a Serious Lack of direction

I want to write on this blog, I like my blog, but there's nothing. My mind, usually incessantly wandering, has come to standstill. All I can think about is how badly I want to play Zelda.

The semester just ended, my last final was on Saturday. I feel a congratulations should be in order, but now it's Monday and finals are old news. No one wants to talk about them because they've already heard all about them and there's only so much you can say,
"Finals are over!!"
"Good for you."
End of conversation. It's not enough for me. I'm still feeling the residual waves of tension and nervous energy from all that studying, from 15 weeks of total dedication, from the overwhelming and unbelievable thrill of being done with Photography FOREVER. "Good for you" just doesn't cut it.

What else would I have them say? As one who has been through finals and craves more appreciation for accomplishing the task, I admit that I too reply, "Good for you" when the subject arises. I try to fill it with enthusiastic sincerity, though. See? It's different.

wandering Thoughts amidst mouthfuls of Doughnut

Anything I could possibly say has already been, undoubtedly, said. By much wiser and more knowledgeable people than me, I might add. What can I add? Why do my thoughts matter? Do they matter?

I used to have witty things to say, funny stories to unravel, and I might again someday; but now that we're in the throes of Finals Week my mind is a constant to-do list on "Repeat and Shuffle All." Dulls my senses.

For some reason the really important things on my to-do list only come to me after mid-night. They clench my chest and brutally shake the canvas of my mind. I take a deep breath, listen to the soft breathing of my husband beside me, and tell myself to deal with it in the morning. But these things, these nasty pestering things, don't seem to like the light of day and persistently wait until nightfall to re-emerge.

Class starts in ten minutes. And after that I...blank. Where is my to-do list when I need it? What was I going to do before leaving campus? Finish this post? No, probably not.

It'll come around again on the Replay.

I just broke my desk drawer. Awkward. There's my cue to exit.

let's Never Go there Again

I had to run to the mall a few days ago to pick up Christmas gifts. What a nightmare.

I got lost on the way to mall. Then I got lost inside the mall. I got lost trying to find my way out of the mall. I got lost trying to find my car in the parking lot of the mall. And I was so flustered by the end of it that I got lost on my way home from the mall.

I hate the mall.

Walking through a shopping mall is like suffocating yourself in commercialism, materialism and blatant attempts to brain-wash the general public. Posters and ads are everywhere telling me that I'm not thin enough, not pretty enough, my teeth aren't white enough, my hair is the wrong color, I wear the wrong clothes, and I couldn't possibly be sufficiently happy until I get enough money to rectify these glaring defects in my life. And I find myself surrounded by people who have bought into these sordid, contemptible and shameless lies.

I hate the mall.

I tried to go people-watching at a mall once. I thought it would be a chance to see a lot of people in many varieties. I brought a sketch-book.

Have you ever tried people-watching in a mall?

It was the most boring experience of my life. Everyone looked the same. Same hair-styles done at the same salons. Same clothing styles bought at the same department stores. All too skinny, all too fake, all of them walking in all directions at once, yet going nowhere; all with an insatiable burning emptiness in their eyes; all yearning for satisfaction that is always just out of reach.

One more laser hair removal treatment, one more teeth-whitener, one more blouse, one more pair of shoes, one more bauble, one more ridiculously over-priced bag of European chocolates or hand lotion...THEN will you be happy?

I hate the mall.

Real Adventures in The kitchen!

The "Easy, Lazy Cookbook for Easy, Lazy People" can now get started!

I made muffins. No lie. And I can prove it:



<-----------See those? I made those. Those are my pride and joy. And those are delicious.


"Those" is all of the sudden a very strange word,





No sifting or alternating or other weirdness, just straight up throw it in a bowl, mix it up, and pop in the oven. Easy. Lazy. Delicious. (ooh! That would be a better title!)





The batter was a little bit thick. Not sure if that's normal for muffins. It was so thick I don't even have a metaphor to describe to you how thick it was. The closest thing I can think of would be like...like...stirring cement while it was hardening, except it never did harden it just stayed really thick and made my arm hurt.

Lame metaphor. I know. I apologize.

