Spring Break: In Depth

Multnomah Falls

See the rainbow?

Blue skies

Mist on the mountains

Snow!

Bridge of the Gods, connects Oregon and Washington

So yesterday I didn't post because I was thoroughly exhausted.  But today, here is the story of my Spring Break.  It all started out well enough, but after a while in the car, I started having my head involuntarily shake back and forth and my leg jerk.  Later, I found out that these are known as spasmodic torticollis and ballismus, respectively.  It continued off and on for a while.  We went to Portland to visit my brother, and I thought that maybe if I got out and walked around, the shaking would stop.  How wrong I was.  As soon as I got out, I started having what I thought at the time was a seizure.  My parents caught me before I hit the pavement and then after it stopped, my dad carried me up the stairs into my brother's apartment.  Once there, I was okay for a little bit, but before too long, I kept on having these seizure things, and they kept on coming closer together.  I stopped being able to talk and then we went to the hospital.  They were super violent too.  My legs and arms would kick and punch things as hard as possible while my head thrashed wildly.  I still have bruises and scrapes from it.  My brother and my dad carried me down the stairs to the car, and I had one of the seizure things halfway down the stairs.  Once in the car, they began coming even closer together, with only a few seconds in between where I could catch my breath.  When we got to the hospital, they said that they weren't seizures, since I was conscious during them.  They didn't know what they were but they gave me some medication to take and then they stopped.  I still couldn't talk.  And then I went home and went to bed.  The next morning I woke up and had a seizure thing and took my medicine, still couldn't talk.  My mom put out a mattress for me to lay on on the floor and surrounded it with pillows so I wouldn't hurt myself if I had more seizure things, which I did.  I didn't have nearly as many that day as the day before and before long, the medicine started working and the seizure things quit.

I just chilled on the mattress and watched movies with my mom for the next few days.  We watched Three Men and a Baby and Three Men and a Little Lady, both of which I highly recommend if you want a good laugh.  We also watched this old movie called Ladyhawke and it had a super bizarre plot but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I would recommend it as well, if you can find it anywhere.  The next day, I woke up able to talk and walk normally, and after that I didn't have any more seizure things.  On Saturday, we went to my brother's again to celebrate his birthday with him.  His friend J was there and we got along really well.  We watched Demitri Martin and he is truly hilarious.  The most memorable part of my conversation with J is when he said, "I like your orange socks.  None of my friends have orange socks.  I used to have pants that color."  I think that was an attempt at flirting.  Anyway, after we left, I got a text from my brother asking if he could give J my number.  I said sure, and then we texted back and forth all the way home.  Then I watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the old BBC version, and it was really great, but the ending was horrible.  It stuck to the books, pretty much exactly.  J and I are Facebook friends now, but when I texted him after getting back, he only sent one word responses.  I'm just giving him some space now.  It seemed like he was pretty into me, but now that I'm in Seattle, not so much.  I don't know.  Anyway, now I'm back and I've started my Spring Quarter classes.  The cherry trees are in bloom in the quad and they look amazing.  My classes are really great this quarter, and on both Tuesday and Thursday, I only have one class and it's over by noon, so that's pretty spectacular.

Spring Break: A Summary

Well, I decided that to add to the suspense by just writing keywords, and since they're just words, I'll make them into haiku.  Okay so, this was my spring break. I'll try to go into greater detail tomorrow if the satire piece on Snuggies doesn't spring from my fingers instead.

