Welcome to Farmville!!!

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard of Facebook. If you have Facebook, you have heard of Farmville. You may even have a farm yourself! I just got a farm a few days ago, and this game is SO addictive. I am hoping that I don't become less productive next semester now that I have a farm....if you have one, become my neighbor!

Guess what?

Chicken butt! =) (I know, I know. old joke)

Guess what? (for real this time)

ALL of my grad school applications are officially in (granted I just had 4 applications/ 3 programs...but still. That's 7 essays and 4 online applications)!!!!! Woohoo!!!

Guess what?

I'm going some where super cool (maybe not as cool as Australia, but that's hopefully next) tomorrow...where? Find out soon! (unless you already know, of course)

Test-taking is not my strong point

This week, I took the GRE and the GMAT. Here is what I have learned:

*Despite all of Middlebury's attempts to improve my written skills, I do about the same on the verbal section now as I did before Middlebury. (Not badly, but not great. In the 80th percentile-ish for these two tests, and I think it was about the same for the SAT & the ACT)

*Middlebury has, however, made me more comfortable with writing essays suddenly in a set amount of time (thanks to essay-tests)

*I have completely lost all of my math skills. Completely gone. No (or very little) trace of them left. I did some review beforehand, which is why I didn't totally fail (on the GRE, anyways). I would run across a question and think to myself: "I remember learning that!" And by remember, I mean remember learning to do that at on time, not that I remember how to do it. This happened with several questions. While I have never liked math (hence why I have avoided math for the past 3.5 years), I used to be pretty good at it. I did, after all, get a 5 on the AP Calculus (AB) exam. Math was my best section on both the SAT & ACT. Yeah....skills = gone. I did ok on math on the GRE (700). On the GMAT, the math was so much harder. Total fail (practically), so...let's not mention those scores, shall we?

*Spending all that time studying vocab did me little good. I was not asked many analogy or antonym questions, and the ones I had I could likely have answered without having ever studied any vocab at all. That might, however, be a result of the whole computer adaptive testing. If you answer a question wrong, the computer gives you an easier question. It's completely possible that if I had gotten more earlier questions correct, I would have gotten harder questions later on.

*My reading comprehension skills have always been bad, and they continue to be so. I over-think things. Middlebury has likely exacerbated this. Franchement. In class, your grade depends on your personal interpretation of the literary work, rather than what's official. On the tests, your grade depends on knowing one interpretation. CONTRADICTIONS! You see, science and math majors must do really well on these tests. We who major in more literary subjects (English, Foreign Languages, etc) likely have more issues.

The moral of this story: Test-taking is not my strong point.

An Introduction to Finger Foods

The Rules of Finger Foods:

1) you eat them with your fingers.

2) put that fork down! didn't you hear rule #1?

You'd think that most people are familiar with finger foods. Yesterday, however, I saw people who looked completely confused. They god some sort of calamari things. Each little ring (or whatever) was no bigger than a quarter, and they all came in those more cone-shaped baskets that some restaurants use because they look more chic than a basket. Anyways, so the waiter delivered this cone to this couple. And they sat there. Looking at it. Looking at each other. Completely confused. They say something to the waiter and he comes back with plates and silverware. Again, they sit there for a while still looking confused. On their faces, you could read the question: "How do you eat these?" Several minutes later, they both use their forks to get out the little fried things from the cone.

I have never seen anything like it. The table behind me did what I find normal. The cone came. They reached in and ate the calamari like the finger foods, which is what they are. But that other couple. I really wish I knew what they were thinking. I was quite amused. But really, a plate I can understand (more if there's a dipping sauce, which there wasn't in this situation). I suppose the forks make sense, but more if you put the calamari on your plate first. But that combined with their several minutes of looking lost & confused makes it so very clear that either 1) they have never ordered that before or 2) they do not understand the concept of the finger food...or 3) their fingers weren't clean, in which case I totally understand not using your fingers. Although if you feel your hands are dirty, you should probably wash them anyways. Spreading germs = not cool.

A song for you:

"Finger foods! Finger foods! Oh we could survive without forks and knives.. Finger foods! Finger foods! We're all in the mood for some finger foods!" (from PB & J Otter, which was a good show. =)

On Creepy Things

"Rudolph, why are you looking at me that way? Why is that snowman moving?"

