super Bowl, there were many claims made that Glee is the funniest comedy on television. I seriously doubted that, so I watched it and, while it is not the funniest comedy on television, I did laugh quite a few times and I will watch it again if there is nothing better on. I won't be joining the ranks of the Gleeks anytime soon though.

Now journey forward in time with me to yesterday. It totally makes sense, since we are starting from Sunday, just stop overthinking it. Yesterday was a bad day, and by bad, I mean very very not good. It started out normal enough. I stayed in the shower for too long so I threw on clothes and didn't have time to eat breakfast or brush my hair. I brought a Pop Tart to eat in class, just like always. On Mondays, I have classes from 10:30 until 4:30 without a break in between, so I have to bring a lunch with me if I want to eat. While I did indeed want to eat yesterday, I forgot my lunch during all of my hurrying-so-I-don't-miss-my-ride. So by the time class got over, I was pretty hungry, but let's back up a bit now. I apologize but I just got a brand new time machine and I'm trying to show it off. So after my second class, I came out and there was a large truck unloading right in front of the door, and I couldn't go past it to get to my ride because it was so large. It was also pouring rain so I got pretty soaked by the time the guy got back and moved his truck. I was late to class and there was a table where I normally sit so I had to sit in front of it and try not to completely block the aisle. So then fast-forward again. I get done with my classes and come back to my dorm and find out that I need to read 77 pages of epic poetry that night. I know that there were 77, because I counted them, not once, but twice. After printing them all out (I am nearly out of ink and paper now), I had to put them all in the correct order, because my printer likes to print everything in the reverse order of what would make sense. Having OCD, I counted them while putting them in the correct order, then realized that I had somehow managed to put them in the exact same order they were already in.  So then I counted them all again while putting them in the actual correct order.  Then I texted C something stupid because I had a really bad day and I'm an idiot.  Thankfully, I made up a stupid reason for why I wanted to see him instead of telling the truth, which was that I had a really bad day and I wanted to see him because he makes me happy.  Anyway, I managed to avoid the "I want to see you" phrase somehow.  Luckily, his room was full so I couldn't come do my homework over there. My excuse was that I needed to read a bunch of stuff so I couldn't be in the same room with my computer or I'd be obsessively going on Facebook every five minutes and/or falling asleep, which was actually kind of true.  I ended up going on Facebook three times and falling asleep twice, but I managed to finish reading it all during class this morning.  I would have potentially finished it all last night but my RA had free nachos for everyone in the lounge and they were really good and I met another person from my floor who is pretty cool.  The other good thing that happened yesterday is that in my physics class the professor made lightning with this super cool ancient machine and it was awesome.

Today was much better than yesterday. I had physical therapy and it's going really well.  Hopefully I'll be having dinner with C tonight and he will forget about how ridiculous I was yesterday.  I'm going to go cut my hair now, and then I have to write an essay. Valete. (That's Latin for goodbye.)

Super Bowl!!!!!!!!!!!

So it's Super Bowl Sunday, but the Super Bowl isn't starting for about an hour and you have nothing to do.  Well, lucky for you, I scrounged up some videos for you to watch and kill some time. You're welcome.



That one's obviously relevant because it's football.

This next one is a wonderful song about sports.



Usually I root for the underdog in the Super Bowl. I don't even know who is the underdog this year.  I want Green Bay to win.  Anyway, I like this song.

The Post Naming Machine is on the Fritz

Once again, I can think of no relevant or creative name for this post.  Anyway, today I have two movie reviews for you. Last night, I watched The Sixth Sense and Life as we Know It.  They were both really good and I managed to get a bit of reading done in my Finnish book at the same time, so win-win-win.

I give both movies a four out of five.  The Sixth Sense was really good, but I already knew what was going to happen.  Bruce Willis and Hailey Joel Osment were both really good actors and the music was timed perfectly to make me jump, so it was good.  It reminded me of the book series Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, except that in those books, the ghosts can't talk or hurt people.  Life as we Know It was a fairly typical romantic comedy, complete with happy ending.  As far as romantic comedies go, it was funnier than most. I laughed so much that by the end, it felt like I had an ab workout. Holly and Messer's antics are thoroughly enjoyable. I liked this more than Leap Year, which was previously my favorite romantic comedy, and one that I usually watch every time that I'm in the hospital, because it's usually on their free movies. Watching movies and sleeping is pretty much the only thing you can do when you are in the hospital and you can't walk.

The guys next door to me got a remote control car that they have been playing with a lot lately. It sounds just like a drill. I know this because I took a lot of wood shop classes in high school, and I have used a drill more times than I can count.  They are really horrible at driving their remote control car and they kept on crashing it into walls. They crashed it into my door twice.