couldn't talk, seizures
but not really after all
hospital visit

laziness, movies
lay around take medicine
for my false seizures

recover fully
I can walk and talk, mid-week
short hacky sack try

visit my brother
meet an adorable guy
he asked my number

new phone, new cam'ra
internet doesn't hate me
back to school I go

Adventures in Eating

Recently I discovered this blog, which is all about this girl doing tons of things that she wouldn't normally do and living a much happier life because of it. You should go check it out. It's fantastic and inspiring. So far I haven't done anything terribly fascinating, but I do have plans to ask out a random cute guy on the street once I'm back to being able to walk, just because it's completely not the kind of thing I would normally do.  So here's my story of doing something that I normally wouldn't.  Though it's pretty tame compared to some of the things that girl does, it's a start.  I'm the kind of girl who pretty much just eats things that I am used to, or at the very least, things that I can pronounce.  One time, in the cafeteria on the first floor of my dorm, they were serving gyros, which I had never had before but looked pretty tasty so I decided to try one.  Let me add that gyros were the only things they were serving.  I asked for a gyro, and pronounced it like it looks, like gyroscope but without the scope part.  The lady totally acted that she had no idea what a was asking for and I had to repeat it four more times before resorting to pointing at it.  And seriously, how could she not know what I was asking for when that was the only thing they were serving!?  After I pointed, she said, "Oh, you mean a yee-ro."  Is that really how it's pronounced?  Anyway, thanks for trying to make me feel like an incompetent moron server lady, when I was just pronouncing it like it's spelled.

So after that episode, I have pretty much steered clear of things that I cannot pronounce, until last night.  I had dinner pretty late and by that point the only thing left open in the cafeteria is a pizza place that has really greasy pizza.  Luckily for me, there is also a handy dandy little convenience store.  Instead of going for the safe option of mac and cheese or Hot Pockets, I went back to the sushi case.  Most of it had fish eggs on it, and since I don't like them cooked, I figured that I probably wouldn't like them any better raw.  So I got pork shumai, which I'm guessing is pronounced shoe my? Anyway, it seemed like a quite adventurous food, especially since it was in the sushi case.  Did it contain raw pork? Would my adventures in eating become adventures in food poisoning?  I would just have to wait and see.  I also got some shrimp dumplings, because they are safe, delicious, and pronouncable, just in case the pork shumai turned out to be unpalatable.  Then I got a bag of Swedish Fish, which I have never had.  I had looked on the internet earlier to see what they taste like and all I could find was that they taste sort of like winegums, which are a British thing I believe, and you either love them or you hate them.  So they seemed like a good adventure dessert.  I got back up to my room with my adventure foods and ate some of the dumplings first while I worked up my courage.  Then I ate one of the pork shumai (there were six).  Not completely horrible, but not great either.  So I heated the remaining five in the microwave and tried again.  Still not great.  So then I tried dunking them in the ginger soy sauce that came with my dumplings and that made them just palatable enough to choke down.  So the pork shumai turned out to be a failure.  I really couldn't even tell what was in it or if the pork was raw or cooked, but since I didn't end up with food poisoning, I'll assume it was cooked.  Then I ate the remaining dumplings and got ready for the Swedish Fish.  The first thing I noticed about them was that if you bend them, they will unbend themselves and it's like they're swimming in slow motion.  Okay, enough dilly-dallying, moment of truth time.  I ate one and it was really good, pretty much tasted like a cherry fruit snack only with a little bit of a chewier texture.  So Swedish Fish, I am a fan, would definitely buy them again.  And as a result, I will be willing to try new, even unpronounceable foods again, as long as I have something that I know I like as a backup.  Also, Swedish Fish are seriously delicious.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I'm going home for Spring Break tomorrow, so I'll be neglecting my blog while I'm away.  Try not to miss me too much, and definitely check out the blogs I follow if you need to fill the gap.

I have 12 followers!!!!!

I was a little bit distracted by the disaster in Japan and stuff for the past few days, so I failed to notice that I have 3 new followers. My total is now up to 12, which is more than 10, which was my goal.  Welcome new followers and thanks for following me.  They are Nabo, Marsy, and Hailey Kruse.
I am hopefully having lunch with my roommate from last year today, fingers crossed.  She has already rescheduled four different days, so I'm feeling less than optimistic about this actually happening.  In other news today is laundry day, which would normally be really boring, but today I am going to attempt to do my laundry all by myself! I have progressed from baby steps to a zombie walk.  Incidentally, I dreamt about zombies last night.  My mom ran a few of them over with her van.  Then the fuel gauge started being all weird and switching between 1/4 full and completely empty, and then the fuel needle fell off.  My dream just switched after that and proceeded zombie-free.

Remember to set your clocks ahead one hour if they don't do it automatically, for daylight savings time.

Last Day of Classes!

For this quarter anyway. I just have to finish my physics paper and take my drugs and society midterm and then it's time for spring break.  Just a reminder, Daylight Savings Time this weekend. You need to set your clocks ahead one hour.

