Poisson d’Avril! Pesce d’Aprile! April 1, 2009

(“Fish of April” in French and Italian  e.g.  April Fool’s)

I can’t believe it’s april already… It doesn’t seem possible.

Ok, so the fish thing… Apparently a long time ago people in Europe used to stick real fishes on people’s backs on the first of April… Now they  just stick paper fish on each other.  It’s less smelly that way.  lol  

 

My body has had an… interesting time adjusting to being back at school.  On Monday I woke up at 7.  Tuesday I woke up at 7:30.  This is very strange… Did I need to be up that early? No.  No I didn’t.  But I was.  So I got some work done.  Contrary to popular belief, I do actually enjoy early mornings, but only if I’m wake up on my own, not with an alarm or because I have to be awake.  It’s nice being awake when no one else is…

 

So… Spring break!  On Wednesday Elaine and I went to Kentwood and visited a bunch of our former teachers and then went over to Auburn Riverside HS where another of our former teachers was teaching.  We checked in at the office and found out where her classroom was.  It was her planning period and the door was locked, so we decided to wait outside her door, hoping that she would come back soon.  After about half an hour, we finally went back to the office and asked if she had checked out already.  Apparently she had an appointment to go to and had a substitute scheduled for 6th period, so I guess she had just left instead of staying during her planning period (5th period).  This made Elaine and I very sad.  So… we wrote her a note and drew a picture.  After that we went back to my house and played with puppies  and then with Ethel, my cello.  Elaine also plays cello, but she doesn’t have a very good one, so she was excited to be able to play around on mine for a bit.  After she left, I quickly ate dinner then had Dad drive me over to Desta’s house, where I spent the night, since we were planning on leaving at 6 in the morning.

Desta had the first driving shift for the trip and drove until… sometime in Eastern Washington… Then Jen took over.  We got Subway for lunch in Spokane and then were on our way again.  It was a gorgeous day, and we really didn’t have any driving issues at all.  Oh!  When we drove past the Idaho border, Jen kind of squeeled a bit. lol  She’s from California and had never been to Idaho before.  We had to stop at the first exit so that she could touch the ground and say that she’s been in Idaho.  …more driving… When we met up with Alex in Montana, we went to his grandparents house, where we stayed for the weekend.  The house was in a pretty wooded area and right on a really big lake with a gorgeous view of the mountains.  The four of us (Lisa, who was going to come with us, decided not to go at the last minute) went down to the dock and took some pictures down there, and Alex showed us his uncle’s house, which was right next door and he had helped build. It was absolutely gorgeous.  I loved it.   Around 5:30 or so we left to go see some things around town, including his church, and then went to his house (we weren’t allowed to be there until 7).  We had a delicious dinner (wild rice soup, bread, salad, grapes…) and cake.    After food, we played telephone pictionary, which was really fun.  Everyone draws a picture, pass it to the person next to then, who then they have to write a description of the picture.  This then gets passed to the next person, who has to draw a picture based on the description given (they can’t see the original picture), and it keeps going in that pattern until it gets back to the original person.  It was quite entertaining. lol  

On Friday, Alex made us eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast.  After that, we went to Glacier National Park.  It was really pretty and we had fun playing in the snow.  Jen even made her very first snow angel ever! lol   We spent most of the afternoon there, then headed back to Alex’s house and just hung out around there.  We ordered pizza for dinner and then invited some of his other friends and played killer bunnies (rather complicated card game that my friends seem to be obsessed with… lol).  

Saturday we slept in a bit, then had pancakes for breakfast.  We couldn’t really decide how we wanted to spend the day, so we drove around a bit by his grandparent’s house, then went through the woods down toward the lake and took a bunch of pictures there.  Because we had breakfast kinda late, we weren’t really hungry for lunch, but we did have huckleberry shakes.  Those were DELICIOUS!!!  After that, we went up to Big Mountain.  We had been considering taking the ski lift up to the top to take pictures and see the view from up there, but it was so cloudy that we wouldn’t really have been able to see much.  So we just went to some little souvenir shops and played in the snow a little.  Then we went back to Alex’s house.  For dinner that night we went to a Mongolian restaurant to celebrate David Steele’s birthday.  David  Steele also lives in Kalispell, Montana, and also goes to PLU with us.  His birthday was actually on Monday, but he wanted to celebrate with his family while he was home and invited us to come along.  Dinner was delicious, and I tried buffalo meat, which was tasty.   And… oh, we went to his house afterwords.  When we got back to the house, we decided to make nachos.  Yum!  And we didn’t get to sleep until like 1. :/

