Oh, what a day!

Do you know that feeling you get when you do something good after a really long, really important day you've been dreading for ages? You know, that Doing-Something-With-Your-Life euphoria that comes from taking the hardest test you've ever taken, followed by more tests, followed by signing up to be a Fiction Reader for the North Texas Review, UNT's literary magazine? And what if even after all that, it's finally the weekend? And on top of that, add in a little of that friend-making magic that comes from having a really awesome conversation with a really awesome person you've just met?

If you know what I mean, you're probably actually me, because that's how I feel right now. I may or may not have bombed my English test (SO.  MUCH.  SHAME. O_O), but it wasn't for lack of ability. It's just not fair to hand an English major a test with twelve potentially five page essays and ask them to be done in fifty minutes. Seriously. I explicated the poems, I analyzed the quotes, but my mind was like

as I tried to regurgitate all of my thoughts onto the page in six and a half minutes.

Not fun times.

(Still, I really want that picture to show up when you Google search my name. Like really.) 

But some of my horror was eased when I went to the North Texas Review meeting and finally found a place where I think I will belong. I mean, this is what I want to do with my life--read people's art, make it better, and put it out in the world. Not to mention the tour of the publishing facility here at UNT that I get to go on, or the chance to meet a bunch of fascinating, talented people.

This year I think I'll stick with being a reader and maybe an assistant editor. But in the future I hope to work my way up to an Editor position, and maybe ultimately Editor-in-Chief, one day. :)

Well, c'est ma vie!

I love my dorm...

Because we do crazy things like wear eyepatches...

...and host events where both cowboys and space lords are welcome...

...and take Mr. Clever Girl the Velociraptor of West Wing 300 as our dates to General Assemblies. 

(He's going business-casual.) 

Wonderful Things and Horrible Things.

Wonderful thing:

Seeing the MythBusters. 

Horrible thing:

Being sick for it. 

Wonderful thing:

Getting two letters in one day!

Horrible thing:

Godric is dead. :(

Wonderful thing:

Taping expressive cookies onto my friends' doors. 

Horrible thing:

Getting killed two days into playing Assassin. 

Cookies and Books

Today I made my special chocolate-cranberry-oatmeal cookies, which are made with all healthy ingredients and are also delicious! This time I even made them with white chocolate chips, which is an interesting twist.

Chocolate-Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookies (or Goddess Cookies, because according to Jena, they are what keeps me young, blonde, and strong. [or something.] )

(adapted from Quaker Oats' Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe--you can basically mess with the proportions/ingredients as you like, but this is what I do)

1/2 cup + 6 Tbsp apple sauce (or butter)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1+ tsp vanilla (my general rule about vanilla: always add more.)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or, you know, whatever kind of flour)
1+ tsp baking soda (add a little more because of the apple sauce)
1+ tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oatmeal (I use only about 1 1/2 or 2, but it's just preference)
1 cup craisins

Combine apple sauce and sugars; add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well. Add oats and craisins. Blah blah blah toss onto a cookie sheet in absolutely perfect spheres weighing exactly ten grams each blah blah blah and bake at 350F for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes enough cookies to share with your friends or hoard over the course of a week.

I also read this book:

Which was a very beautiful, human book about ten people who are trapped in an Indian visa office in an American city after an earthquake, each sharing one amazing story from their life as they wait for death or rescue. Read it.

Still, despite all this, my weekend has been excruciatingly boring. Sigh. :-/ I need to do something legitimately exciting next weekend. Like seriously.

New Favorite Website

This Random Paragraph Generator entertained me while not doing homework for a long time yesterday. Just insert a male and a female name (really you can do anything, but this is the funniest) and GO!

http://watchout4snakes.com/CreativityTools/RandomParagraph/RandomParagraph.aspx

Some of the (more appropriate) highlights:

"A possessed onion analyzes Eden under the minister." 

"Malachai objects below the communal gnome." 

"William patronizes Anna next to the unable acorn." 

(Sorry, Will and Anna. I swear it was a randomly selected name. :-P)

"A confusing freak poses on top of the dumb pet."

"Should the cow exist?" 

...and then about a dozen others that taught me probably fifty new euphemisms this thing thought the world needed. Haha. Hilarious, but so bad. 

I challenge anyone to write/draw/create something starting with any of these sentences that actually makes logical sense. 

PS - Thank you Jena for enjoying this with me. :) 

Gummy Bear Quesadillas and other (occasionally revolting) adventures.

Just some pictures from the last few days. You know. College is happening and stuff.

Gatsby the suave Lego man.

Prickly pear fruit.

A gummy bear mosaic!

New friends from China!

Beautiful Jen(n)as!

This is what quesadilla night turned into. And it's exactly what it looks like. 

Disgusting. 

It's All About the Blackbird.

