Christmas Happenings

My mom sent me a box of decorations for my apartment. I never actually got a tree, and I have nothing tree like in or around my house. Now, many of my neighbors have put their strands of light out on their porch handrails and/or back decks. I decided that would not put my house in the Christmas spirit at all, so I decorated my living room lamp in place of a Christmas tree. I love it.


As far as my Christmas goes, it was entirely uneventful. I live in a college town, so the majority of our population left on December 17th to go home and celebrate with their families. Living over 2,000 miles away and being a starving college student, I thought it better to stick around and work instead. My boyfrind, my neighbors, and all of my friends have left for better things.

The day was not entirely lost. After cleaning the last of the mess in the kitchen left by my neighbors, my very messy yet lovable neighbors, I made the best cup of hot cocoa on the planet. I am running on limited resources with a time limit, because I am trying to use the food my neighbors left before it expires. I whipped the rest of the half-and-half left from their coffee, heated up the last of the milk in the fridge, mixed in both chocolate bars and powdered mix, blended in a few sprigs of fresh mint, added a dollop of whipped cream, and a small stream of chocolate syrup on top for effect. It was very rich, but incredibly delicious.



I spent the rest of the day baking a homemade feast fit for the greatest royalty. Most of my time was used in making a loaf of homemade white bread, which is worth the while. After getting that set up and ready to rise, I made a beef pot pie with whatever was left in the fridge: potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, peas, and corn. It was so incredibly hearty, andd the crust turned out absolutely perfect. A few quick sides while those two baked: applesauce and stuffing. It was the best meal I have eaten in a while.



It was a lot of work for a single person meal, but I was so very pleased with it. I ate until I couldn't move. I called a few of my family members, and a few of them called me. I bragged about my resourceful cooking, and we chatted about life on opposite sides of the country. I had a tame Christmas, but it has been a relaxing holiday.

They Physics Department

For some reason, Penn State Physics hates everyone. They make everything difficult, complicated, and unreasonably strict. As demonstrated by the photo above, they even build stairs in the most ridiculous patterns. What happened to the stairs that stuck to the walls the entire way down?

With two weeks left in the semester, I am really feeling the pressure. I have an exam tonight, and I am not entirely positive what it will cover. I will be working on the practice exam all day, so I should be able to do at least part of it.

I don't study enough. I should really sit down with my textbooks more often. Sure, every single one of my classes has required homework, but I don't learn as much from that as I feel I should be learning for exams and things.

I guess I'm just feeling really frustrated, not having internet off campus. My laptop is broken, and Kalen just told me this is a problem that Toshiba will have to fix, and I will probably need to send it back to the factory. I hate staying on campus after classes, because I am already pushing 10 hours of working at that point, and I would really like to cuddle up in my bed at night and study in the comfort of my own room, with music blaring, the television going, food on the stove, and immediate access to the bathroom.

I feel hungry all the time, because, like I said, I stay at school for 10 hours at a time. If I eat breakfast in the morning, I still won't get dinner for another 11-13 hours, depending on how long the bus ride takes, and whether I go home directly after classes. I would love to carry a lunch with me, but my backpack already weighs as much as I, and I am most positive that ramen noodles or cereal would not travel well. That's pretty much all the food I have left at this point, because I never have time to go shopping.

I am ready for the end of the semester.

Billions of Cookies

It just so happens that my neighbors are friends with my boyfriend. Because of this fact, I spend a lot of time over at there house. I tend to believe that all college boys are starving, and those guys love that.

Three weeks ago, we decided to try a recipe for pumpkin rolls, which I found on the internet.
Libby's Pumpin Roll
http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID="32372"


My mom always make treats like this with freshly pureed pumpkin from the garden, so I convinced the boys that they should go buy a pumpkin and we would do this the organic way. The first time is always difficult.

One of the challenges of pureeing a pumpkin is using a blender rather than a food processor. I was using one of their plastic spatulas to push the chunks of cooked pumpkin into the blades. Only Mom would have guessed that I got the spatula caught in the blades, spraying pumpkin puree 10 feet in all directions.

Aside from picking a few chunks of spatula from the puree, it all went very well, until I realized the recipe called for 2/3 cup of pumpkin, and we had 3 entire Tupperware containers full to the rim, after baking the roll. Therefore, November has been declared pumpkin month.

So far, we have baked no less than six pumpkin rolls. Quite frankly, the boys are nearly getting sick of them. Instead, we baked a double batch of pumpkin cookies. I would guess four and a half dozen in all, but let's be honest. Most of them were eaten before I could even get them off the pan. There are still a good dozen and a half left, though.

Three weeks and seven desserts later, I still have one full container of pumpkin puree. We are researching other forms into which it can be made. Desserts are getting a little tiresome. Entrees, sides, drinks, lip balms. Anything to rid ourselves of one last container.

Long story short, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Greek Sing Made My Ears Bleed.

I am not entirely sure who thought it would be a good idea to let fraternities sing and sororities dance in front of respectable people, but that person should be thrown out a window. Greek Sing was the worst experience of my life.

What it is:
Greek Sing was started as performance opportunity for fraternities and sororities to show off their musical talents. It is held annually every fall.

What it isn't:
Any good at all. I was forced to sit through two days of listening to frats and sororities perform shortened versions of musicals full of bad singing, bad acting, and bad dancing. I wanted to die by the end of it.

Why it matters:
It funds some lame scholarship for some lame frat boy or sorostitute who is the best at being "Greek." (What is that, anyway? Best at being drunk?)

