Summer Time!

It's already been a full week of summer and right now it feels as though it's just inching along, but I know that soon enough those long, lazy summer days will go by all too fast. In fact, I've already lined up several projects for myself:

1. Find a job.
2. Learn to drive. That's right, I still don't have my license and I'm 19.
3. Start re-doing my soc book. What's a soc book? The long name is sociology book and it's a big project we had to do for Billington's sociology class my senior year. Basically, he gave a long list of questions that we had to create pages for. We also had to have our friends create pages about us. The reason why I want to re-do it is because my pages look like crap, especially when you compare them to the artistic talent of Beau's page.......
4. Begin a scrapbook for my JEP experiences. It'd be great to have all of these memories compiled into one book. However thick it is!
5. Learn to sew. I know how to sew the basics, but I'd really like to learn how to sew more complicated things, like a dress, or skirt, or bunny hat!

So as you can see, I'm going to keep myself busy this summer! Not to mention the fact that I have to help pack up everything and I want to take a dance class at the rec center......

Travel-worn

It's amazing how tired one can be after sitting in a car for two days. Even when you're not the one doing the driving.

Needless to say, that's what my past two days were. Sitting in my Dad's dog-hair-filled jeep packed full of boxes and bags of my stuff from school as we drove across Kansas. Not exactly my idea of fun. Especially since I only had one CD with me, so I had to listen to my Dad's music most of the way. That and my Maroon 5 CD. I like the band, but hearing the songs over and over and over again gets a little annoying. I think I have some of the lyrics memorized. And never realized how many sexual references are stated rather blatantly in their songs.

Anyway, driving across Kansas is taxing.

Boxes

Since I am in the midst of packing to head home for the summer, I've been thinking about (or, rather, frustrated with) boxes. For instance, what's the point in a box that can only hold about one normal-sixed book? And why does nothing ever seem to be able to fill up the box perfectly? It would be so much easier to pack things if boxes were able to hold everything just so. Personally, I'd much prefer a Mary Poppins carpet bag to a box.

Another funny thing about boxes: in a way, they represent life. Just think about it! We pack much of our material objects away in boxes that I'm sure everyone thinks of as associated with their life in some way or another. And all that food in the grocery store first came out of a box.

It's kind of sad seeing so many filled boxes lining the hallway as everyone prepares to go home. It means that some of the girls and guys I've gotten to know over the past year I may not see again for a very long time. Some I may never see again. And otehrs I'll see at the end of the summer. Still, the boxes look a bit forlorn in their shades of brown lined up in waiting to be carried out to a car or to sit across the way in Schroeder's storage.

I personally hope to not have nearly as many boxes this coming fall.

Sunset Concert

Alright, so this actually happened about three weeks ago, but I've been so busy with end of the semester papers, etc that I haven't been able to be online very much.

So...Sunset Concert.

Every spring, UE puts on a free concert for its students and brings in some fairly large bands. This year we had Hellogoodbye! Needless to say it was a pretty awesome concert, even though the singer was most definately drunk. Point and case: he licked a girl on the forehead. Maybe he was high, too. Oh, well. Nothing bad happened, and it made for an entertaining performance.

After the show, my friend Jenn and I ran around to the back of the "concert hall," a.k.a the large gym in Carson Center and got a photo with the guitarist.
All in all, it was a pretty good night, especially since I went with a bunch of friends to a Japanese restaurant for dinner before hand. (The meal cost me $23, but it was worth it).

UESO Tour Photos

A few photos from the tour with UE's Symphony Orchestra:

A tour while on tour

Chilling by the fountain

The Recording Angel

G-Clef bike racks

Well-fed college gals

On the bus.

Schermerhorn Symphony Center

Fountain

The city of Nashville as seen from the bus.

Tour

Today, at the most un-Godly hour of the morning (7:30), I loaded my violin and duffle bag onto a tour bus for UESO (UE Symphony Orchestra). At 1:00 Eastern Time we played for a high school in New Albany, IN and then we were back on the road and heading for Indianapolis. We got to our hotel in Indi at 5:00 and were left on our own to get dinner.

Tomorrow we have to get up at 5:30 so we can load the bus at 6:30 and go to our concert location here in Indi. Then, we head for Nashville.

So far, not having classes hasn't been all that bad, but at the same time, most of us are a bit stressed since it's so close to the end of the semester and we have papers, etc, due when we get back.

