Banana-Grams

It's been a long semester. (The semester started 3 weeks ago.) It's been a long semester.

So I apologise for my prolonged absence from the blogging world. Honestly, how can blogging compete with 5 hours of theory homework, mountains of diction transcriptions, and the entire French language??? Anyway, it is T-25 minutes until the start of my next class (Christian Heritage) and I'm at the classroom early because my good friends Amy and Megan abandoned had to be other places that did not involve eating lunch with me. So Charlie Ann and I waded through the oceans of sorority girls and managed to grab a bite before being trampled by Kappas screeching "OH! MARY JANE IT'S BEEN TOO LONG!!!!" To some, thirty minutes can seem like a lifetime...

On a much lighter note, I eat breakfast every morning with my good friend Jennifer. She is really goofy. And she is really loud. But mostly, she has this red hair that should be in shampoo commercials. Because it's that awesome. It looks a bit like this:

But that's not the most important part (Jennifer, if you are reading this, please ignore that last statement!!) The most important part is that sometimes we play Frisbee in the dark, sometimes we are really loud, and sometimes we leave bananas on our other good friend Daniel's desk before theory class. He loves bananas. Especially the really green ones that are impossible to open. Which is why Jennifer and I have decided to make his daily banana-grams a tradition (see what I did there???)

Anywho, we started an unofficial sorority. It's a no Ugg, no Northface sorority. More to come later. Class is about to start now so I had better go.

Keep it klassy y'all!

Going on a BEAR Hunt

Ahhhh, how great it is to be back in the 254! In all seriousness, I missed this small town and it's nothing-to-do-ness. But really, I've had a lot to do. I (finally!) got all moved in to my new room and I am very, very thankful to have a new roommate who is not only nice, but sane. Please breathe a sigh of relief now.

My new classes have all been very enjoyable thus far, and I've even picked up a bit of French. The secret to speaking French, I leaned, is to always keep your lips puckered when you talk and to raise one eyebrow. Then you can say anything and it will be French. Seriously, go to France and try it.

So I went apartment hunting today with my prospective roommate. It was fun. What I learned from looking at apartments:

1. The furniture in the model is not as nice as the stuff that is actually in the apartment you will be living in.
2. The color of the carpet is all subject to change.
3. Back doors are a great thing. That way, if a rapist is comin' through the front, "E'RY BODY OUT THE BACK! THERE'S A RAPIST UP IN HERE!"
4. If an apartment has a back door, it's probably for a reason...
5. Sometimes that reason is not so great... (See #3)
6. If the office smells like smoke, get out because that means fire.
7. Unless it's cigarette smoke. But then you should still get out because second-hand smoke is deadly.
8. Always ask if the rooms are non-smoking. You'll get a sketchy look from the smoker trying to get you to rent an apartment.
9. Look out for dog poop. People who live in apartment complexes just let their canines relieve themselves anywhere.
10. A tree in a closet means the closet is big.

Turn your head side-ways and you'll be able to see it better...
11. Counter space is a must.
12. If the bed in the model apartment looks like it has been slept in, that means it probably has. Thanks, Goldilocks.
13. If the manager looks like trailer-trash, so do the apartments.
14. Never trust an apartment complex pool. Sketchyyyyyyyy...
15. Always bring your prospective roommate along. She'll add to the entertainment factor of the adventure, usually by getting lost in a town the size of a small town.
16. Bringing along a gun when hunting for apartments is inadvisable. Apartments aren't vicious animals. It's the landlords you should watch out for.

That's about it on apartment hunting. Keep it klassy, my friends.

Muenchen

No, the title is not gobbledy-goop. It's the German name for the town of Munich, located in southern Germany in a region known as Bavaria. It's pretty much most famous for its beer. Like Oktoberfest. Where the locals and tourists alike consume tons of beer. I want to go to Munich. Not because of the beer, but because of the history and the nude parks. Definitely not because of the nude parks. But the city is in southern Germany, and being of north German descent, it intrigues me just a little bit. And Rick Steves is doing a tour of the city on PBS right now. Germany is so beautiful during the summertime; it's a shame I've only ever been to Europe in the winter. I intend to complain to my mother about this later. But then she'll just say that I have to learn better German before I can go back to Germany. Dumb.