We woke up at 4 the next morning to get ready to leave.  Alex took the first driving shift, since he knew where he was, and I had shotgun since I was the most awake, and we had fun trying to count all the deer.  I think there were 7 or 8.  There was more snow on the return trip… And the windshield wipers got kinda icy, so they weren’t very good at wiping the window and Alex had to get a little creative in trying to see the road.  When we got to Ellensburg, we stopped at Desta’s mom’s house and had lunch.  She made chilli soup and corn bread.  :)  We were there for about an hour before we got back on the road.  We got back to school around 2.  Alex and Jen had homework they needed to get to, so just Desta and I went to her house to get the rest of Jen and her stuff, then to my house to pick up my laptop and cello (Alex is using her for the rest of semester).  

 

Overall, it was a really fun spring break, and, for the most part, relaxing.

 

Yesterday, Alex and I went to the Bose store because the battery for his speaker wasn’t working and his warranty ended today.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t get him a new one in the store, but he was able to send in the whole speaker in and they’ll fix it.  After we left to get gas, he remembered that he had wanted to buy a remote for his speaker, too, so we went back to the store, but they didn’t sell them in the store.  So we went back to PLU to get the rest of his speaker and got that sent off.  Later that evening Jen, Lisa, and I went dress shopping for spring formal.  I didn’t end up buying a dress for the dance, but I did get a really cute little sun dress and a pair of earings from Fuego.  

 

Oh!!! At lunch today, it was Mediterranean themed and free!, but I didn’t really realize that before I had bought a panini from the market.  I did go in and get some flat bread, though, and then I saw it.  BAKLAVA!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I think I scared Desta a bit.  lol.  Oh, how I love baklava.  It made me very happy.

 

Ok.  I think that’s all the exciting news I have to share.  :)

Spring Break!! March 22, 2009

Yay! Sorry I didn’t post anything last week… It was the last week of classes before Spring break, and there were mid-terms and lots to be done….  Now I’m home and enjoying my time relaxing, sleeping, reading, and, of course, inflicting love upon the adorable puppies. ^_^

Yesterday, Sarah, Elaine, and I went to get pho (Vietnamese noodle soup thing… DELICIOUS!) and bubble tea at the Great Wall Mall.  It’s become a bit of a tradition…  I was sad that Kenna couldn’t join us, though… She had to fly back to Wisconsin today and her mom wanted to have lunch with her on her last day…   Last night, Dad and I went to see Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.  It was good, I liked it.  It’s one of those movies where you don’t know what’s going on for a large portion of the movie, though, so it’d be nice to see it again just to try to catch everything.

Tomorrow I need to get started on my homework…  I have another mid-term on the Monday after break (Really?! Who does that?) as well as the second draft of an essay.  Some friends and I will be leaving for Montana on Thursday (and coming back Sunday… short trip…) to visit a friend for his birthday, so I need to get my work done now so I don’t have to think about it in Montana (or in the car on the way to/from…).  It should be a fun trip, though.  I’m excited.

Religion and Oppression March 12, 2009

Tonight I went to a lecture/discussion thing on Religion and Oppression which was really interesting.   There were three panelists, one from the religion department, one from the history department, and one from the English department.  It was really interesting getting each of their perspectives on why people oppress others, how institutions, such as religion, can be oppressive or complicit in it, and how to combat the sense of futility and feelings of never doing enough.  I loved hearing the different perspectives and the different aspects that go into addressing the question, such as philosophies, religions, and history, and how they all work to cause oppression or resistance to it.

After the discussion, Dr. Peterson, the panelist from the religion department and also an IHON teacher this semester, came over to talk to some of the people I was sitting next to, and continued the discussion with us for a while after everyone else had left.  I loved hearing what he had to say; I can tell that he’s very, very smart and knowledgeable about so many things.  It made me really sad that I’m not in his IHON class.  He seems like Dr. Ihssen in his knowledge and ability to engage his students or those who he’s talking to.  He made me want to hear more about what he had to say, on this and other topics.  No one should ever underestimate the importance of having a good teacher- one who encourages you and inspires you to learn…

Let’s Go Outback Tonight! March 6, 2009

If you’ve never had a steak from Outback, go.  Eat.  Enjoy.  Experience heaven.  lol  Really… It’s SOOOOO good!  That and the freshly steamed broccoli, which is always cooked PERFECTLY.  Mmmmm… Plus a lovely pomegranate lemonade, mashed potatos, and the delicious bread…. There’s really not much better.

