Proof I'm a Scot

Oh man oh man oh man.

I have to try this. I have to. I mean, just... wow.

Baked onions with vegetarian haggis
(Source)

-6 medium unpeeled onions, trimmed
-50g sunflower margarine
-50g organic rolled oats
-50g pinhead oatmeal
-50g chopped mixed nuts
-1 onion, finely chopped
-100g mushrooms, finely chopped
-1 carrot, finely chopped
-200g can red kidney beans, drained and chopped
-50g vegetable suet
-1 teaspoon yeast extract
-1 teaspoon ground black pepper
-2 tbs. chopped mixed fresh herbs
-pinch of grated nutmeg
-juice of 1 lime
-1 tbs. whiskey
-seasoning
-chopped fresh chives and parsley, to garnish

Cut a slither from the bottom of each of the onions, so that they stand upright. Cut a cross in the top about three quarters of the way down. Place in a large pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes, drain and refresh under cold water.

Preheat the oven to 190C (375F). To make the haggis, melt the margarine in a pan and add the oats, oatmeal and nuts. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring, for about 3 minutes until toasted and golden. Transfer to a bowl.

Melt remaining margarine, add the onion, mushrooms and carrot and cook gently for 5 minutes until softened. Stir into the toasted oat mixture with the remaining haggis ingredients. Season.

Snip out the center of the onions with kitchen scissors, leaving the skin and 3-4 outer layers intact. Stuff with haggis and bake for 40 minutes.

Part 2, Christmas Week

The Christmas tale continues. Here's the first installment.

TUESDAY: Christmas, of course! We woke up at 9 and moseyed downstairs once my mom had passed us. We don't do Santa much anymore, as the Brother is going to be eighteen in a few weeks. My mom does fill the stockings with little gifts, though, like wind-up toys and Christmas candy (Daddy fills her stocking with Lindt chocolates and scented soaps). Inexpensive fun things. This year was kind of lame because Daddy was down watching TV when we woke up, and then we sat around waiting while my mom put breakfast in the oven and they watched MORE TV- and not even something Christmasy, they were watching a robot movie. Grr. But they stopped when Mummy and I finished making breakfast and we opened the stocking gifts, all wrapped in tissue paper. Then, as breakfast cooked, we started the other family presents-- I gave my sister a scarf, my brother a book about numbers, my dad a bottle of special olive oil and my mom a little cosmetic bag for her purse (she needed one, her old one broke) and an organic candy bar.

My parents gave me lots of stuff-- this is what they do instead of buying me stuff I need or want at other times. So I got a Leatherman tool, and plush microbes from ThinkGeek (syphilis, malaria and mono), and Age of Mythology for my computer because I am a myth geek and have wanted it for years but couldn't afford it. And I finally got a new hair dryer to replace the one that broke. Shrewd's making me a scarf but she's been sick and couldn't finish it in time. I don't mind, though. The Brother gave Daddy a collection of Agatha Christie movies, including The Man in the Brown Suit, which is a movie that Daddy taped off the TV years ago, but which was then accidentally taped over by Shrewd. Daddy loved it and was disappointed as hell. He was thrilled, as was Shrewd, who is FINALLY out of the doghouse.

Soon breakfast was done. Christmas breakfast for us is almost as big as dinner. The traditional family Christmas breakfast is an egg casserole (part veggie and sausage, part sausage only, part veggie only), cinnamon rolls hot from the oven, homemade tea breads and fresh-squeezed orange juice. We finished presents after breakfast, then cleaned up the wrapping paper so that the house would be ready when Ryter arrived.

Ryter came soon after, and we talked and helped with dinner until it was time to eat. Dinner was tenderloin with peppercorn sauce and stuffed scrod with Newburg sauce; sweet potatoes, my mother's famous cloverleaf rolls, peas, broccoli, shrimp cocktail, sweet baby carrots and probably something else I forgot. It was wonderful, as my mom's cooking always is, even without the traditional popovers Shrewd usually makes (she was too sick to handle food safely).

Ryter opened my gift and I opened his; I gave him a T-shirt of Emperor Constantine Paleologos and he gave me a collection of Phillip K. Dick novels. My parents also gave him some maps of the White Mountains for hiking in the spring, and he gave Daddy a bottle of rum, for general over-21 consumption. The Brother and Daddy played with their new mini RC helicopters.

After we cleaned up from dinner we played Trivial Pursuit (Daddy and Mummy against the Brother, myself, and Ryter) and my team lost miserably. They got lots of easy questions. We had pie and cheesecake for desert and split up, Shrewd playing with her brand new laptop (boy did she need it), the Brother and Daddy playing Scrabble and Mummy setting up her new vacuum cleaner from my grandmother, while Ryter and I hung out, watched some Bones, and then said our good nights.

It was a marvelous Christmas all around.

Apparently, we're not allowed to sing Christmas carols until December. Shucks.

So Thanksgiving is over.

The reason I didn't write anything over Thanksgiving was that I spent my time either with my family or sleeping. I finally caught up on sleep, which is good.