It reminded me of how some of the guys last year had a remote control car and they would drive it down the hall and into everyone's room who had their door open and then back out.  When they drove it into my room, they accidentally got it stuck against the doorframe when they were trying to drive it back out, so I picked it up and set it back down so it could be along its merry way. I forgot to mention that they were controlling it from inside their room where we couldn't tell who was driving it if we looked out in the hall.  Another time, one of the guys was working on his golf game.  He had a glass that he would go set somewhere in every room that had an open door and then his roommate decided what par would be for that hole. One time he was going to do this and the RA saw him with his golf club and said that she certainly hoped he wasn't golfing inside because that would be against the rules. He made up something about going to golf on the quad and then went down in the elevator and then came back up the stairs, since the elevator is in view of the RA's room, but the stairs are not. There were a lot of really interesting people on my floor last year. Two of my friends liked to do really strange things in the elevator to annoy the other people in the elevator.  They usually each leaned backwards against an elevator door when we were waiting for the elevator. I never did actually see the doors open when they were leaning against them though.  Another favorite elevator pastime was riding upside down.  They would do a handstand and hold on to the bar attached to the wall and put their feet on the ceiling. They got a lot of weird looks out of that one.  And one time someone moved their desk out of their room in front of an elevator and sat there and studied like it was perfectly normal.

I had a strange dream last night where I my brother kept attacking me with a machete and I was trying to find clues about something later because I was a Russian spy. It was thoroughly bizzare.  I'm not sure if I actually woke up screaming multiple times or if I just dreamed that I woke up screaming multiple times. My roommate stayed with a friend last night so I don't know.

I just noticed this and it is thoroughly bugging me.

The shadow on the speech bubble thing is backwards of how it should be! Grrr. I think that Facebook secretly hates people with OCD.

In other news, peach yogurt with granola is delicious. That's what I had for brunch today.  I haven't been able to shower for two days because my legs haven't worked at all, and I'm beginning to feel disgusting. I used to shower twice a day back when I could walk, but now I can only shower in the morning if my legs work when I wake up. Enjoy the Super Bowl tomorrow, if you watch it. In case you were wondering, it's on FOX at 3:30 pm pacific time/ 6:30 pm eastern time.  If you're really out of the loop, you should at least know that the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Green Bay Packers. Bye.

Babbling Garbledygook

My brain has ceased to be able to come up with meaningful post titles.

Today, I am going to rant, among other things.  Specifically, I am going to rant about the criminal justice system in the United States.  I have many different people who drive me to my classes. I usually have the same guy every day for my morning driver to my first class. He listens to NPR or something like that on the radio. I have no idea what it actually is, but they discuss news things. Anyway, a couple of days ago, every single story they had was about kids getting murdered. I am not even exagerrating, every single story. There were four or five of them. Oh wait, one of them was about an adult getting murdered, but still. So after hearing the first three stories about toddlers being murdered and the discovery of a missing preschooler's body, I was beginning to lose faith in humanity. How can people do things like that? I just don't understand. And to children even. Children are so adorable, especially as toddlers, and sure they can be annoying at times, but so can adults.  There is no good reason to kill a child, plain and simple.  Toddlers are innocent.  They just want to play and be loved. They don't see race or judge you on your physical appearance or if you talk funny. They love you regardless of whether you are fat or skinny, short or tall, as long as you love them in return.  It just completely boggles my mind to try to understand how messed up someone would have to be to hurt a child.

The fourth story was about how a serial rapist murdered a prison guard.  It should have never happened.  The prison guard was a petite woman, guarding a serial rapist who was twice her size, all by herself, without a gun.  She was supposed to supervise him while he was in the chapel.  They didn't find her body for an hour after they talked to the prisoner. The first thing I want to know is how on earth only one person, regardless of size or gender, was thought to be enough to guard a large violent criminal.  I mean, what was their thought process? Oh, well he wants to go to the chapel, so he must be asking forgiveness for his sins or something. He probably converted to a religion and now he'll be a fantastic human being, but we'll send this small woman along with him, UNARMED!, just in case he tries to pull something, which we're sure he won't.  Sure he's raped numerous woman and commited other violent crimes, but this woman will be completely safe with him, since he is obviously a great person now. I mean, he's going to the chapel and everything.  And even if somehow, he is going to the chapel to give us a false sense of security, which is totally working by the way, this woman who is half his size will be able to prevent him from causing any mischief, without any weapon whatsoever. Oh no, small woman, don't bring a gun, he's practically a saint. Then they don't even go check on her to make sure she's okay, because like they said, the guy's practically a saint.  And when they do finally go by the chapel, for some unrelated reason, they see the prisoner and have a nice little chat.  Not even once do they ask him where the woman is who is supposed to be guarding him. Then they leave and then ONE HOUR LATER, they find her dead.  If I remember correctly, she was strangled.  I wonder if they even have security cameras. Or maybe the security guard fell asleep.  Hopefully, this will open their eyes so they can make some changes and this won't happen again.  But seriously, it's just common sense not to have a small unarmed woman guarding a man twice her size, who has raped numerous women and is IN JAIL!  It is pathetic that this woman had to die before they noticed their complete lack of common sense.  It is an outrage.  I didn't even know the woman and I'm outraged, so I can only imagine what her friends and family feel.  And then after that story was a story of a man murdering his wife and child and stabbing them 20 times! But he admitted that he did it, so they're not giving him the death penalty.  He has two consecutive life sentences, but honestly that doesn't even mean anything, since people can get out early on good behavior.  To summarize, the thought process of our criminal justice system is unimaginable and their lack of common sense is appalling. Okay, rant over.