I’m a terrible person… :( March 5, 2009

Ok, maybe not, but I’ve been very bad about updating my blog recently… Sorry about that. 

Classes this semester are….. not as enjoyable as last semester.  I’m taking French 202 (eh, ok, whatever), IHON 112 (DEFINITELY not as fun/interesting as last semester), Writing 101: Gender and Globalization (Actually kinda interesting…), PE 100 (Ewwww…..), Choir (Yay!), and my lessons (voice: ; harp: …. :/).  Yeah…  So my IHON class…. Last semester it was lecture on history + readings as supplements to the history we were learning and as a 1st-person account of events.  This semester I feel like I haven’t learned anything.  We’ve done no history, and the readings don’t really seem to have a logical, cohesive link.  My teacher speaks very… softly?  gently?  It’s really weird… And he’s very scattered in his thinking, and therefore his teaching.  Sometimes he takes 20 minutes to finish a sentence/idea because he goes on really long tangents…  :(   I’m starting to like my Writing class more… We just started reading some articles in our book, so now I actually feel like I’m learning something.  My teacher’s really cool, too… Very laid back and fun.

This semester I’m also a lot more social… Instead of just doing my homework by myself in my room every night, I go study with my friends or hang out with them if I don’t have any work to do.  It’s nice not to be by myself all the time…   

Well… I have a French essay that I have to get back to…  I’ll try to post again sometime reasonably soon…

Happy Valentine’s Day! February 15, 2009

Today, I woke up a little after 9 to a call from Elaine.  She was calling to tell me she was on her way over to PLU to spend the day with me.  Yay!  We mostly listened to music and talked about life at our respective colleges.  It was so good to see her again.  We decided to go see Alicia, too, and found her walking back from the bookstore.  She was so excited and surprised to see Elaine! lol She’s so cute.  For lunch, we went to the Pita Pit (Yummy!!) and then to Chopsticks to get bubble tea, since Alicia had never had it before.  A while later, Alex came by to get something from me, so we decided to just go with him down to Pfleuger (his dorm).  …More talking/music/laughing/etc…. Elaine left at around 5:30 and then I went back to Pfleuger for dinner.  Alex made fettuccine alfredo with tomatoes and broccoli and cheesecake (which we had made very late the night before…lol) with huckleberry jam.  It was delicious.  Well… the broccoli in the alfredo sauce had some issues… but the rest was fantastic.  :D  After dinner, I washed the dishes, and then we played Killer Bunnies, a rather complicated card game that my friends seem kind of obsessed with.  The first game wasn’t so great for me… but the second one was fun.  lol.  By strategic playing of cards, it ended up being me and the two guys (Alex and Chad, his RA) versus Desta and Lisa.  My team had ALL the good cards, so it was fun for me… not so fun for Desta and Lisa. lol   Afterwords, Desta and I went back up to my room and talked and listened to music for the rest of the night.  It was definitely a fun, exciting day.

It’s sunny! No, it’s raining… No, it’s snowing… No, it’s hailing… February 9, 2009

Seriously! What was with the weather today?!  We didn’t actually get snow last night/this morning, like some other places in Washington did, but there were some flakes later this afternoon.  

The boy in my French class wasn’t in class today…  I hope he hasn’t dropped the class.  That would be sad.  There were only 8 of us in class today.  I don’t remember how many were absent, but I wonder if some of them might have dropped the class…. I guess I’ll find out soon.

IHON today was…ok I guess.  There’s a girl who sits in the back row who likes to talk a lot.  I really hate that I often end up just sitting there in class listening to everyone else talk, but it’s hard when people dominate the conversation or you don’t know what to say.  And it’s especially bad because our reading was about the Enlightenment and Kant was talking about how people need to think for themselves and not let other people control what they say or how they live their lives.  I don’t really feel like I’m doing that, but at the same time, I’m not really contributing to the class…

Today was my first day of Writing 101.  It seemed ok… I don’t know, we didn’t do much.  There are only 16 or so people in the class, and 4 boys.  The topic is Gender and Globalization, but it’s really mostly about women.  Yup.   For homework I’m supposed to write 3-4 pages about my first memories of learning how to write.  Unfortunately, I really don’t remember learning how to write, but I do remember having to write each day in Mrs. Parry’s class in first grade, so I think I’m going to write about that.  Hopefully it will be long enough… :/  

Today was also our first day back in choir after about 2 months.  Everyone was so excited!  It was kind of crazy.  But nice.  I absolutely love getting new music, so not only was I excited to be in choir again, but also to get all our new music for our tour in April.  Yay!  There’s also a new guy in our choir, Derek, who was in India for Fall semester and has been leading Swing Club!