I dyed my hair yesterday.

I had to go to class in the middle of writing this post and it is really windy. I'm talking Toto-we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore windy.  To give you an example, I had to wait for the wind to die down before the automatic door would swing open. And now I am done with my classes for this quarter.

This morning my physics teacher did some demos. He swung a bowling ball on a cable extremely close to his nose without touching it to demonstrate conservation of energy. There was a Tesla coil that was really loud. But the coolest part was the bed of nails. He laid down on it and had his TA smash a concrete block that was on his chest using a hammer. That was pretty cool.  It should be on Youtube pretty soon, if it's not already there. I didn't record it, but some other people did.  I'm going to go now, it's paper-writing, Big Bang Theory-watching, finals-studying time.

Well Then

I had my Finnish final today. I think I did alright.  My roommate from last year was supposed to come over for dinner, but she's too full from lunch so she rescheduled to Friday.  The thing is that she was supposed to come over yesterday but she rescheduled for today. If I had known earlier, I could have gone to church with my friends tonight, but now it's too late.  And then I dropped an entire stack of papers down the teeny tiny gap next to my desk. It's like a half-inch.  So then I spent a good ten minutes trying to strategically maneuver them out with a knitting needle.  I also found a Sharpie that I lost ages ago.  I'm still missing two earrings though.  So now I need to work on my physics paper some more. Guess what, by minimum of 5 pages, my professor actually meant that we'll get marked down if we do less than 6 pages.  And did I mention that it's single spaced?! Gah. And I'm super sore from physical therapy yesterday.

A Guy Bought me Lunch Today

Yep, it's a two post kind of day.

So, what did you think of my title? Pretty intriguing, huh? Well, I tricked you. Although the title is totally true, it wasn't a guy my age.  It was this old guy in my physics class. He's like 60 or 70 and he goes to get lunch at the hospital cafeteria every day after class, so on Tuesdays, I eat lunch with him so neither one of us has to eat alone. He carries my tray for me since I'm incapable of that.  He helped me with my physics paper today by explaining the drag coeffecient and how to calculate terminal velocity and he showed me this really cool 3D vector modeling program that is free! So I know how I'll be procrastinating for a while. His wife died of cancer a few years ago and he never had any kids and he's retired so he's all alone. He didn't have much to do to keep him occupied so he decided to go back to school and learn physics. He used to be a doctor and he is baffled by my weird condition that causes me to be unable to walk. I thought it was kind of weird the first few times he talked to me, but he's just a lonely old guy and so now I think of him as sort of a grandpa figure.

Rest assured, C is still the number one guy in my life. I still haven't told him that I like him though. I asked two different people if I should, one guy and one girl, and the girl said that I shouldn't tell him unless I'm 100% sure that he likes me back and the guy said that I'll never know for sure and I just have to take the risk. Any advice?

Okay, this is completely unrelated, but for all of you guitar players out there, there are these brand new guitars on Ebay for just $70! I really don't need another guitar since I already have two, but if you're in the market or want to learn to play, here's the link. The seller has 99.2% positive feedback, so I really wonder how good these are. Must. not. buy. I miss my guitar. I am bringing him back when I come back from spring break. Maybe I can get C to teach me a song or two.  My guitar's name is Jack (named after Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas) and I just got him before I started this year of school. He is a beautiful blue color and I miss him soooo much.  But I did buy a new camera. It has 10 megapixels and is brand new. My current camera has 8.2 megapixels, takes noisy pictures, and doesn't have the aperture open all the way sometimes.  I am taking a design class next quarter and noisy pictures will definitely not get me a passing grade.  Okay, bye for reals now.

I Love You Too!

I checked my blog stats like I do every so often, and I discovered that Germany loves me. I have had 71 views from Germany just this week! The next highest is 17 views from both Denmark and the United States. I don't even speak German! Well, I know a few words, but I can hardly form sentences. So, Germany, I just want to say that I love you too! So I guess that this post will be about all of the very few connections I have to Germany.