So, Thanksgiving Day. Ryter came over and we ate Thanksgiving at my place, with all the traditional dishes-- turkey, naturally, and gravy; mashed potatoes, squash, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, baby onions, mushroom barley soup, popovers, rolls, salad-- tons of food. My grandfather was there too, which was nice.

Once we finished we drove down to Ryter's grandmother's house for his family Thanksgiving. Tons of people, tons of food-- the turkey was wrapped in bacon, which was weird, but I didn't eat the skin and it was fine. Everyone was really nice, it was a lot of fun, and I got to help Ryter surprise two of his cousins when they were up on the third floor, doing something that involved one of them shirtless. Awkward.

His grandmother has an awesome house. There's a secret second staircase to the kitchen, and a secret room, and a second little kitchen on the third floor with a door onto a rooftop balcony.

Friday we all--save the brother-- went to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, a very good movie, I recommend it. Great imagery, very fun. Saturday we returned to the movies for Enchanted, which was hilarious and I also recommend.

So that was my break; most of the rest of the time was spent sleeping. I have just two things to say:

1) I could've sworn Thanksgiving was supposed to be the last Thursday in November...

2) Four weeks left of class. *Sigh*

My mother seems to have decided to give me sweaters a lot-- I'm not entirely sure how related this is to the "miniskirt" incident...

My whole family came up for my birthday celebration today, which was cool. We went to the New England Center (they have a Sunday brunch buffet), and Vivacia and Ryter came too.

It was cool. I got a cowboy hat, a sweater, an iTunes gift card, a Marvel Monopoly board and $375. All of which are most excellent. Also, the food was good and having Vivacia there apparently made Ryter a lot less nervous around my parents, because they were more focused on the fact that they haven't seen Vivacia in ages.

Then, I spent the afternoon studying. Well, sort of. I was supposed to be studying, anyway. It was an on and off thing... However, I did set up my secondary blog, which has only three entries. It's just me babbling about the Middle East conflict, plural marriage, and cheating, but if you like that sort of thing or want to tell me all the many ways I am wrong, check it out. Unlike many internet opinion blogs, I will admit if you change my mind-- and changing my mind is possible.

I did get to see Loquatia again, at dinner, so today wasn't all that bad.

I've been trying to regulate my caloric intake (the dining halls post nutrition facts this year). While good for teaching me to add large numbers in my head quickly, it is posing many challenges. Yesterday the challenge was my Latin teacher bringing in homemade baklava. Today it was the fact that it was a festival day and the special foods don't list nutrition facts. And then there was the caramel apple pie.

I suck at this. But I did at least manage only about 2400 calories yesterday, which considering that I estimate I burn 2800 (lots of walking around) is kind of good. My goal is 2000 a day.

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So yesterday I had recitation for Biostats. Determined not to be as confused as last time, I took copious detailed notes on my laptop, step-by-step instructions and a guide in Excel itself. At the end of the class, she handed back quizzes (I got a 59 on mine. Yikes) and I rushed to pack up and get mine before the crush of half the class (of 125) got theirs. I then went to Hoco and to Ryter's for the evening, watched the first season of Heroes and speculated wildly as to the nature of the next season (but it looks like there will be superhero-teen lovin', so it's gotta be fun).

Then I got home, opened my computer, received a "YOU HAVE FLAWS ON YOUR DISK" message, clicked "fix" and came back in five minutes...

It rebooted my computer. Completely. What's more, in my rush I neglected to actually save my notes, figuring they would be there when I next opened the laptop. I lost everything.

So I grabbed some stuff off the website and frantically IMed Maritima, who is also in Biostats, and asked her for help. She's basically walked me through half this stuff. My lack of notes made this assignment take me a total of five hours, four of which were spent on one problem which I couldn't figure out at all.

But thanks to Maritima and my willingness to accept defeat on one problem, it was finished in the end. Thank god.

The thing is, I like statistics in itself; I don't like the fact that my TA has a new baby so she doesn't give a shit about teaching us, or grading us. My last assignment? She didn't grade the graph because I put it on a separate page. I mean, come on. Take off a point if it bugs you. But don't just not grade it. She claimed that she couldn't find things so if she had to hunt for it she gave it a 0, but honestly, how hard is it to get to that question where the graph should be and read "See page 3," and turn to page 3, where the graph is?

And that's not all she did that on-- I got a sixty, seventy with scaling, and I bet if she had spent more than a minute on each paper I could have gotten at least ten points higher. And she didn't bother to tell me what I did wrong, either. I guess I have to guess.

She says repeatedly that she hates statistics, hates grading, won't come in except for her very limited office hours, and is only doing this for the money because of the baby and because she's a graduate student. Okay. I get that she needs money, but really. This is all my stats professor could find???

Bah...