I have never thought of Christmas as creepy, but there's a song called just that ("Christmas is creepy"). When you think about it, though, a lot of things we think of as normal or cute or whatever could be creepy if you think of them.

Listen to the song / See the music video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO-nHU4wWi8

(Some of) the lyrics:

If a snowman came to life
That would be creepy(creepy)
If Santa Clause snuck in my house
That would be creepy(creepy)

Santa creepin around and down my chimney at night
I can't explain it but it doesn't feel right
He knows if you been good
He knows if you been bad
It's kinda feaky
Does he have hidden cameras in my house like that?

Come think of it elves are really scary (so small)
Little pointy ears and sweaty hands that might be hairy
Reindeer (sharp teeth)
Rudolph (might eat me)
Christmas is kinda strange
When you think about it that way

If a snowman came to life
That would be creepy (creepy)
If Santa Clause snuck in my house
That would be creepy(creepy)

And it's really weird
It's like a fake beard
Somethin doesn't seem right to me (no)
If the snowmen came to life
That would be cre-cre-creepy

Don't leave me coal
That's kinda strange
Sneekin round my house is really breaking and entering
Santa kissing mom
That's just wrong
Someone better tell me what's going on
It's kinda strange givin me sleigh bells in every Christmas song

(http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/fred+figglehorn/Christmas+Is+Creepy/)

Down in the bayou...

Today I went to see the Princess and the Frog, and it's SO good! Really, it has so much character and it's really cute and it's a great movie. Go see it today! (or if you want to avoid lots of kids (which I did by going to the 10:30 am show when most kids are in school), then maybe not today, but Monday? but soon!). I really liked the music, I need to go get on my laptop and buy the songs from iTunes...for buying tickets via fandango I got one of the songs for free (plus getting 25 bonus points on Disney Movie Rewards). On that note, I very much appreciate that now when you buy your tickets on fandango, you can print them out (like for a flight) instead of having to go to a kiosk or through the line. Anyways, great job Disney!

One of my favorite quotes from the movie goes something like this:

Charlotte (to the guy who came to her asking her to dance as earlier in the evening she said that she'd dance with him "later"): "When a girl says later, she really means not ever" =D

TV is educational. No, really

Here's a word I heard on a TV show (Phineas & Ferb), and then learned about on wikipedia:

monotreme: mammal that lays eggs. Essentially either an echidnas or a platypus (like Perry!)

Sure, I likely learned this word forever ago, but I never liked bio and it never stuck in my head. Plus, I've been away from bio for years...oh yeah. Like *you* remembered that word.

Airplane Woes

Fortunately, on my flight yesterday, I was fully conscious the whole time. However, there were some interesting things:

*After getting little snow, I woke up to lots of snow, so I began to worry that my flight(s) would be delayed or cancelled. Some flights had been. And if my second flight was delayed, I'd be in trouble because my home airport has a curfew of sorts.

*The first plane was a puddle-jumper plane, so there was virtually no overhead space or anything. So pretty much the entire plane ended up having to gate check something. Then we get to Chicago, and there is a gap between the plane and the jetway (whereas normally the gap is very slim), so we're all waiting in the passageway for our bags. And it's freezing. We are all cold. There are snow flurries flying in. So, the first conveyor-belt thing doesn't work, so they get another one. Then the next one doesn't work. So they start brining up bags themselves a few at a time. Then a third belt-thing comes, which finally worked. But this whole process amounted to a good 20 minutes of my very cold in just a sweatshirt.

*In one of the Chicago airport Starbucks, there were Vancouver cups being sold. Unless there's a Vancouver in IL (first I've heard of it, but I'm a West Coaster so who knows. There's a Paris, TX...), Vancouver, Canada mugs are being sold in Chicago. Trick people into thinking you've been to Canada! Ooh, yeah. =D

*There was only one person in the exit rows on my second flight. That's right. 1 guy was to man 4 doors in case of emergency... fortunately we had a safe flight (why didn't anyone move there, you ask? Well, those seats are for the Economy Plus people, so us regular economy people couldn't move. And I had an aisle seat anyways with an empty middle seat, so even if I could have I was quite settled).

