l'orange du chocolat

Pretty sure even people who don't speak French can understand the title of this entry.

Yay cognates!

In our stockings, Santa left brother and I chocolate oranges. They're fantastic and kind of a tradition in our family. Pretty sure I'm the only one who likes them.

It reminds me of the Little House books, where their treat is oranges in their stockings. I guess we can take a scurvy-free life for granted, as oranges are plentiful year round.

I suppose the same can be said for chocolate oranges, but there's just something special about them over Christmas.

Mom told me my grandma had scurvy as a baby. I suppose she was Depression-era so nutrition wasn't so good. Something to be grateful for.

Also, Taylor Swift is really cute and funny.

It's the Holiday Season!

Happy holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate. I celebrate Christmas, but not religiously. (ahhhaaa....)

You know you're an atheist when your reason for the season is physics.

You know you're an ancient Greek when it's Persephone, Demeter and Hades.

Go spend some time with your family, make awkward conversation, give each other stuff, gamble, tell bad jokes and make fun of each other.

It's how Christmas is celebrated in my families.

I lost a lot of money today at my dad's. Normally I gain 10-15 bucks playing with nickels and dimes. I probably lost a dollar today. And we were playing with pennies. My lucky streak is broken.

Taste Test!

In first grade, I was selected to do a taste test. At least I assume I was selected. I didn't volunteer for things. I was not one of those kids. I had to leave class, go to the cafeteria and eat fruit loops.

Well, two different kinds of fruit loops. But fruit loops all the same.

Why the hell did they do that? Are the taste of fruit loops really that important to kids that they pulled several dozen of us out of class to see if we could tell the difference? It was probably a science project for the older kids or something.

I vaguely remember getting anxious and crying during the taste test. I probably didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I tend to get upset when I don't know what's going on. I guess I don't cry about it anymore, but I still pay really close attention to directions.

I think we had to eat both, then answer which one we thought were Fruit Loops, the brand. Maybe that's what made me anxious. I also don't like to be wrong, and I didn't know the right answer for sure.

I also remember not liking fruit loops as much after that. Apple Jacks and Fruity Pebbles were ok, though. Still are.

wtf is up with Fruity Pebbles, anyway? They actually look like pebbles made from fruit. That name makes too much sense to be a kid's cereal. They're not supposed to make sense. Apple Jacks don't taste like apples! Not only does it make sense, but it's also a double entendre. Fruity Pebbles. lol. Cocoa Pebbles.

This concludes your tour of Catey's stream of consciousness.

Cookie Day!

Today, I baked. A lot!

I started baking at 1, and finished around 8 (I took 20 minutes to eat while the swedish toast was baking, but other than that it was nonstop).

I made a dozen pinwheels (the chocolate vanilla swirly cookies, not the tarts), 3 dozen double chocolate chip cookies/bars, 79 peanut blossoms (with the kiss in the middle), about a dozen attempted peanut butter bars (they did not come out looking like peanut butter bars, so I decided to try and save it by baking them then cooling them for a few hours. They came out more like fudgey bars, and taste amazing!), three dozen molasses cookies and an indeterminate amount of Swedish toast (a little over a third of them split in half, so there are only 3 dozen whole ones left).

That's over 16 dozen cookies. My feet hurt.

I was also going to make russian tea cakes and rosettes, but rosettes are so labor-intensive (dipping irons in batter, then in oil, then finagling them off the irons and onto paper towels to dry and then with powdered sugar, over and over and over again. it's really a two person job.), and I ran out of powdered sugar for the tea cakes. Maybe some other time, I guess.

I'm bringing about half of the cookies to my Dad's for Christmas Eve, and some more to my brother's girlfriend's parent's/neighbor's house for Boxing Day and whatever is left uneaten is going to my grandparents on New Years.

I have only eaten one of them so far (I put too much labor into them to be able to enjoy them at the moment. that and a lot of them have nuts so I can't eat them yet), but my mom the taste tester said they taste great!

New hair!

I finally got my hair cut. It was annoyingly long and I am about to go abroad for a month, and I really don't want to have to take care of it while I'm having fun.

Ergo, I made my second donation go locks of love and my hair got super short.

There are pictures on facebook. Most people who follow me on here are facebook (and real life) friends, so you can just go see for yourself.

It's basically Katie Couric's haircut, just a bit shorter. And I can make it look messy and whatnot, whereas she must look professional and boring.