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Meanwhile I am debating how to ask my dad for a small allowance so I can do fun things on the weekends sometimes, or go out to eat once in a while. I mean, he knows I can't work with school stuff, and I do like to do things for fun besides surf Fark, read blogs and pester Ryter. I think I'll ask for $15 a week but hope for $10 and settle for $5 if I must. $5 would mean I get to eat out once a month and go on an (inexpensive) trip once a month. $10 would mean the same but eating out twice a month, or saving it; $15 would mean I could actually save up some money for the holidays.

My biggest concern is that the geniuses at UNH decided this year that finals end the week before Christmas. My last one is the 21st. Sure, vacation lasts until the 21st of January but guess what? Stores don't need help in January. They need help in December. If I go to a store and say I can start work on the 26th they'll say, "Sorry, no can do." Last year TJ Maxx really didn't need me after the ninth.

So that means I won't make any money at all over the winter break, and I don't really know what to do. I need a source of income, but I don't have the time to work during the year... The only thing I can think of is baby-sitting, but I hate, hate, hate advertising myself as a baby-sitter, and I don't really know any families in the area. Financially, I am screwed unless Daddy gives me an allowance.

He probably will understand. So what is my concern? I bet he ties it to my grades, as in, "Get a B or higher or the money goes away." And seeing as I am in Organic and Biostats, that means that it may very well go away and I'm screwed again.

Maybe if I suggest that I may need to take a year off and work otherwise... The only thing worse for Daddy than failing grades would be skipping a year. Something about "never going back."

I was upset about lab, but Ryter made me feel better about it.

Today is the first day of the Mercatus, four days of markets and fairs.

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This morning I got the Gardasil vaccine and then donated blood, as they were running a drive in the MUB. I almost got denied because of my anemia but I ultimately passed, if barely. I think the nurse damaged my vein pulling the needle out, it's a bit bruised, but I'm okay. The guy in the cot next to me nearly passed out. He then said, "I think I lasted longer this time, last time I passed out after five minutes and the time before that I only got to the needle going in."

Then. Why. Are. You. Still. Trying.

Moron...

Well intentioned. But still kind of a moron.

As for the Red Cross themselves, it's kind of funny. I never give them money. Blood, yes, because I know what they do with the blood. But they only spend about 10% of what they get in donations on charity, the other 90% is for "administrative purposes."

Like after Katrina, apparently they turned down a free place for their volunteers to stay in a boarding-school dormitory in favor of a really expensive, fancy hotel that was farther away, because they didn't want to take non-monetary donations. That money could have helped victims; instead, it went to putting minibars in the volunteers' rooms.

But the blood, at least, goes to the people who need it. Not that I don't think for one minute that if it were legal to buy and sell blood they would always be in "critical need" of monetary donations to buy it, while actually harvesting it from third-world illegal immigrants who have been raised since infancy on nothing but antibiotics, liver and spinach so as to have high quality blood while living in cages and peeing in bedpans.

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I had my first "real" Organic lab today. It was disastrous. I already owe the school about $7 in broken glassware, I don't really understand the concepts and I think my TA got rather annoyed with me by the end of it...

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Did you hear about the 900 lb man with Prader-Willi Syndrome (which makes you perpetually hungry) who had to have firemen lift him out of bed to go to the hospital?

I think Prader-Willi is fascinating, and heartbreaking. Basically these are people who constantly feel like they're starving.

If, god forbid, I ever had a kid with this, I would let them eat-- but healthy, low-calorie food, and only if they were athletic. And I mean Olympics athletic. Go to school, come home, work out and eat at the same time. Make it fun-- soccer, races, whatever-- but still burn massive amounts of calories. Basically give them exercise anorexia to go with their Prader-Willi. And if they get too tired to continue, let them eat celery non-stop. You can eat celery constantly and won't gain weight from it. I would buy massive amounts of celery and say, "When you need to eat and you aren't at meals, eat this."

Of course I would also give them GH, which helps with other symptoms like short stature and muscle mass, and push them academically to help them overcome the learning disabilities, but the main problem is the food preoccupation, it's the most dangerous for their health. Apparently you have to keep their food under lock and key. I think the hardest part would be explaining that despite their severe hunger, they didn't need food. A parent would probably have to measure out their own amount of calories as well, until the kid would be surprised at people who ate without counting calories-- treat food as something you just do to take care of yourself, not something enjoyable. Like taking vitamins. Being a bad cook might help.

Still, it's very sad, and I think that the brother of this man, who allowed him to get that heavy despite being his caretaker and who let him have a credit card and allowed food to be delivered, should be tried for negligent domestic abuse, and, should the poor guy die of obesity-related issues, manslaughter. As should anyone who is such an enabler for a person who is morbidly obese.

It Came From Planet Nabisco

I was tagged.

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
6. There is NO rule 6.
7. Failure to follow through with this meme will result in being run over repeatedly by the karma bus.

And without further ado, here are eight random facts/habits about MOI.

1. There are very few foods I dislike the taste of. I won't eat certain kinds of meat, and I've conditioned myself to dislike the smell and become nauseous if I taste it, but that's not a natural dislike. I don't like coffee, whole almonds (though that might also be psychological), the pulp in orange juice, or chicken livers. That's all that comes to mind.