But I'm back home. Enjoying the CA sunshine and warmth after just barely escaping Vermont which is getting colder and colder. Well, Vermont & I won't be seeing each other until January 3rd, so...yea! =)

Grad School Applications Status Update

*I just submitted two applications (for the same program, but still). Woohoo!!!

*I have written 2.5 supplemental essays (out of a necessary 6, so...still a ways to go)

*Takinf the GRE & the GMAT next week (now that school's done, time to really study!)

Don't be hatin'

Today, I finished up this semester. I turned in my final paper and I took my (only) final. Yea! Anyways, as I walked through the library (in order to print my essay), I walked by several thesis carrels. Pretty much every thesis carrel was occupied and each had a ridiculous amount of books on it. The above picture is actually the books for one of my suite mates' thesis. Yes, just one person's thesis. I am so happy I chose not to write a thesis. Even for people who are really interested in and excited about their theses are so overly stress and have to do a ridiculous amount of reading for it...in addition to their regular work. So thesis writers, hats off to you. Good job. But don't be hatin' when I am completely un-stressed and done early. =)

Livin' it up thesis-free,

me

Midd Kid song

We at Middlebury are not only known as the inventors of Quidditch. We are also musical. Or at least the Allen (freshman dorm in Atwater commons where I lived freshman year) Freshman are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vRdjPn44GE

If my mascot and your mascot were in a fight...

I've always found mascots interesting. In high school, our mascot was a Tartan. Yes, a Tartan. I know what you're thinking. "What on earth is that? Someone who like tart candy? Is it like a Spartan?" Well, no. It's a Scottish warrior (think Braveheart). But really, he wears tall socks with a tassel and a kilt and a beret-type hat set a a jaunty angle on his head. Braveheart or not, I might place my bets against him depending on who he was fighting. Why? #1, when I wear tall socks they have a tendency to fall down and drive me crazy so I end up having to fix them a lot. #2, a skirt allows freedom of movement, but personally, If I were to fight someone, I'd opt for pants or something. In lower school, our mascot was a Scottish terrier. That's the kind of mascot I can get behind! He can sneak up on someone and bite them in the ankle. Anyways, I got on this subject when I noticed that there's a hockey team called the Toronto Maple Leafs. Maple Leafs. Maple leafs! I could win against a maple leaf (by which I mean a maple leaf, not one of the players. I would surely loose against a player, but against a leaf? I should surely hope so). I don't know, but if I were to choose a team name, I'd choose something that evokes an idea of speed or strength or "we're going to win!" and...maple leaf? Let's put that maple leaf up against my college's mascot, the panther. Panther wins. So now I'm thinking about team names. Where do they come from. Certain ones make sense. New England Patriots, good. Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Mavericks, Oakland Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, fine. But what is a Laker, exactly? Knicks? MAPLE LEAFS!

(no offense whatsoever to maple leafs fans. This is not about the team (I've never seen them play, so good or bad I don't really know). It's the name. It doesn't sound at all intimidating. It's a leaf. A pretty leaf, but a leaf nonetheless.

"Quelle Nightmare"

Bonus points if you can name the movie that quote comes from. It's not a major line, which is why you'd get bonus points. Maybe I'll tell you at the end of this blog post.