On to happier things. I had my first dinner with C last night. It was the Chinese New Year so there was a Chinese food buffet.  Most of the food was pretty good, but some of it wasn't that great. The barbecue pork fried rice was great and the almond cake was absolutely divine. My fortune cookie told me to learn a foreign language. I don't like getting bossed around by fortune cookies. I'm learning Latin because I feel like it, not because some stupid yet delicious fortune cookie tells me too. C's fortune said to ask an elderly person for advice. We didn't talk a whole lot, since we were pretty busy eating. I would have talked more but I was afraid that I would say something stupid. Also, it was really loud, so when we did talk, we had to keep repeating what we said. It went well though, and I don't think I said anything too stupid, although somehow in line we started discussing eating bugs and then I told him the story of how I once ate rocks. He found it humorous and I was three, so it's not like I said that I like to eat rocks now, which by the way I don't.  Hopefully, the more we eat together, the less worried I will become about saying something stupid.

Today I decided that I would like to start painting shoes.  I have this one pair of shoes that I drew on with Sharpies last year and it turned out really cool, but I didn't make them match and they no longer fit me.  I think it would be cool to use actual paint and maybe sell them if I get good enough. Anyway, I'll be taking a trip to Goodwill pretty soon to find some shoes I can practice on.

I'm going to go read my novel for Finnish and watch The Sixth Sense, which I haven't seen yet. Don't be all shocked about that because I'm going to watch it right now and then I will have seen it, because after you watch a movie, then you saw it.  Talk about redundancy.  You know who's hilarious? Brian Regan, and Flight of the Conchords.

Distractions

I'd like to interrupt this blog post that hasn't started yet for an important announcement: C is my semi-permanent dinner buddy!  I'm not really sure how far below boyfriend status that is. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I'm one of the few people who has a person who they classify as a semi-permanent dinner buddy. For one thing, it takes forever to say, but I digress.

Yesterday, I planned to read a ridiculous amount. Would you like to know what I did instead? Of course you would, and if you would not, then I'm just going to tell you anyway.  First I designed a logo for a coffee shop for a contest thing where the winner gets $200. I just keep entering these contests, since even if (when) I don't win them, I still have work to add to my portfolio. Anyway, BLAM! Logo!

I'm not sure why the tops of the f's got cut off in the JPEG, but you can just imagine them round on top.

After that, I went and entered another photo manipulation contest with this beautiful picture.

It's a well-known fact that caterpillars have green slime instead of blood.

I started on an entry for another contest where you put animals in clothing. Don't judge me. It is definitely more important to dress a giraffe and a zebra for prom than it is to read a book for class. I'll post that one when I finish it.

And now I'd like to tell all of you about the horror that was my senior prom, which was the only dance I ever went to in high school.  (Did you catch my expert segue?)  But first, a little backstory.  My senior year of high school, I had an emergency appendectomy one week before my birthday.  I went back to school for only half of the day on my birthday, because I was in pain despite the pain medicine that pretty much only succeeded in making me loopy.  I took a long time to recover from my surgery. Three months later, I was finally better and able to participate in my PE classes, of which I had two.  I also had to exercise a lot at home to make up for all of the PE classes that I had to sit out while recovering. 

One week after returning to PE, I sprained my neck trying to spin on my head in my tumbling class.  I got carried strapped to a board down three flights of stairs and went to the hospital in my PE clothes with no shoes.  Luckily I didn't break my neck, but I did have to wear a neck brace for a week.  Anyway, on the way home from the hospital, still in my PE clothes and not wearing shoes, my mom sees this dress in the window of a secondhand store that she thinks would be perfect for me to wear to prom if it fit.  I didn't think they would let me in the store, since I wasn't wearing shoes, but my mom said that if they complained, she would buy me some cheap shoes there.  So I went in.  I got the dress and tried it on. It was very difficult with my neck brace, but it fit and I got it.  By the way, this was two weeks before prom. Good thing I only had to wear the neck brace for one week.   We had been trying to find a dress for me to wear to prom for a while before that with no luck, since my dad is ridiculous and wanted me to be completely covered.  I'm talking about the fact that he found this dress when we were shopping that he wanted me to try on that had long sleeves, a turtleneck, and went all the way down to the floor. 