2. I had a mole on my left arm when I was young that was almost a perfect circle, very normal-looking. I hated it with a perverted passion and the older I got, the more obsessed I was with it and wanting to be rid of it. I started to scratch at it, and eventually I was making myself bleed. My mom finally gave in when she realized how obsessive I was about that one thing and decided to let me get it removed for psychological reasons. Now, instead of a 2-mm-wide mole I have a 1 1/2 in long scar, and yes, I prefer it.

3. I inherited my grandmother's singing voice. She and her three sisters were very well known for their singing abilities. When they got together, it was like angels singing. Alas, those angels were more the "fire and brimstone" kind of angels than the "heavenly choir..." I always wanted to learn how to sing. I am capable of hitting five notes, and they're not even in order. I don't even have a full octave.

4. I have never sneezed just once that I can remember. It's always five or six times, sometimes as many as fifteen in a row. My classmates in high school used to start counting when I started sneezing to see if I would break the record.

5. When I was in first grade a classmate told me I had hairy legs. Thus rose another obsession-- I won't go longer than 36 hours without shaving and leave the house, even if I wear long pants.

6. Underneath my bed there is a large pink stain on the carpet from when I was five and used to play with this very soft, very heavily dyed piece of pink clay. That one piece of clay would always stain my palms pink and also got the carpet, my old sheets, several articles of clothing, and some of my brother's legos.

7. A girl asked me out once. We were both about 14. That was awkward. For me.

8. Music affects me more than it does most people. The beat, that is. The melody only marginally affects me, but the beat changes my heartbeat ever so slightly to match it, which changes the way that I feel. Consequently my idea of a great song is one where the way I feel inside matches whatever they're singing about. This is why I dislike my brother's drumming-- because a beat that strong and loud affects the way I feel, and most songs he play make me feel angry or at least apprehensive.

I'm cheating and tagging some LJ people too... But alas, not enough people read this blog to make it easy. If you don't want to be tagged, pretend you ducked.

Nate from Nate is a Blog
Amishav from Chai Expectations
BEAJ from the Atheist Jew
Katie
Tink
Andy
That's six, I know, but I honestly don't know that many people who both read this and have their own blog/journal.

Yuck.

Today was really, really hard. First I didn't want to get out of bed, and I lay there for about an hour. Then I did get out of bed and every muscle in my body screeched in audible, PAINFUL protest. I dressed for the gym and lumbered downstairs, intending to watch a little ER then go to the gym, then job hunt.

Four hours later, I was still stuck on the couch, though I had at least gotten my laundry in and started icing my knee, which was the angriest body part.

I did finally get to the gym, at 3ish, and as I was making the rounds, it occurred to me that maybe the reason why I was so sore was because I hadn't skipped a session at the gym since the weekend, and over the weekend I walked a lot and lifted hand weights, so my muscles haven't really had a chance to heal at all.

I don't think I'll go to the gym tomorrow. However, I probably will have to either clean or mow the lawn again, so I'm not exactly getting a day off from exercise. I got like this last summer, too-- I become obsessed with working out every day, sometimes for longer than recommended. The thing is, I'd infinitely rather exercise than diet given a choice between the two. But that's not how it works, really, so instead I wind up exercising too much and eating crap, so I ultimately feel crappy.

But I didn't eat crap tonight, I cooked dinner, combining various weird cravings I was having in the grocery store to result in balsamic chicken in a greek salad, with balsamic vinegar and oil as dressing instead of greek dressing. And diet caffeine-free coke with lime slices in it, because they don't make caffeine-free coke with lime. I never understood that.

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I don't know. I'm still sore, but thankfully the mental funk has cleared somewhat, so I'm doing a little better.

The problem is that for whatever reason, I can't say no when someone asks me to do something (unless it's unreasonable), and I can't voice an opinion without needing evidence to back it up, and I have no confidence in anything, really. My lack of confidence made me cry, because I couldn't even say something that I knew would be positively received, but was simply a little difficult to get out. I was petrified it would come out wrong, like those things always do for me.

Some dude gave me "one last chance" to save the world today. Hmm.

Today is the Ambarvalia, an agricultural fertility rite in honor of Ceres/Demeter. They took a bull, a sow, and a sheep and led them in procession three times around the fields before the sacrifice.

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Ryter and I went into Harvard Square today, since he had an appointment with his psychiatrist down there anyway. He picked me up a little late and we spent the next half hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic along I-93, thanks to the stupid highway committee that okay'd the painting of middle-of-the-highway lines in the middle of the day.

But we arrived, I read Calvin and Hobbes for forty minutes when he talked to his psychiatrist (who I kinda wanted to see-- didn't, but wanted to-- because apparently he looks like Maury), and then we wandered around and looked at stuff. Ryter got a chair with a giant British flag on it and a nifty ice thingy... It's an ice tray that makes a big block of ice with channels in it, so you pour the drink into the channel and it travels down over the ice into your cup. Both of those were from Urban Outfitters. Oh, and he was totally asked to be in a rap video by some random dude who liked his shirt. Because those rap videos, they LOVE the pasty Jewish kids. I mean, really.