Anyways, the reason that that's the title is that today I had a ridiculously long & hard to survive French class. We needed to finish all the presentations, so we had a double class (class is generally an hour & 15 minutes. In actuality, it took about 3 hours all together). Oh, dear. I'll admit that in general I have a hard time actually paying attention to oral presentations by students because they generally aren't as clear or as precise or as organized as a teacher's presentation and generally are less necessary to pay attention to. That is the case of our presentations in French class. Some were pretty rambling, others were simply said without enthusiasm (scratch that. *most* (including mine, likely) were said w/o enthusiasm), etc. On top of all that, too, is the fact that we don't have a final in the class so, for all intents and purposes, the information from the presentations is not something I really need to know or care about (by which I mean, if everyone did a 5 minute presentation, that'd be great because I'd get the main interesting points and fini!). The presentations were supposed to be 15 minutes w/ 5 minutes of questions. But seriously, I really think a lot of people went over. So this was very trying for me. Especially as I had a headache. And it was dark outside. Oh, and the last presentation. I thought I was going to cry! No offense to the presenter or anything. At that point, we all just wanted to go. But it would like fall under the "rambling" category. I know he had a structure and all, but at that point it just didn't seem to. And there was no powerpoint (which helps me to pay at least a certain degree of attention and to see the structure, which helps). Even the teacher was sighing at the end (because several times it seemed like he was about to conclude, but would then start off again on another example or something. Near the end, our teacher was trying to prompt him into finishing. If only she were one of those teachers who says, "It's been 15 minutes. That's it." That final presentation literally took about half an hour. And I'm not sure why. You see, our presentations are from our final paper/project. So our teacher's going to read all of that, so it really isn't necessary to give every detail in class because while the other students aren't going to read the paper, in all honesty (and no offense intended, of course), we don't care. We really don't. It's almost 6 o'clock. we've been there since 3. We want dinner. We have papers to write and quizzes to study for. We're ready to go, capisci? [side note: in English, we'd say "capisc" (cap-e-sh), which drops the ending, but Italians don't. So be aware. "Capisci" = you (informal) understand. "capisce" = you (formal) understand. Learn it. Live it. Love it]

On the up side, our teacher brought us madeleines and candy.

These are the wrappers of the "papillons" (lit: butterflies) that people apparently give to the children in France. Inside (of ours, at least) are either chocolates or fruity gummy candy (I had one of each). I like the ends, which you can kind of see; they're cute. Inside the wrappers and around the candy are...

...these. They're funny story-ettes, essentially. Here are the ones I had:

Story 1 (the one on the second piece of paper, on the top where the illustration is mostly cut off)

-Garçon, dit un monsieur en consultant la carte, que me recommandez-vous, en toute confiance?

-Un autre restaurant, dit le garçon.

English

-Waiter, says a gentleman while looking at the menu, what do you recommend, in all honesty?

-Another restaurant, days the waiter

Story # 2 (on the same paper)

Les Calluche ont invité quelques amis à dîner. Un peu avant leur arrivée, Monsieur rafle tous les parapluies qui se trouvent dans un placard. Étonnée, sa femme lui demande :

-Tu crois que nos invités pourraient les voler ?

-Non, mais ils pourraient les reconnaître !

English

The Calluche invites some friends to dinner. A little before their arrival, Monsieur takes out (& puts somewhere else) all the umbrellas in the closet. Surprised, his wife asks him:

-Do you think that our guests would take them?

-No, but they might recognize them!

Now, I don't know if you've been thinking about the title of this blog post and where it came from or not, but in case you were, and still have no clue, go watch You've Got Mail.

The Best Thanksgiving Story Ever

"Boston grandmother delivered grandchild while cooking Thanksgiving turkey"

Read about it (it's a really short article, I promise):
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/29/2009-11-29_boston_grandmother_delivered_grandchild_while_cooking_thanksgiving_turkey.html

Isn't he alot older...?

Today I went to see Old Dogs. I actually really enjoyed this movie. It's pretty funny and cute. I wish it had been a bit longer though. According to imdb.com it was only 88 minutes. I think adding a bit of time and making it closer to 2 hours would have been good because the relationships between Dan (Robin Williams) and his kids and his ex-wife could have been developed more, which I think I would have liked, but I enjoyed the movie as a whole. It was interesting to me that Robin Williams' and John Travolta's characters were supposed to be close in age and everything because Robin Williams looks a good deal older to me. As it turns out, he's not that much older than Travolta (Robin Williams was born in 1951, and John Travolta was born in 1954). You learn something new every day.

I think this was the first time that I watched a movie literally all by myself. I went by myself, and there was no one else in the theater. It's kinda lonely...

"Merry Christmas Y'all"

For Thanksgiving break, I went to visit family in Texas. It was really fun. I hadn't been to Texas in maybe...6 years? One of the things we did was:


the Turkey Trot! In Dallas, the Turkey Trot is a 5K walk or run (with an 8K option, but we did the 5K. We aren't that hardcore). I walked. Fortunately, my ankle was ok (last time I did the Turkey Trot (also in Dallas) my ankle swelled up and I had to sit with ice on it afterwards. which was fine because I didn't have to cook. But I didn't have to cook this time either and I had full ankle use. Excellent!)