Countdown: 5 Weeks

So the count-down to the end of the school year has officially begun. There are five weeks left of my Freshman year.

I guess I have mixed feeling about this. I'm glad that there won't be school for three months, but at the same time, I'll be away from all of my good friends here for three months and I'll be working (and possibly taking a summer class). Also, we're moving. My mom, my sister, and I, I mean. Come August, the van will be stuffed full of boxes and we'll be driving across Kansas, Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Souther Indiana to make a new home in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm not so sure I like this. Yes, I'll be closer to school and to many of my new-found friends, but I'll have to leave my beloved mountains behind, not to mention friends I've had since kindergarten and my two beautiful dogs. I guess that's an idicator that I don't really want my life to change. However, change is inevitable. In fact, that was one of the reason why I chose UE. I wanted something new. I wanted new faces and a chance to be a new me. But I still wanted to have my "base of operations" in Colorado. Besides, Kentucky will never really be home to me. I spent my formative years in Boulder, not Lexington.

Pourquoi je deteste le violon...

I detest the violin because, in my opinion, it, as well as other stringed instruments (witht he exception of the harp and its family members), is one of the most difficult instructments to play when it come to the technical stuff. Pianists have it easy: the notes are all layed out right there; no guess work involved in that one! Just plunk down your finger and....GASP! It's a miracle! I played a perfectly in tune fourth octave C!!!!! (If any of you who read this are pianists, please don't take this personally). I understand that wind and brass instruments are hard because you have to breathe in order to make a sound and if you don't breathe in the right way then you only receive a considerably awful sounding squak for your efforts, but you still only have to press down a bunch of keys inorder to get the correct notes (I know it's different for brass, but, frankly, this is my rant so I'm not going to acknowledge that. No offense meant). With us wonderful stringed instruments there's so many things you can do in order to sound like a dying cat. If you play too far over the fingerboard, if your finger doesn't have enough pressure on the string, if your peg slips (and that, by the way, is one of the most annoying things to happen), if you play too close to the bridge, if you apply too much pressure on the bow, if there's not enough pressure on the bow, if you don't use enough bow, if you use too little bow, if our fingering isn't correct, I could on and on and on and on. So that is why I detest the violin, especially when I have to play fast extremely high notes.

One and a Half

So there is officially one and a half months left in the school year. Spring Break has been over for a week. Easter Break is next weekend. It's amazing how time flies, huh?

I've signed up for my room next year with a Korean girl from Schraeder. We'll be on the GLC! Yeah! It should be a blast as a lot of my friends are going to be on the GLC too! (GLC stands for Global Living Community).

I've also registered for classes. I'll be taking Introduction to Schools, Teachers and Learners; Teaching Strategies in K-12 Schools; French Civilization; Adult Health and Wellness; Intermediate Japanese I; Child and Adolescent Psychology; and Intoduction to Sociology. This makes a total of 19 credits. It will be a busy semester, but much of what I'm will be taking I need to take.

And with all of this comes the added pressure of a ton of homework. With six weeks left I have a test nearly every week, and at least one paper due every week as well. Joy? I think not.

Ice: La Glace

After the past two weeks, I have determined that Southern Indiana doesn't get snow and that Colorado doesn't get ice. This will strike many as odd, "Of course Colorado gets ice!" However, I answer them, "No, it doesn't." You see, ice in Colorado is the result of melting snow. In Indiana, ice comes straight from the heavens. Some might tell me that that is hail, not ice. However, they are still wrong. If it was hail, you wouldn't be slipping and sliding all over the place fifteen minutes after it starts icing. It makes for some gorgeous scenery, but it's a pain in the butt.

I came to this conclusion about a week and four days ago. February 11th. The day had begun fairly pleasantly, although pretty darn cold. But by noon, it was snowing. It was actually pretty neat 'cause they were really big fat flakes. Well, in any case, it snowed for several hours, and then the snow turned to ice balls. Not hail. This were ice/snow pellets raining from the sky (which was the usual February gray). By 7:00 PM we had a good four inches of snow (why S. Indiana doesn't get snow) plus another three inches of solid ice and it was still snowing. So, evening classes had been cancelled and all classes the next day were cancelled as well. The stuff stuck around until Sunday when most of it melted. Then, yesterday, it iced again. Afternoon and evening classes were cancelled, and so were 8:00 classes today.