But first off, I have super duper exciting news! I had physical therapy today and I CAN TAKE BABY STEPS!!!!!! I am so extremely excited about this. You don't even understand what this means for me. I can get into the bathroom without my crutches and I can shower even when my legs aren't working. I'll be able to go back to two showers per day! I'll finally be able to dye my hair without worrying about the fact that I'll have to find some way to stand up for 30+ minutes. It's not the most efficient form of transportation so I'll still be using my wheelchair, but I'm getting my independence back. In conclusion, YAY!!!

Okay, so German stuff. I can count to 19 in German. I probably won't spell these correctly, but I can say them correctly so give me a break.  eine, zwei, drei, vier, funf, zex, zeben, acht, noin, zein, elf, zwelf, dreizein, vierzein, funfzein, zeczein, zebzein, achtzein, noinzein

I know the numbers because my 3rd and 4th grade teacher was German and she always counted us in German. We only had 19 kids in my class, which is why I can never remember 20.

Then, during my junior year of high school, we had a really cool foreign exchange student from Germany. Her name is Lena. She was in my spanish class and she was really good at spanish. One of my friends from high school is in Germany right now for the military. She's in the army. That's pretty much it. I don't really have any huge connections to Germany or anything, but I love you for loving me.

Now, using the powers of Google Translate, I am going to translate the whole post into German for my wonderful German readers. If the translation is incorrect, don't blame me, blame Google. I hope that if Google gets it wrong, it will at least be humorous.

Ich liebe dich auch!

Ich überprüfte mein Blog Stats wie ich jeder so oft tun, und ich entdeckte, dass Deutschland mich liebt. Ich habe 71 mal gesehen aus Deutschland hatte gerade in dieser Woche! Die nächsthöhere ist 17 Ansichten aus Dänemark und den Vereinigten Staaten. Ich weiß gar nicht Deutsch sprechen! Nun, ich weiß ein paar Worte, aber ich kann kaum bilden Sätze. Also, Deutschland, ich will nur sagen, dass ich dich liebe auch! So schätze ich, dass diese Stelle wird über alle der wenigen Verbindungen habe ich in Deutschland sein.


Aber erst ab, habe ich Super-Duper aufregende Neuigkeiten! Ich hatte heute und physikalische Therapie Ich kann Baby Steps !!!!!! Ich bin so sehr begeistert über diese aufgeregt. Sie brauchen nicht einmal verstehen, was dies für mich bedeutet. Ich kann in das Badezimmer ohne meine Krücken bekommen und ich kann Dusche, auch wenn meine Beine nicht funktionieren. Ich werde in der Lage sein, wieder zu zwei Duschen pro Tag! Ich werde endlich die Möglichkeit, meine Haare, ohne sich Gedanken über die Tatsache, dass ich einen Weg finden, aufzustehen für 30 + Minuten werde Farbstoff. Es ist nicht die effizienteste Form des Transports so werde ich noch mit meinem Rollstuhl, aber ich bin immer meine Unabhängigkeit zurück. Abschließend YAY!


Okay, also deutsche Sachen. Ich kann bis 19 in deutscher Sprache zählen. Wahrscheinlich werde ich nicht buchstabieren diese korrekt, aber ich kann sagen, sie richtig so gib mir eine Pause.

Ich kenne die Zahlen, weil mein 3. und 4. Klasse Lehrer war Deutscher und sie immer gezählt uns in deutscher Sprache. Wir hatten nur 19 Kinder in meiner Klasse, weshalb ich kann nie merken 20 ist.


Dann, während meiner Junior High School Jahr hatten wir eine wirklich coole Austauschschüler aus Deutschland. Ihr Name ist Lena. Sie war in meiner Klasse Spanisch und sie war wirklich gut Spanisch. Einer meiner Freunde aus der High School ist in Deutschland jetzt für das Militär. Sie ist in der Armee. Das ist so ziemlich alles. Ich weiß nicht wirklich irgendwelche großen Verbindungen nach Deutschland oder so, aber Ich liebe dich für mich zu lieben.


Nun kann mit der Befugnisse von Google Translate, werde ich den ganzen Beitrag in Deutsch für meine wunderbare deutschen Leser übersetzen. Wenn die Übersetzung falsch ist, nicht mir die Schuld, Schuld Google. Ich hoffe, dass wenn Google bekommt es falsch, es wird zumindest humorvoll.