Rock Out!

I also played Guitar Hero for the first time. It was really fun! I really should have been better at it seeing as how I (sorta) play the guitar, but apparently I got the hang of it faster than my cousins did originally because they were both surprised. But anyways, if I were home more with my Wii, I would definitely like to have that game. I think my guitar playing would improve (as one of my cousins had told me before. But now that I've played the game, I see!).

Scene it Adventures

"Name the movie" "Bambi" "WHAT?!?!?!" Have you ever played Scene It and someone else gets like the easiest question in the world? Yes, that is how our game began. Name that movie. Bambi. Seriously.

Only in Texas

*Only in Texas (and maybe Wyoming...) do you find cowboy boot stockings at Home Depot.

*Only in Texas is there a Christmas lawn decoration that's in the shape of Texas and says "Merry Christmas y'all" in the center.

*Only in Texas do people have such cute accents! (instead of my boring California non-accent)

Faints on a plane

On Wednesday, I had the most eventful plane ride ever. I walked back to go to the bathroom and completely passed out. I really don't remember it. I vaguely remember the flight attendant asking if there was a doctor on the plane. I vaguely remember like half of the plane looking back towards where I was. It's a very weird idea. I'd never passed out before. On the upside, they gave my a free bag of Planters Daybreak Blend Apple Cinnamon Trail Mix. It's really good, in case you were wondering. Then I was wheelchair-ed down to the baggage claim, then out to our car. Hope not to repeat this incident, but it was definitely eventful.

Italia...

In my Italian class, we watched this YouTube clip.

It's about people in Europe vs. Italians. It's pretty funny (and super-easy to follow along with even if you don't know Italian because only the titles are in Italian and the animation is pretty clear). Oh, I am most definitely going to miss my Italian class. I'm taking it in the spring, but with a different teacher and with mostly different classmates...

A Note on Ice

I'm writing my paper for French class on the Guerre du Roquefort (to make a long story short, this conflict comes from the EU prohibiting the importation of beef grown with hormones. The US then added taxes on some European imports. This January, the US put a 300% tax on roquefort cheese to "punish" France for leading the Europeans to ban the beef. Voilà!). In my research, I found a very interesting quote...

"Un Américain peut interpréter la quasi-absence de glace dans son verre comme une preuve de retard technologique. J’ai entendu cette interprétation à plusieurs occasions. Un Français, par contre, verra dans cette ‘manie’ de mettre de la glace partout soit une preuve de ‘puritanisme’ (gâcher le goût de la boisson) soit une obsession de la technologie dans tous les domaines, soit une façon mesquine d’économiser sur la quantité servie » -Piere Guerlain

Translation:

"An American may interpret the quasi-absence of ice in his/her glass as proof of a technological delay. I have heard this interpretation several times. A French person, on the other hand, sees in this 'madness' of putting ice in everything either as proof of 'puritanism' (ruining the taste of the drink) or as an obsession with technology in everything, or a petty way of serving less"

Interesting, isn't it? It's funny how one small thing (to add or not to add ice...that is the question!) shows so much. Each country's ideology is expressed in it.

Does it ever bother you...?

Does it ever bother you that people will be so vocally against and hate things that they don't necessarily have any personal first-hand knowledge about? People who hate a TV show they've never seen or a book they've never read or a movie they've never seen. Simply because a lot of people like it? It drives me crazy. It's one of my strongest pet-peeves. If you're going to dislike something, there should be a reason, and a better one than that "it's everywhere" or "because it's so popular." Franchement.

Do you ever find it interesting that the people who are so against something mention whatever it is they don't like more often than those who do like the TV show/movie/book? I've noticed on Facebook that people who are "haters" (to use a NorCal word) talk about whatever it is (example: Twilight) constantly? Curious, isn't it?

Sorry if you'd define that as venting, it just drives me crazy...

I'm such a movie goer...