Why they made me go:
I had to work the light board for the shows. Which meant I had to pay attention the entire time. I think I wasted my weekend. I sold it by the hour.

Reunion

I was sitting on the bus to school the other morning, and a song came on the radio which reminded me of my friend Carrie. I wanted so badly to call her and tell her that I may have found the greatest song of the century, which she needs to Google right this instant so she would love it, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't. Instead, I called Layne to tell him how much I miss Carrie some days. He agreed, and said that he will send her flowers if I would like. He knows where she is, finally. We couldn't find her last time we went with flowers. We ended up leaving them on a bench. I wish I didn't have to send flowers. I wish I could call Carrie, like I used to.

Rest in peace, Carrie May.

My New Home

Let me give you a tour of my new place. I will be living here for the next year of my life, hopefully. I have the basement bedroom of a three bedroom townhouse. I live in the yellow one on the left, and that is my boyfriend James standing on the front porch.


You enter first into a small entryway with an insufficient amount of linoleum on the floor, considering you have to step onto the carpet to close the door behind yourself most of the time anyway. The stairs lead up to my two roommates' bedrooms and their shared bathroom.


Although a little bare, the living room is generally very clean, and altogether unused. Ever since my roommates banished their 13-inch television to the basement with me, I have had no reason to sit up there. I never have visitors, because I usually go to the neighbor's house to hang out with all of James's military friends.


The kitchen and dining area is one of my favorite places. There is a very nice set up for cooking, although I would rather have the stove on the other side of the sink. The dishwasher in in the way most of the time. None of us use it. However, the counter is always spread with my cooking concoctions.

This is the view from our back deck. Not much to say here, we never use it. Although, our next door neighbors have some pretty happenin' parties on football weekends.


Down the stairs, there is this awkward little "bonus room." I have yet to meet anyone who actually uses this room. Most people keep all their social things, like televisions and games, up in the living room. I have the little 13-inch television in that entertainment center. It looks goofy, but it works.



I couldn't really fit my entire room into one picture, so I took two. This is my desk and closet at one end, with the little buffer shelf to hold all of my prized possessions, and on the other side is my bed, dresser, and restroom.

I think the best part of the whole place is my private bathroom. It is pretty sweet only having to clean up after myself.




I love the new place and look forward to spending the whole year here.

Women in Engineering Girl Scout Saturday.

Once a month, the Women in Engineering Program hosts a Girl Scout Saturday. Girls travel from all over the state to earn a badge in one of our workshops. There were about 50 Women Engineers and 60 Girl Scouts.

The theme this month is "Humans and Habitats." Traditionally, this is a life sciences badge, but we put an engineering twist on it. The troops were given one of eight states; Montana, Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, or Tennesee, and had to design a house that was functional in that climate.

Our troop was given Pennsylvania.

They had a half hour to design and build a model home for their state. My troop gave their house a large sloping roof to let the rain and slow slide off, a garage to keep the car in when it snows outside, a pond and garden in the back, two levels for seasonal temperature control, and solar panels for energy efficiency. I was pretty proud of those girls; they were the only ones to think of putting solar panels on the house.

The girls went CRAZY building their model. We had limitless supplies of everything... unfortunately. I ended up going to work with glue all up my arm. I don't know how this happened, because I didn't even touch anything. My job was to keep the project moving so they would finish on time.

I got a good chance to talk to some of the girls about pretty much everything from school, to family, to girl scouts, to interests. Here, Courtney is putting the garden together while she tells me about some of the foods she likes to eat.

Those little silver patches on the roof are solar panels.

For only having a half hour, all the troops had really extravagant houses. Granted, they all had about ten little girls working away the whole time to get these finished. After spending that much time in a small room with 100 people moving around, it was ungodly hot in there. The girls didn't mind at all, though. They had a lot of fun.

This was a really fun activity for me, too. I do hope I get to participate in a lot more of these Girl Scout Saturdays.

My Life is a Perpetual Game of Frogger

You know what I'm talking about. The old Frogger game from the 1980's, where you have a little green blob graphic roughly shaped like a frog, and you have to jump it across a vast expanse of what appears to be a six lane highway while trying to avoid little car shaped blobs, only to find that on the other side of the highway, there is a wide and fast-flowing river with the only way across is jumping from log to leaf to log to leaf. I never really understood why the frog dies if he jumps in the river. Perhaps it flows too swiftly for my little first-level frog-blob to swim without getting run over by rogue logs.

Anyway, my life has become a perpetual game of Frogger. With 40,000 student on my campus, there is a lot of traffic. Not just car traffic either, but foot traffic and bike traffic, with blockades of construction everywhere. By far the busiest street is Pollock Road in front of the HUB-Robeson center. Yesterday, as I dodged between two particularly slow moving individuals, I was nearly knocked down by a bicycle riding quickly down the street. I don't know why I think I need to cross traffic. I should just go with the flow.

My thinking has become just like a game of Frogger. Slow person, fast person, fast person, JUMP, slow person, slow person, JUMP, fast person, fast person, fast person, fast person, JUMP, bicycle, JUMP, car, fast person, fast person, car, JUMP. And so on.

I have become quite skilled at this game of Froggger I play across the street at least three times a day. I'm almost addicted. Sometimes I think, "What do I need across Pollock Road? ... Perhaps some food at the HUB? ... Maybe I need to study in Davey Library today? ... Or can I go to the Professor's office hours? ..." Anything to play Frogger one more time today.

I need more video games.