Here is possibly the coolest poem ever, by Wallace Stevens, America's mid-century Insurance Executive/poet. I could spend hours discussing this piece, and did today, in my English class.

I promise the poems will stop soon--we're moving on to our drama unit next week. But really, what did you expect?

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

                    I 

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

                   II 

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

                  III 

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

                  IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

                    V 

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

                    VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

                    VII 

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

                    VIII 

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

                    IX 

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

                    X 

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

                    XI 

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

                    XII 

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

                    XIII 

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens

A Long Rant About How Awesome My Life Is.

I seriously love my school. I could not have picked a more exciting, opportunity-filled place. Despite the workload and the studying and the classes that aren't the best, I am happy here. Every day as I walk around campus I am reminded that I made the right choice to come to UNT.

I love that my indecision about a second minor isn't actually all that big a deal. I love that I'm a sophomore already, that I have so much time to do what I want to do. I love that I can take a Linguistics class or a Philosophy class or an Anthropology class and it won't even mess me up a little bit. And I can still minor in French as well as Management or International Studies or Communications or whatever the hell I feel like minoring in. I love that all I have to do is check my email or look at the walls downstairs and I'll have something to do at any given moment in time, be it having lunch with the Deans of the Honors College or going to a Student Forum to talk about the campus plans.

I'm still figuring out what organizations to join. Theatre is out. I might join photography club, and possibly play a little Quidditch. I could also do fencing, but mostly I want to join a politically active group. I'm a little leery of the Socialist group, as well as the Feminist Majority people. I am half considering starting a chapter of the Global Secular Humanist Movement here on campus, as I've met many, many people who would probably be interested in joining. Or maybe I'll start a Book Exchange Event. At the very least I want to join a literary something-or-other. Either way, I feel like I need to get active in something now. In high school, I didn't really think about my options--theatre was a given. But without that, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to dedicate my time to. But whatever it is, it'll be friggin awesome.

Also, my roommate moved in (quite suddenly) on Sunday, and turned out to be probably the coolest person ever. Michelle is a sophomore transfer from Abilene Christian University, a Greek, and a Technical Communications major. We both love books and writing and cooking and Mediterranean food. We have a very similar taste in music and movies and pretty much everything. We got gloriously lucky, seeing as how we ended up together purely because both our housing situations were apparently the weirdest on campus.

So all things considered, I am incredibly busy, busier probably than is actually possible to be, and I am incredibly happy to be so. Lucky, lucky me.

Because I just wrote my first college essay...

A poem! Which I wrote my essay on! Just for you! (No, you don't want to hear what I had to say about it.)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind - 

                                               Emily Dickinson

And here's another one that I really liked. Just because. (ShutupI'manEnglishmajor) 

                Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
  Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
  As sunlight on a stream;
    Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
  Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
  Where thirsting longing eyes
     Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
  My very life again tho' cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
  Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
     Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago. 

Christina Rossetti 

Destination: Maggie!

This weekend I went to see this chick

With these people (cat included)

At this place (also known as Trinity University in San Antonio)

Can you tell by my colorful nails? :)

It was a glorious adventure (despite the total ten hours of driving in two days) full of other-college-worldliness that could not be more of a contrast to my own college experience, catching tadpoles, eating bagels, watching really bad movies, and playing with half-wild kittens. And on the way back, I even got to stop and see my glorious Alex for lunch in Austin! Adventurous, excellent weekend, but now I'm afraid the next two days will consist mostly of essay-writing because I didn't do it today or yesterday. Super fun! :D

-_-

Serendipity Bread (Strawberry Chocolate Chip Bread)

Did you know that you can take any old chocolate chip cookie recipe, like say, this one--

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

--and add approximately two cups of pureed fresh strawberries to make a batter, which, when baked for twenty-five-ish minutes, becomes a freaking delicious quick bread? 

I didn't either until last night! Mmmm, was it amazing!

Just combine wet ingredients, add eggs, combine dry ingredients and add in, stir in pureed strawberries and fold in chocolate chips. Does good in bread pans or in a 9"x13" scenario. 

You're welcome. 

Da College Life. Aw Yeah.

I definitely just made a giant un-muffin in the toaster oven I bought for twenty bucks yesterday. Somehow I think this means I'm a college kid.

Other things that have defined the first week of my college life:

Watching the Republican National Convention with a bunch of cool people, including the most awesome Scholar-Family-in-Residence ever. Because being informed is our responsibility! Also, Mister Mitt McRomneyface makes me laugh. Sometimes. 

Beautiful full moons over the nighttime campus.

Homework. Blugh. 

A cute little concert on the Library Mall. 

And a big concert on the fair grounds!

A somewhat crazy concert. 

With Reggie Watts. 

And The Black Lips. 

And VIP passes. 

And giant water slides. 

Oh, and flamingos of course. 

Because what is life without some flamingos along the way?