We ate dinner at the Malaysian restaurant and I was adventurous, and while adventures related to coconut drinks are rather unpleasant when you get sugar shock from one sip, adventures in duck and veggie clay pots are pretty tasty, though the bones were annoying. Tasted delicious though. If you go to Harvard Square, go to Penang. It's interesting food.

Then we headed back to my town to hang out in the apple orchards and get ice cream from the little ice cream stand by the duck pond. Ryter had a duck eat duck food right out of the container and we had ice cream and then we just sat out by the pond by the cemetery (not IN the cemetery) and talked and watched for satellites. We were careful to avoid the other parked car, which we presumed contained 1 matched set of young people "making out," and by "making out" I'm offering a euphemism for "screwing their brains out." Or maybe, y'know, talking. But we like to assume the funniest of people.

But it was a very good day, and while for some reason we were completely incapable of kissing successfully on the first try without one of us tripping or bonking the other on the nose (I blame uneven ground), we got to talk about a lot of things-- some fairly important ones. And while I shouldn't really talk about it here, I'm guessing I will write a looong private journal entry tomorrow.

"The Best Advice: Call Your Mother"

200th POST! WOOOOOOO! Okay, celebration over.

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Wow. What a weekend.

So Friday was the Convocation, and Saturday was the actual graduation for UNH. We didn't go, though; instead Ryter got dressed up in his cap and gown and we watched the graduation from his mother's hotel suite. We woke up when his favorite professor came by to apologize and say he couldn't go, and then we drove over and were treated to an excellent hotel breakfast followed by second breakfasts upstairs, delivered by his dad along with his father's father. So his mom, his mother's mother, his dad, his father's father, and his aunt for good measure all sat around the big TV and ate bagels as we watched the graduation.

H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton spoke, which was kinda cool. There were secret service agents everywhere. Apparently the interim president of UNH is a friend of Bush Sr., so she was able to get him to come. Clinton had to rush off to talk at Harvard after he spoke, though.

Anyway, after the graduation we all went back to Ryter's apartment for the graduation party, for which his parents brought basically enough sustenance for an army of teenage boys. There was a ridiculous amount of food there, and my pies were a hit, thankfully- I was worried that they weren't going to live up to the hype. Ryter did a shot with his dad and there were lots of photo ops.

After they left we just hung out for a while until Loquelo came over with his roommate and we played a board game and chilled until 10, when I headed home. I was tired driving home, which was bad, but I got here safely.

Then this morning I was roused early to go to Shrewd's graduation down at Brandeis. Grandpa, Grammy, my great-aunt, and Mummy and Daddy were all there; but with Grandpa in his wheelchair (he can walk, but not for distances and he can't stand a long time) and my great-aunt with her walker, we were a slow-moving group. I sat with Daddy in the non-handicap seats, up in the bleachers. I couldn't spot Shrewd in the crowd of graduates but we did see her when they plastered her face up on the big display screen.

The speaker was good, but I didn't recognize him, and apparently he's a part-time professor there so not particularly special for the graduates. The only reason he was speaking was because the previously booked speaker, a famous journalist, passed away a few weeks ago. Still, he did a very good job and I even stayed awake. The Benediction was particularly nice, as it was given jointly by the campus priest, rabbi, reverend and imam.

Afterwards we were given about an hour to get out, do a ten-minute walk over to the second, departmental graduation ceremony. Alas, it took forty-five minutes to just get out of the building, and we got separated-- Grandpa, Grammy, Daddy and I got there on time and saw it from the beginning but Mummy and my aunt were late. They still saw Shrewd walk up to get her diploma, though.

After a celebration at Bertucci's, they all went home and I stayed behind with Shrewd to help her pack-- she hadn't even started. That's what we're doing tomorrow, too-- going back and clearing out her place. Fabulous, no? I am so exhausted right now...

Spiderman is emo now, didya notice?

So... remember how that Chem exam was going to be the week after next, thus giving me a whole week between them in which I could study for Chem and forget Bio?

I was wrong.

It's Friday or nothing.

GAH!!!!!!

I don't have TIME to study for Chem AND Bio! That's what screwed me over last time when I flunked that Bio exam! How the hell am I supposed to deal with this? I mean, it's an optional final. But I really, really wanted it to be a choice, and now it might not be, not really.

As best as I can calculate, I have a 86% in that course, not factoring in the ACS exam and assuming I have about an 80 in lab. That's a B. I wanted to get an A-, but will settle (grudgingly) for a B+, which requires an 87%.

I don't know what grade I will have to get overall, all told, to induce me to try to study for Chem and take that final. I haven't decided if I want to settle for a B or not. I must think. And talk to my folks.

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Today I woke up at 11:00 or so when Vivacia (formerly known as Mistake, if you're not caught up on recent posts) called, asking me if I wanted to go to the mall. I, in sleepiness, replied that I thought I had stuff to do and I didn't think I could. She seemed rather upset but said okay.