I'm taking French next semester, so maybe I can convince her to take me to France, instead...

Mostly, I just want to get the heck out of America. I want to travel again and see the world. I am far to impatient to wait until I have a successful job as an opera singer to tour the world and to learn everything I can about other peoples and cultures and places and things.

Until later, keep it klassy!

Salutations, 2010

It's December 31st. This is the part where you say, "Really???" and then I reply with something snide like, "no... It's really the Fourth of July!!!"

Anyway, life at home has been pretty boring; mostly because my computer decided on Tuesday that it hated me and would not connect back to the Internet until today. But at about 11:06 this morning we kissed and made up, so all is well and I am back online! Hence the two blog posts today... P.S. that will never ever happen again...

So much is going on today in preparation for the new year! My mother is running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to convert the measurements in an antique German cookie recipe into their American equivalents. Who knew that 2 centiliters was equal to .67586 US fluid ounces?? Her only comment on the matter is that "these cookies had better be d*** good." And they will be. They have brandy and hazelnuts in them. And immense amounts of apricot jam. Yummy! Oh, not that I am encouraging alcohol consumption by any means...

As for the rest of my family being busy, they're all huddled around our tiny TV playing the Top Gun video game on our ancient GameCube. I say ancient because we went on a 2 hour excursion this morning in search of exciting GameCube games only to realize that only one of our seven stops even carried GameCube games anymore. Ironically, they all had a plethora of N64 games... I guess we'll just have to upgrade to an X-Box or one of those Wii systems. Dang it, there went all of my high scores.

Speaking of high scores, guess who got the highest scores on all of the levels of "Abduction" today? Yours truly, of course! It only took me forever and a day, but I finally beat out my youngest brother for the title of Abduction Champion!!! If you couldn't tell, this is a pretty big deal in my household. In honor of my becoming the champ, my dad even cooked up three t-bone steaks! Just kidding, the steaks were really cooked because our Christmas present finally arrived yesterday. 101 lbs of beef, or one-third of a slaughtered calf courtesy of my Aunt Sherrie and her kin-folk. The other two-thirds went to my other cousins and my grandparents. Needless to say we will be eating a lot of beef for the next few months, and I will be forced to leave my "no red meat" diet by the wayside in order to appease the beef gods (aka my parents) in partaking in the meat of this creature. Mmmmm, delicious...

Goodness me, I've been rattling on and on about food today! So how about we discuss more important matters, like my impending debut in a music video created by none other than myself in collaboration with my good buddy Hannah (or Hana, or Hanah, or Casper, or that crazy girl who follows me everywhere with a video camera...) We will be filming for the majority of tonight before we go and blow up stuff with pyrotechnics. It is going to be grand. For those of you with slightly diminished vocabularies, pyrotechnics is just a fancy word for explosives. Which is a fancy word for fireworks. If you don't know what fireworks are, please, for heaven's sake, get out of the box you're living in and watch a New Year celebration. For instance, the one in Berlin, Germany just happened. It's the largest outdoor celebration in the world. Which pretty much goes to show that Germans are epic and that we should be left to bask in our awesomeness...

Well, it's almost the New Year here in the good ole US of A, so salutations to 2010, and keep it klassy in the new year, y'all!

They Call Me "Picasso"

So I've been home exactly 7 days and already I've managed to bore myself to the brink of tears. This is mostly my own fault seeing as how I refuse to do anything I'm supposed to, such as cleaning my room, or working out, or baking cookies, or doing anything at all. This past week, I've opted to take the lazy route and have sat on my own big, comfy chair in attempts to complete my journey down the path of getting nothing done. It was a successful trip.

Aside from being lazy, I have managed to do a plethora of other things this week. For instance, I watched the entire second season of Merlin on BBC. I baked gingerbread cookies from scratch. I went to Gringoes and ate my weight in green sauce. I painted my finger nails silver. And I also painted. Paintings. Like, on canvas and stuff. Like the profesional artists do, and stuff. They were Christmas presents for my best friends and are NOT for sale.