Hence, Colorado doesn't have ice.

Moore Kitchen Hours

Twice a month, my friend Jenn and I cook dinner down in the basement of Moore. Normally, it's just for us two and a couple more. However, tonight we cooked dinner for a whole slew of people. We made a double batch of the Asian Beef Noodles, the andagi, and some chocolate cake-like cookies. We invited all of our Asian buddies, and of course we didn't exclude our American (and English) friends either. The results were wonderful.

We ate all of the noodles, and the andagi turned out wonderfully. The last bit were a little bit oily, but it's pretty good for my first time making them!

Overall, a great time and a meal that was way better than the food in Dunnigan!

Asian Beef Noodles

This is a receipe for Asian Beef Noodles, a simple dish that is often cooked in Moore Hall basement by Jenn and I.

Ingredients:
2 pkg oriental flavored ramen noodles
1 pkg frozen vegetable stir-fry (szechwan seasonings are good, but so are other oriental style stir-frys)
1 lb beef
2 C water

Instrutions:

1. In a wok or large skillet, brown the meat. Don't make the bits too small if you want to be able to pick them up with chopsticks.
2. Crunch up the noodles, and add the stirfry, the noodles, the flavoring packets, and the water to the beef.
3. Cook until the noodles and vegetables are cooked, about 12 to 15 minutes.

あんだぎ (Andagi)

Here follows a receipe for Andagi, or Okinawan Doughnuts.

Ingredients:
4 C flour
.5 tsp salt
1.75 C sugar
4 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 C milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 C vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. Sift together the dry ingredients.


2. Mix with sugar.


3. Beat eggs and mix with milk and vanilla


4. Add egg mixure to dry ingredients


5. Heat oil in deep pan to 350 degrees**


6. Use small ice-cream scoop and drop batter into the hot oil (use caution). Andagi should be golden brown when cooked, about 6 to 8 minutes.

**If the oil is too hot, the andagi will burn on the outside and not cook on the inside. If the oil isn't hot enough, the andagi will cook, but it will take longer and the andagi will come out oily.

February in Indiana

Apparently, Indiana has been dubbed a "female" state. Especially during February. To give an example of "her" moodswings, I will describe the weather of the past few days. The first few days in February were cold, as is to be expected for winter. And then, the weather took a sharp turn. The day before yesterday it rained a lot in the late evening so that by morning it was 53 degrees with a humidity of close to 100%. Today it rained (and by rained I mean poured) most of the day. In fact, I was woken up at 4:30 AM because of the thunder clashing right outside my dormroom window. I also had to walk to my 8:00 AM class in the pouring rain and thunder, as well as through several very deep muddy puddles. Good thing I was going to do laundry today anyway. There was also 94% humidity. Goregeous, no? And tomorrow the winds come in and the tempurature drops to the low forties (but is back in the fifties on Friday), with mid-forties forcasted for the weekend as well as sparse showers. I guess I should get used to this rainy weather; I'm stuck with it for four more years, and even when I study abroad I'm going to places where it rains.

So it's now a month into the new year as well as the new semester.

So far, things have been both pleasant and busy. With the exception of the two tornado warnings, that is. My classes aren't bad at all, in fact I find several of them exciting. These would be Japanese, French and my Romantic English Literature class. Psychology hasn't really started to be interesting yet, but I'm sure it will be later on in the semester. Orchestra is, well, it's orchestra. If you've been in a musical ensemble, you understand what I mean by that short and sweet sentence. World Cultures is just plain boring. I thought I was done with high school level English classes. Sure, we go through books faster, but other than that, we don't do anything different than you would in a high school class. We even went over how to format things in MLA today! I should have been in the honors class. Too bad my grades weren't good enough for that.

With the coming of a new semester is the coming of new students, both entering "freshmen" and exchange students. I have a new I-Pal (a program where American students pair up with an exchange student and they hang out and do stuff together) and I think she may be from Korea or China or some other country over in that area (but not Japan because her name is most definitely not Japanese). So, I'm excited. I swear I'm going to do a better job at hanging out with her this semester that I did with Haruka!

I'm also continuing with the belly dancing classes and we're going to do a performance in April for the Spring Banquet. I'm keeping up with Yoga, too. I love having a fully functional gym so close to my "house."

So much excitement and it's only the first month of the spring semester!