About half an hour later, once I had actually woken up, I thought about it, and realized that I hadn't had anything planned for today besides meeting Ryter's mom for dinner, and I could have easily gone to the mall. So I called Vivacia back and spent waaaaay too long convincing her that I did actually want to go, but my sleepy coma had stopped me from voicing my true intentions.

So we went to the mall... I got a sundress, actually, though the whole point was to get gifts for Mother's Day. I got one of those too. But I did get a pretty red and white sundress for summer, and it was only $25. I also saw the prettiest red-gemstone silver ring at a really cool jewelry store in the mall, but it was $10 for one ring and I decided I shouldn't spend that much money on myself. But... PRETTY. And SHINY. I was sad. I really liked it.

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Vivacia wasn't feeling very well, but she needed a gift for her mom, and then we had to kill time before the bus got back, so we wandered around and made Closer stand in the girlie stores like Urban Behavior, and went to the pet store the next mall over and freaked out when a bunny looked like it was dying (he was fine), until the bus came and they left, and I stuck around to meet Ryter over by iParty.

Anyway, it was fun; I've missed seeing Vivacia. There is a well-documented syndrome that says the first time a girl gets a boyfriend, she will ditch her friends for the sake of the guy until she figures out how to balance the two. I didn't have this issue with KTMack because it was summer and I wasn't doing anything and he and Vivacia both had jobs. But now Vivacia and I both have classes and finals to study for, so I'm already crazy busy, and then I spend so much time with Ryter...

The trouble with this syndrome is all romantic relationships must eventually end*, but friendships needn't. Thus one should never forget their friends for a Significant Other, and I'm only now learning to balance the whole thing.

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Anyway, I met up with Ryter and Vivacia and Closer went home to study. We met at iParty so he could get some stuff for a class party. At about the same time I cautioned him that since he was having me spend the night at his place before his graduation, I was going to be obligated to decorate his apartment in the most gaudy, god-awful, tacky graduation-themed decorations I could find.

He is very enthusiastic about this idea.

We then went over to his car to wait for his mom. Fifteen minutes later, I met her and we went into T.G.I.Friday's for dinner. Ryter's mom is very nice, and man, can I see where Ryter gets it all. I mean, the two of them are soooo alike, even more so than Ryter and his dad. But she was cool and I got to have a decent meal, as opposed to school food.

Ryter and I hung out for a little while afterwards, but ended it earlier than usual. We were both tired. But it was a very good day, until I discovered the Chem stuff...

*We are ignoring the marriage alternative, of course. But having your spouse be your only close friend isn't that great an idea either.

Foods of the Future, as predicted by Basio

More Floralia. Thus more flowers:



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So maybe, if you were paying attention to the news a month or so ago you heard that they compared the proteins from the bone collagen of a dinosaur (some proteins escaped fossilization) to that of a chicken, thus proving that chickens evolved from dinosaurs, after all. Up until now the whole "birds from dinosaurs" hypothesis was mostly based on the appearance and the transitional forms; this offers DNA proof of the connection.

Of course you know what this means.

Dinosaurs taste like chicken.

Now, you may not know this, but I really want to start moving away from eating birds. I'm not completely opposed to them, but at this point my mild discomfort with their consumption is tempered by the fact that this school can't seem to cook fish right and if I don't eat chicken my anemia will come back and I will become pale and sickly and prone to dramatic fainting spells at inopportune times, or maybe I'll just have to start swallowing iron pills again.

Anyway, the issue with birds are that they're basically as evolved as mammals, just up a different lineage. They're about equally intelligent and all, so my only arguement is that they're not that closely related to me and the ones I eat-- chicken and domesticated turkey-- are pretty damn dumb. But now I won't eat octopus for their intelligence and chickens aren't that much dumber than cows so...

Back to the dinosaurs. Here's my theory. They're trying to find a way to reverse-engineer chicken DNA to create dinosaurs. Awesome, no? You know it's awesome. Don't lie. See, all we have to do is get two dinosaurs, a male and a female. Then we breed them. Then we raise their offspring for meat.

Think about it. Dinosaurs are lizards so I wouldn't mind eating them. Plus for everyone else, they're either the size of chickens or turkeys anyway, or they're MASSIVE. You serve a Neuquenraptor for Thanksgiving and you have leftovers for at least a week, even if you live in a house like mine where a 25-pound-turkey is gone in three days. You might need a bigger fridge though. Plus that drumstick would be MASSIVE, so the kiddies wouldn't fight over it, they'd kinda HAVE to share.

Plus, that's all healthy meat, right there. Lean, white. Good eatin's. You could raise them instead of cows and feed them eggs, which I don't mind eating anyway on account of they're basically chicken menstruation (Just doing my part to lower your cholesterol). And you know, you give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Give him a Utahraptor and some salt or refrigeration and he eats for like THREE MONTHS. Plus there's nothing in the Jewish or Biblical regulations against eating dinosaurs on account of them not being things that "crawl on the earth." Just can't cook them in milk.