Today was also the Anoka High School Orchestra/Band Ice Cream Social. All the orch/band alums go there and eat ice cream. There were so few people this year, probably because so many people have finals late. I think there was only one or two from the class before mine, and 5 or so from my class, two of whom were in choir, not band or orchestra. It was a little sad. We're all growin' up and movin' on! *chokes up*

Kidding, it's not that sad. The future is bright!

Also, I ate my first solid food today. I had some soggy croutons (soggy from tomato soup), sourdough bread and a pumpkin muffin from panera.

It's Christmas time, this time each year....

Today, the Christmas tree went up.

Well, I guess it went up yesterday, but it didn't get decorated until today. Mom put the lights on, and after she left, I put most of the ornaments on. Then I got tired and lazy. She put the last quarter or so up. I'll put non-tree decorations up tomorrow. I always enjoy finagling with the Finnish sled to get it to hang on the railing just right.

We don't have a tree topper. The tree has a delightful Charlie Brown-esque squiggle of a top, and we think it's cute so Mom just stuck some confetti wire stuff up there. I'll post pictures at some point, maybe.

In other news, I love my snuggie, but hate rinsing my mouth with salt water. I am also sick of squishy foods. Tomorrow, I think I shall add some solids, like rice. Or I might just puree some soup or something. I'm not in much pain, but I'm very cautious. I don't want it to be Christmas day and have one of the stitches rip out. Though, I think my other teeth are on the rebound already. Must be nice to be so squished and suddenly have the hulky pushy teeth taken out, leaving room to wander back where they're less crowded.

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword

So, I did not do much today. I did my laundry, and ate some soft squishy food. Played some pokemon and watched a movie.

Pokemon is awesome and everyone should know that, so I'll review the movie.

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword is a Korean period action movie. It was pretty awesome. The main characters were noble and heroic and cool. I didn't really understand the history of it, but I guess I don't know much about ancient Korea. I don't even know if it's historically based, but it kind of seemed like it. There was a strong female ass-kicking character, and a redeemable exiled prince and antagonists with depth.

I recommend it. The blood was a little weird. It was red powder that burst from them like it would in a comical movie, but it wasn't comical. Less distracting than realistic blood, though.

Also, there are a shit ton of throwing stars. Seriously, they must keep bags of them under their clothes because they can keep whipping them out for over ten minutes.

Teeth update: my gums taste gross. they're not hurting too bad, though. The ibuprofin is enough to keep the pain down, so there's been no need for the narcotics.

My First Surgery!

I had my wisdom teeth removed today.

I was really nervous, but it was a good experience. The oral surgeon brought me a blanket because he didn't want me to be cold. The surgical assistants tucked me in. It was pretty cute. Then they hooked me up to the EKG and blood pressure machine. On my other arm, they put a tourniquet so they could get the IV in. That was a little weird. They don't do that when I donate blood. Ah well, the IV went in just fine.

Then they put an oxygen mask over my nose. It smelled "icky, I mean, unique" (according to one of the surgical assistants). It make me feel like a pig. Then they took my glasses away, and I don't remember anything after that.

I vaguely remember being moved from the chair to a bed. Then I remember laughing. A lot. And crying. Someone wiped my face and asked if I wanted my glasses. I guess I said no. I don't really remember. Being in my little fuzzy world is nice sometimes.

Apparently, three of my teeth were impacted, the two lower ones more so. I looked at them later. The lower ones had to be sawed in half, but the upper two were easier to take out. If you want to see picture, let me know and I can show you. But it's pretty gross, so I'm not going to post it on here.

Anyway, the next hour was spent continuing on my way home. I slept a lot. And talked a lot. Mom couldn't understand me very well, but I talked. My lower lip is still a little tingly, but the numbness is gone. My upper lip wasn't numb at all. Weird sensation.

Anyway, I got home, drooled over the sink while I took out the gauze, and tried to put in more. It was pretty bloody. Since then I've eaten mashed potatoes and yogurt. I'm really hungry. I should eat something. I'm due to take more ibuprofin, and I probably shouldn't eat on an empty stomach.

I couldn't eat at all today. I had to fast 8 hours before the surgery, so I ate some leftover aloo gobi from Chapati at 2am today. Delicious, and I want more. : ) Indian food = yum

Meltdown

I had my first ever school-related meltdown last night.

Finals stress got to me. I was freaking out because I thought I was going to be expelled for academic dishonesty and I was going to fail my class.