My University is Crazy

So today, for who knows what reason, some people at my university decorated the university mail boxes. I only saw three, but there was an octopus and a sandcastle on one and gift wrap on another and someone crocheted an afghan for the third! The only reasonable explanation is that everyone went insane. And afghans take a long time to make too. This afghan was mailbox shaped. Someone really cared about that mailbox keeping warm in this chilly weather.

So now I have to go read a Finnish children's book and write a paper on it. This book has pictures! I also have to finish my Finnish (that pun just never gets old!) reflective essay for the final draft and finish my physics paper and study for my drugs and society final, which is thankfully open-book open-note and he already gave us one of the essay prompts that will be on the test, so no test anxiety for me.

Also, I have something in common with Howie Mandel. He has OCD and germophobia too! Except his germophobia is worse than mine. He can't even shake someone's hand. I can; sometimes I use hand sanitizer afterward, but I can. And I am even capable of holding hands if it's with someone I really like, no hand sanitizer needed. The difference between myself and Howie Mendel is that he's on medication for it. And he's a man. Also, he's bald. Oh, and he's famous too. But other than that, we're basically the same person.

The Antics of Drunk People

First of all, welcome Gnetch, my 9th follower. If you haven't checked out her blog, you probably should do that right now. It's better than mine and this post will still be here when you come back.

Last night, my next door neighbors had a party. They must have had at least ten people in their room, and while that may not sound like a lot, there is only about 20 square feet of space to walk in the dorm rooms, so they must have been packed in like sardines.  They all got pretty drunk and one of them went to the bathroom (this morning I heard him say that he had passed out standing up in the shower) and when he came back, he entered my room by mistake.  He slammed the door open and then said Oh, sorry. Wrr-wron-wrong room and flashed a peace sign and stumbled back out.  I went to bed a few hours after that and was sound asleep when I was awakened by the fire alarm.  I covered my ears and went back to sleep. Someone had pulled the fire alarm on my floor and I think it was probably one of the partiers next door.  They don't even know for sure if it was them though because they were really drunk.

In other news, it's a beautiful sunny day today. I fell asleep two nights ago watching Inkheart and missed the second half, so I finished watching it today. It was one of the few movies I have ever seen that was just as good as the book, and the book was astoundingly good.  The computer animated parts were really great and very realistic looking, at least as realistic as a giant shadow monster with flaming eyes can be.  If you like fantasy, you should definitely watch this movie.  There's a fire-breather, an evil villain and his army of bad guys, flying monkeys, Toto from The Wizard of Oz, and a cool horned ferret thing, among others.  The plot of this movie is that when a man reads aloud, something can come out of the book, but then something from his world goes into the book in return and he has no control over what is traded.  The actors are absolutely perfect for the characters they play and it's just a great movie.  This film gets the very rare 5 out of 5.

For the rest of today, I am going to work on my physics paper and alternate watching movies and watching The Big Bang Theory, which my friend recommended for me to watch.

And in Other News

Apple has already begun work on the next iPad. I guess that it must have been a huge success. So all those people who bought the first iPad will probably be wanting to upgrade. And all those smart people who knew there would be a second model and managed to wait for it can get it.  It's available starting March 11th, for only $500! But then of course you'll want to get all those fancy accessories and things. They even have leather smartcovers! Then everyone will be happy until the inevitable third model comes out.  It reminds me of this commercial.




You got the wrong TV sillyhead!

But in all seriousness, the iPad 2 (That's a stroke of naming genius right there! Or maybe the guy who was supposed to name it had a stroke : / ) has two cameras (because one camera isn't enough? The second camera is for showing someone where you are or who you are with while video chatting, because apparently it's way too hard to just turn the iPad around.), HD video recording (well it's not 3D, but still), a design that's 33% thinner and up to 15% lighter (because if it was paper thin, it might get wrinkled), the same battery life as the first iPad, and of course tons of new apps.  It also comes in black or white, so you can get whichever color your little racist heart desires, just like the new Pokemon.

So, why are you still sitting there reading my blog?! Go out and buy one already! Steve Jobs demands it!