Then you get the eggs, which would make killer omelettes; and you can raise like, a T-rex for meat and feed whole towns when he's killed. T-rex meat would be awesome. And then there's the ultimate factor, the thing I noticed in my Bio book while studying that prompted this whole line of thinking:

T-rexes have wishbones.

And I'm pretty sure that if you could find a way to BREAK a T-rex wishbone, and you got the bigger piece, you could wish for God himself to appear and perform a flamboyant musical number with Ernst Mayr, Isaac Asimov, Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche and not only would it happen, but it would be FABULOUS.

"Mark Twain: Writer. Contemporary Thinker. Plot Device."

Today starts the seven days of the Ludi Cereri, leading up to the Cerelia on the eighth day. These were days of games and festivities celebrating Ceres/Demeter, goddess of the grain and the harvest.

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This was a rather rough morning for me, as the only time I could arrange to meet with my English professor to discuss my latest writing piece, the one on my one glorious day as a door-to-door environmentalist, was at 9:15 this morning. Due to a late night last night and a rough start this morning I found myself arriving at her office sans breakfast. And while she loved the piece (points for me!) by the time the meeting was over I was forced to sprint over to Demerritt Hall for Bio, stopping only to fetch a pop-tart and a Minute Maid cranapple raspberry juice from the vending machine. I felt very Japanese, getting my first meal this way.

Problem: Minute Maid cranapple raspberry juice is like, pure sugar. So are Pop Tarts. I immediately got all sugar-jittery, combined with sleep deprivation, so I was falling asleep but then my hand or my leg would start to shake so bad I'd wake myself up. I'm sure I looked very comical.

Thank god I managed to scarf down something more substantial at HoCo before sprinting over to PLTL...

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And it was raining today. Then it was sleeting. Then it was flat-out snowing.

It's April.

Damn it, stupid weather machine's on the fritz again...

"XYYYYYYYYYYYYZZY!!!"

Today is still the Megalasia, it continues until the tenth.

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Why is it that I always come home and eat? There is something about this house that makes me hungry. And it's not just that I'm eating despite not wanting to eat, my stomach is actually growling. I don't get it. This is why I need to work out over the summers, otherwise I'd gain like a hundred pounds.

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Tomorrow is Easter, which you should probably know already but oh well. I'm home for the night, laptop in tow, and Shrewd and I did some cooking for tomorrow and colored a dozen eggs. We won't hide them, but we have a tradition of painting "name eggs"-- eggs with the names of each person who will be eating Easter dinner with us written on them in crayon before the egg is dyed a bright primary color. Shrewd and I expect we will be painting name eggs when we are in our thirties. Everyone eats their own name egg, and the leftovers, also brightly colored, are divided up among us.

My great-aunt, the one who took me to the Christmas Revels last December, will be having Easter supper with us, along with her (male) life partner/significant other to whom she is not married (Her (M)LP/SOTWSINM for short). There will probably be mild interrogation and a slide show of my mother's recent trip to Hawaii.

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Speaking of which, she brought me gifts! A lei made out of nuts instead of flowers (and if you have a dirty mind like mine, that's pretty funny), and a lovely pearl necklace and earrings. And a book of Hawaiian mythology, filled with names I can't pronounce and cool stories I intend to read after I get done with both my homework and Ryter's most recent novel piece he sent to me for editing. So... some light summer reading. Too bad it's an inch and a half thick.

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Oh, and Shrewd wins the prize for best insult, today. I believe the conversation went thusly:

We were dyeing eggs, and at one point she said, "I like the eggs that aren't at all a natural color."

I, in the best example of my witticism, replied, "You're not a natural color."

"Yeah, well, you're polka dotted," she retorted.

"Really? Awesome! That would be so cool!"

"Dude, have you seen pictures from when you were twelve? I mean, hello, facewash."

It wins the prize for best insult because with her delivery, I was laughing harder than she was.

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But it's late, and we have company tomorrow, so I'm off...

"I bring you love, peace, and pie."

Nate is a Blog is back! Or... it was back, for a while, but I didn't know about it. Anyway, hopefully we'll get to read more of his funny stuff since he's no longer 1 of 1.5.

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Today was a good day.

Why was it a good day?

Because I didn't finish studying last night, of course, so I took my biology test today vastly underprepared. And guess what? According to Mistake, who has some friends in the class, Bio review wasn't canceled-- it was at 7 instead of at 5. So I could have gone. Grr.

Anyway, after failing that test, I headed over to the library to work on my English essay, still unfinished. It's already eight pages long and I still haven't even gotten near the end. This is frustrating.

Caught the bus over to Dover and went to Store 24 for some food. Alas, they were out. Yes, of food. There was nothing I could eat in the whole damn store. Finally I grabbed a frozen chicken pot pie and decided to hope for the best; my therapist's office has a microwave.