The dress that I got was modest. I wouldn't want to wear anything revealing anyway. It would just be awkward.  A month before prom, I asked my dad if I could ask the guy I liked to go with me.  He went to another school, so it's not exactly like he would have asked me to go with him to my school's prom.  My dad said that it's improper for a girl to ask a guy. My grandma even called him old-fashioned when she heard about that.  Anyway, I respected his wishes, since if I didn't, he would just not let me go to prom.  He did say that if he asked me, I could go with him.  This was ridiculous for the reason mentioned earlier. My mom gave me the idea to hint at it in e-mails to him.  So I sent him a few e-mails about not having a date for prom and since I had never gone to any school dances, nobody would ask me since they wouldn't expect me to be going.  I began to think that he really couldn't take a hint. So on prom night, my parents drove me there dateless. Imagine my surprise when I see Austin (the guy I wanted to ask) there with someone else.  Later I found out that his best friend's girlfriend had gotten him to come along with her friend who didn't have a date, and had asked way before I started my hinting.  He could have at least told me that that was why he wasn't asking me.  Anyway, I avoided him all night and hung out with some other friends and attempted to dance, which I'm fairly horrible at.  It wasn't as bad as the prom on Carrie, but the highlight of my night was when some of my guy friends were rocking out and accidentally knocked down the fake castle. I was completely miserable though and it definitely made me happy that I had never gone to any of the other school dances. Here's a picture of me with my best friend on prom night. She went with her ex, and he had broken up with her, so she didn't have a whole lot of fun either.

I'm on the left, in case you can't tell.

That story really wasn't very interesting. I apologize. Hopefully the zebra and giraffe picture will make up for it. I'll go finish it right now.

It's finished. Who knew that putting a tuxedo on a zebra would be so difficult? No wonder they don't wear clothes. However, the giraffe looks pretty good in this dress. The zebra is lucky she didn't wear heels!

No More Winter!

It was Groundhog Day today.  Punxsatawney Phil (no idea if I spelled that right) did not see his shadow, so no more winter! That's easy for me to say, but it might not be quite so believable for those of you who are buried in snow.  Here in Seattle, we have had blue skies and sunshine for three days now, so I'm with Phil on this one, at least as far as Seattle is concerned.

Check out this gorgeous sunset that one of my friends managed to capture earlier this week.

Isn't it spectacular? Imagine three different variations of this all across the sky and refelcting on the snow-covered mountain.  That's what it was like. It was the best sunset I have seen in my entire life.

Right now, I am playing the don't-skip-any-songs game.  I just invented this game and it consists of listening to music on iTunes without skipping anything, since I usually skip a lot of songs.  You know what band I really like? Rise Against. I really like their song "Hero of War."

Yesterday I had dinner with my awesome friend Jessica.  My burrito didn't taste very good, so I had ice cream instead, because I'm ridiculously healthy like that.  She got me this really cool birthday card that has Hoops and Yoyo dressed as pirates and when it's open, they yell for a very long time about how I need to protect my birthday booty, and it lights up and stuff.  She also got me a gift card for Hot Topic, so we're going to go shopping sometime, which is awesome because I had just been complaining about how I can't buy anything, since I have to save all of my money for physical therapy.  Then we spent a little bit looking at Pokemon stuff on Etsy and then I showed her Regretsy, which is a pretty hilarious site full of really strange things that people try to sell on Etsy.

Today, my Finnish teacher decided that we are all going to have a Finnish Crepes Party at her house after our midterm on Wednesday. She's really cool. I love crepes!

Right now, I'm awaiting a reply to a request for C to be my semi-permanent dinner buddy.  I really hate eating dinner alone, and this way I could spend more time with him.  I'm not going to tell him that I like him for a while, because I'm kind of scared of getting rejected like I did with H.  I'll just wait for it to progress naturally, if it does.

And now I have an important date with a fictional character, which really just means that I have to read a book for my Finnish class. Bye.

Happy February!

That's right people, it's February, so change your calendars.  It's Tuesday, so I only had one class this morning. I fell asleep during it twice. Oops.  I also had physical therapy today, and I will be walking again soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We had janitors come to our room today and clean up all the mold and it turns out that there is nothing wrong with my mini fridge.  There is something wrong with the heater, so they'll fix it soon.  I'm having dinner with my friend Jessica tonight , so that will be fun.  And did I mention that there is blue sky and sunshine today? It's pretty spectacular. That's really all I have to say, so bye.

Oh my goodness you guys, I just found out that a hurricane weighs more than 300,000 blue whales do! Insanity! Hurricanes should diet.