Riots and Violence

I'm not sure how many of you keep up with the news, but for those of you who don't, here's a little overview of what's going on in Libya. In case you didn't hear, Egypt recently overthrew their government. Ever since that happened, other countries have been inspired to try to overthrow their own governments. One that has been doing this lately is Libya. Protests there started around February 17th. There has been some intense rioting with many deaths, and people are desperately trying to flee the country before it gets worse. The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has been violently crushing his opposition, even ordering air raids on protesters. He has slaughtered hundreds of his people and the exact death toll is unknown. He has also hired foreign mercenaries to kill protesters.  It's pretty obvious that he's not going down without a fight, but what does he really hope to gain? He has very few supporters left, and he keeps losing them.  If his brilliant plan is to kill everyone who opposes him, he might have to kill everyone in the country.  And that really won't accomplish anything, because what good is a ruler without someone to rule?

Tunisia also recently overthrew its government, though much more peacefully. Is this a picture of things to come? It seems that people who were already upset with their governments took Egypt's victory as motivation to hold their very own uprisings. I feel like it's not going to stop at Libya and we'll probably be hearing a lot more of this sort of thing in the future. I can only hope that there are less deaths. So what about the United States? While the current unemployment and economy are certainly not ideal, our leader is not a vicious dictator. I'm not really into politics, so I'll just say that I don't think we need to overthrow Obama unless he starts murdering us for no reason.

Here are some of the things that Gaddafi did prior to the revolution that is currently taking place:

• had 10 to 20 percent of Libyans working in surveillance (comparable to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il)
• removed foreign languages from school curriculum
• paid for his critics around the world to be murdered
• publicly executed opposition activists and broadcast the executions on television
• blocked access to Youtube on January 11, 2001 after it featured videos of demonstrations in the city of Benghazi by the families of prisoners who had been murdered in 1996 at Abu Salim prison (1,270 prisoners had been killed)

After that, everything just blew up, well not literally, at least not yet.

Bottom line: stay as far away from Libya as possible.  You probably shouldn't even be in an Arab country at all, because who knows which country is going to uprise next.

The Nerdiest Conversation Ever

Today there were a lot of student presentations in my Finnish class.  One of them was on a Star Trek parody called Star Wreck, but that wasn't what led to the nerdiest conversation ever.  What led to the nerdiest conversation ever was our discussion on comment elements in stories.  We began an intense discussion of the similarities between Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.  One of the highlights of the conversation was "Gandalf isn't a temptress!" Also, we discovered that Gandalf=Hagrid.  So that's really all I have to say. I have to write a paper that's due tomorrow.

So I was reading one of Gnetch's older posts about a girl who uses the :/ emoticon at the end of every single sentence and now I have a fantastic idea for tomorrow's post. (If I remember tomorrow, I'll link that to her blog. It's a great read.) I am going to take pictures of my interpretation of different emoticons. It should be fun. You know what I really hate? When people feel the need to end every single sentence with lol. It's not punctuation! And now to go finish that paper.

Captain Obvious

First, something that's not so obvious. 2 people found my blog by googling "cats hate babies." I don't even know what that has to do with my blog.

Don't worry, it's just quantum mechanics.

Anyway, you might call me Captain Obvious for saying this, but quantum mechanics is confusing! I know right? I thought it would be a piece of cake, but noooo. Detect the sarcasm? We're learning about it in physics now and it consists of things like stuff being in two places at once and something about a zombie cat. Well actually, there's this thing called Schrodinger's Cat, where supposedly a cat in a box will be both alive and dead simultaneously until you open the lid of the box. Yep, zombie cat.



In other news, I had physical therapy today and I used this walking while sitting down exercise machine thing. I had to get as many steps per minute as possible, and I got up to 103 steps/minute! Now if only I could do that while standing, I wouldn't even need physical therapy anymore.

And now, one of my fabulous followers gets an award! I made this award specifically for him or her. Drum roll please...

I would like to present The Tsaritsa with my very first award I'm ever giving away. It's the Super Commenter with Fabulous Fashion Skillz Award!

The best part is that there aren't even any rules that go with it. Just take it and display it proudly on your blog. You don't even need to pass it along or anything. It's your very own one-of-a-kind award and you earned it through the quantity and quality of your comments.

Thanks for being awesome, Tsaritsa. Everyone should go check out her blog if you haven't.

And thanks to all of my followers for being awesome and having fantastic blogs for me to read too.