Half an hour later, I'm still trying to nuke the damn thing... It wouldn't cook the crust properly, so I ate it doughy. Not a great idea. The texture made me nauseus so I set it aside until my therapist attempted to stick it in the toaster oven. It cooled as I talked and then I wolfed it down before running to the bus-- literally, I would have missed it if some dude hadn't seen me sprinting up the street, waving my arms frantically and trying not to kick my laptop bag so hard that it wound up in the street.

Now there's an image for you.

I got more of the essay done on the bus. Want to get carsick? Type in a moving vehicle. Ugh. I got back to campus, staggered back to my dorm, started printing what I had of the English essay and proceeded to throw a coughing/gagging fit. Then, calmed by Coke and some deep breathing, I arrived ten minutes late to class and realized I hadn't done the workshopping I was supposed to do on this girl's paper, so I did it as we discussed it and hoped for the best.

Good news? They liked what little I had finished of the essay...

Post-class, 3:30, back to the dorm to finish the lab report I hadn't even started that was due at 6. Because I am a terrible procrastinator. With some help from Maritima, who is way too patient with me, it was completed in time, though I didn't get to eat dinner and subsisted instead on popcorn and Ramen. We then did a gaseous chemicals lab and I totally inhaled (there goes my political career), returning my nausea/headache in full force.

Got an A on my chem test, though. She handed them back during lab. That was pretty awesome.

Then I got back after lab and realized I screwed up my housing stuff, but thankfully that was worked out with my hall director fairly easily. I just was rather panicky for a little bit there.

Anyway, normally after one of these days I'd come back here, write a blog entry about sucky dayness, and then curl up in bed thinking, "It will be better tomorrow. It will be better tomorrow." But I totally didn't have to do that today, I just had to come online and talk to Ryter, and he basically managed to say everything that I needed to hear but don't trust if I have to ask for.

And that's why it was a good day.

"You have a strong and sensitive personal nature."

It's the last day of the Feast of Bacchus/Dionysus, god of wine. Well, wine, viticulture, imbibing, hallucination and ecstasy, fruit, reincarnation, choral songs, plays, homosexuals and the effeminate. I love the Greeks.

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So I didn't mention it yesterday, but I discovered plastic shrink-wrap in my lasagna at lunch, which was gross. I stopped eating, but I was in a rush and didn't mention it to anyone who worked there.

Then last night at the Olive Garden? There was totally a piece of porcelain-- like, a chip from a plate-- in my bread stick. Like, baked in. I banged my tooth on it! I complained, and the waitress apologized and mentioned it to the cook. I was annoyed-- two meals in a row!-- but was ready to chalk it up as coincidence. But this morning, I was eating at TJ's, the restaurant place in town, and there was hair in my omelette. Like... eww. I mean, at least I knew that the porcelain and the plastic wrap didn't come from someone's body (hopefully). But that's three times in a row!

Someone's picking on me...

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Every time I go home I come back with more stuff. Last weekend it was the rug and this weekend, it was a microwave. I didn't even ask for it, because I honestly was just planning on using it for popcorn and I don't even eat that much of that. I have a hotpot thing for hot water, so I can have soups and tea already. But Daddy mentioned that I should look for the old turntable for the microwave, so I looked and found nothing, and then he decided when I asked to get something to block the draft that comes through the window that we might as well get me a new microwave.

I'd complain about it but hey, I get popcorn, and that's one more appliance I won't have to buy myself when I get my own apartment.

The weatherstripping worked better than I thought it would. It doesn't solve the problem, but it blocks a lot of the draft coming in though the window. I should offer the leftovers to Mistake. She was having issues with drafty windows-- she's got towels blocking the edges right now.

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I got to hold a ball python today! We stopped by the pet store and were looking at the animals, and Daddy asked the man to take out the python to let me hold him and pet him. They curl around your arms and hands, for the warmth, and they feel so cool. I kinda want to have one as a pet when I get my own place, but parrotlets hate snakes, and between the two, I'd rather get the parrotlet, because parrotlets don't need to eat mice.

Personally, I think mice are too closely related to me for me to eat them, and while the snake doesn't have that problem, I have issues feeding a whole mammal-- which I won't eat-- to a reptile-- which I'd have some issues eating, but more in the "weird" sense than the "immoral" one. Of course, I'd feed an animal meat products, but a whole mouse is a little disturbing, dead or not.

But they're really, really cool!

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A friend of Loquatia's came up to visit her, and brought a whole bunch of her friends. They were admiring the room and the fish and trying to name all the X-men on my poster. All together only missed Stryker and Lady Deathstrike. They were nice, though I, naturally, felt awkward. That's become a bit of a constant for me. But one of the girls was talking about going to the midnight showing of Star Wars: Episode III and how there were all these people dressed up as characters. So I smiled and said, "Hey, I dressed up for the midnight showing of the second Pirates movie."

She laughed. "Well, I was going to say what dorks they were and who would actually do that, but now I feel bad!"

Heh. Oops.

They also liked my spinny-wheelie thing on the door that says where we are. That thing is a great conversation-starter. If I became an RA I'd probably have to make them for my residents, albeit cheaper, photocopiable versions.

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Speaking of which, I need to complete my application...