Yesterday I saw Planet 51. It was an entertaining movie. The human (who, in this movie, is the alien) is a pretty funny character. He's essentially the stereotypical American, so it's an American movie making fun of Americans...Only not, I guess. According to IMDB.com, this movie's country is "Spain: UK : USA." Which makes a lot of sense based on the names of most of the people in the credits...I liked it, but I must admit that Disney movies are much better. No offense to the creators.

On a related note....

I'm calling this my "California" wall. Why? Not so sure. I guess because it reminds my of California. Beach scenes (although at least one is from Hawaii), the Princess & the Frog poster, and picture from Disneyland (from Disneyland Paris, actually).

My Sci-fi wall. =D The New Moon poster is completely not straight, and it's across the wall from my desk, so I face it, but fixing it will prove tricky as I used those mounting strips so I'd likely have to put new ones on. I'm unsure if it bothers me that much.

I just got the Disney 23 magazine (a magazine essentially about all things Disney -characters, upcoming & current movies, the parks, etc) I haven't read it yet, but I'm about to...

Adventures in the Passé Simple

My French teacher was very astonished that we cannot write in the passé simple. She would like for us to write our final paper in that tense (or the historical present, which is the tense I'm using). So yesterday, she decided to "teach" us the passé simple. By "teach" I mean gave us a worksheet which, at the top, had the endings for regular verbs, and then below had "conjugate the verb" exercises. ALL the verbs in the exercises were irregular. Yeah....that helps. So anyways, we went through each one as a class. So she would ask what the answer was for a verb, and people would just begin shouting out anything that it could possibly be, anything that had maybe a similar root and endings that sound like the ones of the regular verbs. It was quite an adventure. but it was HILARIOUS. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time because non of us were really sure what the response was and were shouting out all manner of answers, and our teacher was a mix of amused and surprised. She is sometimes surprised at our American-ness. Which is always interesting (she's my first French teacher here at Midd who's French, so it's a different dynamic and very interesting).

New Moon...and teeny-bopper 40 year olds

Today I went to see Twilight New Moon. I really liked it! I liked it better than the first mind (Nota Bene: I have not read the books, just in case you were wondering. I may read them, but I don't know. I love to read love stories, but more short & sweet, to the point ones. I'm unsure how I feel about a super long romance book series. I tend to get very frustrated when the two main characters take too long to finally get together...but anyways. that is not the point of this blog entry). If you liked the first movie, you should really go see it.

Anyways, the funny part deals with the title. In the row in front of where my sister & I were sitting there was a large-ish group of middle aged women. They were hilarious. They would go "wwwwoooooooooo" every time that Jacob took off his shirt or came onto the screen shirtless (and Edward too, I think. But he's in the movie less and there's really only one seen where he's shirtless). It was hilarious...and a little weird. Is it just me, or is it a bit cougar-ish (mind the term if it's not PC. I'm really not sure. But as there's a show called Cougar Town...) for 40 year old women to be "woo"-ing over teenage guys? Hmmm. Not even the teenage girls were like that. They were, therefore, "teeny-bopper 40 year olds." They are teens at heart...I guess. But they definitely added another fun element to the movie.

Yea that the next movie come out in June....until then, countdown to the Princess & the Frog (3 weeks)

A Day at the Movies...

Today I went to the movies and saw a Christmas Carol. It was an interesting movie. Yes, that it was. I was surprised, though, because it was quite a bit on the scary side. I mean, I'm 21 years old and was a little creeped out at times (granted, certain parts of the Haunted Mansion are creepy/scary to me...so I might be a bit of a wimp, but still!). One kid couldn't take it pretty early in the movie and he & his mom left. It was creepy. Be prepared. This movie + small children (may)= a problem. For example, when the ghost of Scrooge's old partner visits him, at one point his jaw essentially becomes detached from the rest f his skull and is hanging there weirdly and to speak he uses his hand to move his jaw up & down. I found that super creepy and it was about that time that the little boy & his mom left (this is pretty early in the movie. Before the three ghosts come). One other note: Disney should reeeeeeeally consider making all of their digital animation movies with Pixar. The quality of the images is much better in Pixar films. No offense at all to the digital animators, but the people and their movements looked very odd to me. At times they reminded me of a Barbie I had when I was younger, Lemona. Lemona was one of the gymnastic Barbies, so her arms were movable (you could move her arms at the elbow, and her shoulder joint was more flexible than that of the regular Barbies), so she could "hold" things, but she couldn't hold them in a super realistic, human type way. Holding her arms in a "circle" looked much more like a hexagon (her hands being the top, her elbows being two of the points, and each shoulder being a point). Sometimes the characters in the movie looked like that. But I did like the movie. I kind of want to read the book. But I've never read anything by Dickens (I'm a language major, but not an English major =D ), and am somewhat intimidated...but maybe I will. Depends on how long the book is.