Also, a couple of notes of what I would add in The Lazy Easy Cookbook for Lazy Easy People OR Easy. Lazy. Delicious. *ahem*

• If your butter is frozen, let it thaw BEFORE trying to beat it with the eggs and sugar. Blending frozen butter is like having a sparring tournament against a brick wall. Don't do it.
• You will need a wooden spoon and an electric egg beater. That's it. I dirtied two wooden spoons, a fork, a butter knife, two soup spoons, a whisk, and my electric egg beater and I'm just letting you know: it's unnecessary. Two things, that's it.
  
• A little tip: if you keep your blueberries in the freezer, you do not have to wait to the end of the recipe when it says "Add blueberries" to take them out of the freezer. Let them sit on the counter while you prepare, let them defrost a little bit, they'll appreciate it.
• Wear an apron. I know you think you're clean and you won't have a problem but, we're dealing with flour here. Flour is the sneakiest of all ingredients. Without an apron it will find a way onto everything you own, including clothes you haven't worn since last week! You'll be cleaning flour dust out of cupboards and drawers you could swear you've never touched. Apron. You don't have one, GET one.
• Just an FYI: fill the muffin tin cups 3/4 full. I tried it from 1/2 full to clear-to-the-brim full and the best results lie at 3/4 full.
  

I think that's all the dumb stuff I did in this adventure that I wish someone could have warned me about. Oh sure, it seems like obvious stuff (the frozen butter, in particular) but it honestly didn't cross my mind until I was staring it in the face. If I wrote a cookbook, people would be warned.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this hypothetical cookbook of mine already exists. It should, if it doesn't. By this day and age I'm sure someone would have thought to write a cookbook for novices. If I were more ambitious I would seek this book out.

Instead I'm going to go eat a muffin and read Return of the King.

The gook is Congealing into Something not unlike Silly-Putty

I'm writing a paper on the most boring topic I could possibly imagine: Architecture.

I shouldn't say architecture is boring. Sorry. It's just...well, no. It is boring. *shrug*

It's one thing to appreciate architecture as a feat of human engineering, or the unique use of space and natural light, and even the influences that led up to that one particular building. But I really (really) don't want to know about "squinches" and "pendentives" and "naves" and "transepts" and "ambulatories" and all the other strange terms that come with studying ancient, and particularly Christian, architecture.

This has come upon me through Art History : Prehistory to the Renaissance. I'm not an architect, I'm not an art historian, but as a general art major the class is required.

My teacher really loves architecture. She gets pretty excited about it. It makes me want to bang my head against my desk until I black out and start bleeding out my ears.

As my Korean painting professor would have said, "We are having probrem."

(That class was over two years ago. Is it strange that I still hear that little woman's voice in my head sometimes? Especially the way she said "questions." Not a "w" sound after the "q" but a "y." Phonetically it might look like this: kyess-chuns.

"If we are not having kyestions then we having probrem, okay?" *cute smile*)

You know the feeling when you've worked on one thing for several consecutive hours, how your brain feels like it has imploded in your skull and is now sloshing around between your ears in a gooky mess?

Yeah. I'm feelin' it.

Once Again my peaceful Existence is disturbed By Sports

I'm lagging in posts because nothing is going on.

But what about Thanksgiving break? All the holidays coming up? The crazy football game that everyone is talking about??

Yeah, like I said: Nothing.

Thanksgiving came and went like it always does; I could complain and moan about how difficult it is to go back to work and school after a break but, seriously, it's not like you don't know. Besides, it happens every year so why talk about it again? Holidays, yeah, same old, same old...you don't really care about those personal details of my holiday plans. I know that, because I don't really care about those personal details of my holiday plans. And football...

*groan*

...I'm NOT a sports-fan and I make no pretenses about it. The game or the rivalries or what so-and-so said about the other team and how that team should have egged so-and-so's car...blegh!! The only part of the whole thing that affected me was the blasphemous traffic it caused in the neighborhood. If it weren't for the people I work with and their strange obsessions with football, I never even would have known there was a game.

(I think I just heard an audible future gasp from several soon-to-be readers. ...sorry?)

I wash my hands of it and steer clear of the whole thing. So I'm just going to hunker down in my little hermit cave, wait for the end-of-semester-haze to pass by, and we'll get back to your regularly scheduled rants and pondersome posts when all the boring and blatantly bizarre cultural phenomenons are over.

(yay alliteration!)