Of course, I was being silly, but a full fledged sob fest in the shower is a great stress reliever. I felt great today, even though I was still nervous.

Everything turned out fine, though. I got an A on the term paper I thought I was going to get in trouble for (which was silly to think in the first place, but the stress went to my head in a non-constructive way).

Now, I just need to revise and proof a paper, and write a 5-7 page paper. And pack. And clean. Those can be my study breaks. I'll prolly be up til 3, so I can eat and drink. I'm not supposed to ingest anything 8 hours before my wisdom teeth extraction.

Fun times.

I can't believe I actually made it through the week. Surreal, man.

Snuggies!

Yay!

For my roommates birthday/christmas, I got him a snuggie. And I also got myself one! They're delightfully cozy and warm. : )

We match in our hunter green blankets that have sleeves. We also pretended to be wizards for a while.

Yeah, we're awesome.

Update.... much delayed

Well, finals stress has set in. I'm still pretty stressed, but I wrote a 7 page research paper in 5 hours today, and it's well-written, so I'm giving myself an extended dinner as a reward before I jump back in and get to writing my next paper.

So, it snowed. It's so cool. I love snow. Here is a picture of my window the morning after the blizzard. That's one of the smaller drifts around, too. The highest one was halfway up my thigh. Most were just under knee depth though.

It was the funnest walk home that night. It was super snowy and exciting.

Then there was this picture that I took yesterday of one of the bubble drain covers.
Isn't it cute?

Anyway, it was my roommates birthday yesterday. We went to Chino Latinos. It was pretty fun. One of the drinks I ordered was called El Orgasmo, which is a fruity drink. Really fruity. It was served in a pineapple. Pretty fun.

Also, I went to the dentist last week for the first time in a year and a half. My wisdom teeth have come in pretty much as much as they're going to. The lower two are impacted. They're sideways. And actually up higher in the gum than the top of any of my other teeth. They move a lot and give me headaches.

I'm getting them out Friday at 1.

I am pumped.

Unfortunately, that's halfway through finals. <.< >.>

So, I have 6 major assignments due between now and Friday. I have 2 written, but that need proofing. One of them is an in-class essay exam. The others are 2 take-home essay exams and 5 1 page reflections. Plus clean the apartment and pack to go home, and to go abroad.

Sigh... ok. Dinner over. Back to work.

On the Elite Track

Today, my anthro prof made the startling announcement that we, by virtue of being students at St. Olaf, are on the elite track. As in, we will one day be those 'elites' one reads/hears about in social science, the people who generally control everything that happens in the country (and since this is the US, what we do one day affects the world, provided the US doesn't completely collapse and the world becomes destabilized).

This is so cool!

I mean, I guess he's right. We're upper middle class, Nordic (aka white), Lutherans (or at least that's the image of the college, and since we are Oles, we are the college). This gives us immediate advantage here in the US. We're college educated. Another advantage. We have liberal arts degrees from a prestigious private college, so we're (in theory) well-rounded and extremely hire-able (unless we want to work as a plumber or electrician or masseuse). We have learned all of our civic skills necessary to participate in the public/political spheres.

This is doing nothing to deflate my growing ego. I have had the biggest head lately. I am, on one hand, completely annoyed with myself. It's irritating to be around people who think they're the greatest, and to have to put up with me all the time is really annoying.

On the other hand, I deserve to have an ego. I work my ass off. I do good work. I am ambitious, driven and realistic. Why can't I stoke my own ego?

Ah well. I'll see what happens. At least I know my limitations, so I'm not deluding myself.

I love stress. As the stress level rises, so does my confidence. I'm glad this happens. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it's a good combination to have.

Maybe my ego is swollen because it's nearing finals.

First Snow! Kinda...

It's really the second snow of the year. It snowed 2.8 inches in October, but it melted. It snowed a couple inches in Northfield today. It was a lovely surprise to wake up to.

I was eating breakfast, when I hearing this whirring sound from outside. It sounded like a leaf blower. That confused me. Why would there be a leaf blower in December when it's snowing?

Turns out my landlord is lazy. Even though leaf blowers leave most of the snow on the sidewalk, his idea of clearing the sidewalk is pointing a leaf blower at it. >.< Oh, Larry...

I wonder if he'd hire me to shovel? Actually, no. I'd rather not. I'll put up with half-assed shoveling.

Secrets revealed!

Or just one, I guess.

When I fertilize farms on farmville, I make them into a penis shape. : )