The movie has me SO ready for Christmas. I'm looking forward to the holidays. Last fall I was in Spain, so I didn't get the whole Thanksgiving season (I did get Thanksgiving dinner, though, because my cousin's cousin lives there and she made dinner for me) as they don't celebrate it there (obviously. It's a holiday celebrating the kindness/sharing of the Native Americans and the pilgrims and all). And the Christmas season was not as enthusiastic or as much as part of popular culture there as it is here. I never heard any Christmas music or anything. I'm definitely looking forward to that this year.

Peppermint Hot Chocolate anyone?

(No seriously. Go to Williams & Sonoma and buy some of their Peppermint Hot Chocolate. it's delizioso!)

Alla Casa Italiana

Yesterday I went to a dinner at the Italian House at my school (What's an Italian house, you ask? Well, at my school there is a house for almost every language taught. People who take the language can live in the house, and there is always a TA who is from the country the language is spoken (ex. in the Italian house there's a guy from Italy). They generally only speak that language in the house. Each house has a "coffee hour" type thing (or at least I think so. At the French, Spanish and Italian houses they do at least). They occasionally sponsor special things like the Picnic at the French House and movies). They (the people who live at the house) served hand-made pasta and it was REALLY good! They made gnocchi with cheese sauce, gnocchi with meat sauce, pumpkin tortellini-like things in sage & butter sauce. They also had delicious appetizers: sliced pears w/ honey & walnuts, slices of parmesan cheese, bruschetta, and prosciutto & cantaloupe). It's a small house - not enough space for everyone to have personal space (at least, in my opinion).

GRE words and encouragement

Part 1: Here are some GRE words that for whatever reason I'm having a very hard time remembering:

*turgid: swollen as from a fluid, bloated

*trenchant: acute, sharp; forceful, effective

*perspicacious: shrewd; astute

*obsequious: overly submissive & eager to please

*blithe: joyful; cheerful; without appropriate thought

*laconic: using few words

*precipitate: lacking deliberation

*specious: deceptively attractive

Part 2: Encouragement

"O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD."

~Psalm 139: 1-4

My New Blog!!!

I've decided to start another blog now that I'm back in the US and no longer on my year abroad. This blog will be about anything and everything going on in my life and mind. As it's my senior year, this blog may double as a place to reflect on things related to the job process, the GRE/GMAT, etc...

Facts About Me:

* I am a polyglot, or would like to be. (this is me putting my GRE vocab to work. Polyglot = multilingual). I speak English (obviously), Spanish, French, and Italian (well...I'm in Intro Italian, but I can put sentences together...so it counts!). I would also LOVE to learn German. It's next on the list.

(if only it were that easy)

*I love to travel. Here are my long-term travel goals: 1) Go to every continent (including Australia. Currently, I've been to North & South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I'm working on getting to Australia next....one day soon) 2) Go to every Disneyland park (I've got a ways to go on that one. I've only been to Disneyland CA, Walt Disney World FL, and Euro Disney. I'm going to Disneyland Hong Kong over Christmas break though...super exciting)

*I'm working on my high-tech ness. I just got a Twitter account. I'm not really sure what to do with it though....Facebook is better, in my opinion, but I have just started, so we'll see how it goes

*I have recently discovered an interest in advertising/marketing when I was abroad (such as the one for Berlitz). Here's one I saw in Boston that I really like:

*I love photography (both seeing professional photography and taking pictures myself). Here are two photos that I took. The first one is from Brugges, Belgium. The second is from Lyon, France.

More To Come!!!