 

Oh! I finally met the girl who moved in next door yesterday.  My friend Alex (cooking boy, also in choir with me) stopped by to say hi and talk a bit and I mentioned that I hadn’t met her yet and, since they’re friends, he took my hand and dragged me in there and introduced me. lol  She seems really nice and fun.  She’s also dating another guy who’s in choir with me and who stands next to me in our mixed formation.

Food, glorious food! February 8, 2009

So, before I start on today’s adventures, I should probably share some stuff from the past few days, since I’ve been a bad bogger and have forgotten to post.  Sorry about that…

 

Thursday was the first day of classes for Spring Semester and, since I only have P.E. and choir on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my choir director was out of town for family reasons, I only had one class.  I don’t really know what to say about the class… I mean, it’s a P.E. class.  Eww.  I am greatly displeased that we have to take it.  I was perfectly fine with accepting that I had to take 4 P.E. classes when I believed that they could all be dance or yoga classes.  But no, we all have to take P.E. 100 (Personal Fitness… normal gym class + learning about health/fitness  stuff).  

 

Friday I had my French class first, then IHON, and also my voice lesson.  French was…ok.  Towards the end of Fall Semester I began to realize that I don’t love French as much as I would hope that I would, partially because Italian is so much prettier, partially because I feel like I should know/remember more than I do and get frustrated when I don’t know how to say things.  Anyway, Friday I was feeling ok about French… kinda indifferent.  There are about the same number of people in my class this semester as there were in the fall.  But!  There’s a boy! It’s very exciting. lol.  Lucky him… 1 boy, 15 or so girls…   Anyway… we just went over the syllabus, asked eachother some get-to-know-you type questions, and then watched a French music video on YouTube.  After French, I have a 2 hour break, so I got some food and then went back to my room and started on homework because I couldn’t think of anything else to do…  My IHON class….hmm.  My teacher is a very, very, very tall man.  His hands seem to be about the size of plates…. And his head seemed too small for his body, but that might just be because his jacket had shoulder pads in…. I don’t know.  I definitely don’t feel as excited about his teaching as I did Dr. Ihssen’s (who, as it turns out, teaches in the same room right before my class).  He didn’t really seem that “fun” and didn’t really get me excited about coming to the class…  There are several people I know/like in the class, though… Alicia, one of the two other people from Kentwood, is in it, as is Jordan Beck, who graciously played one of the roles in our Old Testament movie (and was BRILLIANT!), one of my roommate’s good friends, a guy from choir who’s friends with some of my friends, and some people from my IHON class Fall Semester.  My voice lesson went well, but it was mostly just warming up my voice and then picking out music.  I have a song in Italian (YAY!), one in French, and one in English.  I’ve only been able to find one of the songs so far, though, so I’ll probably have to ask her to make copies of the other pieces for me…

 

Yesterday (Friday still), all of the highschoolers who were given the President’s scholarship were here trying to go for the Regent’s scholarship (full tuition for 3 years, I believe?).  One of the people here was Erin, one of my good friends who I’ve known since elementary school.  Because they had their interviews this morning, they spent the night, so Erin stayed in my room, and my roommate actually ended up hosting a student as well, so we had two prospective students in our room!  That night, I met up with Erin after she had a dinner with verious speakerst talking about the scholarship and PLU and brought her stuff up to the room.  Then I showed her around a bit and we went over to the music building because COW (Choir of the West) was having a concert.  It was very good.  Some of their songs were rather odd, but good.  After that we went over to Ordal and played Apples to Apples and Mafia with some of my rommate’s friends and their prospective students.  It was fun.  We had to go to bed rather early by our standards, though, since the president’s scholars had to wake up at around 6:45 to be ready for the next day’s plans.  Eww…

 

So today (Saturday), I woke up early (because of the above reasons), but then went back to sleep after they left.  Yay sleep!  After that I got some food, did some homework, and watched figure skating on the Canadian channel.  Around the time that was over, my friend Alex called and we headed over to Albertsons to buy Honey Crisp apples, then headed back to his dorm and started cooking.  Every Saturday, he makes food for his friends for dinner (they pay him for it, but Saturday is the only night we don’t have all-you-can-eat dinner at the UC), but tonight was the first time I came.  And, since I’m not so skilled in the kitchen, I decided to help so that I could learn to actually make something.  Tonight’s dinner was spaghetti and meatballs (which didn’t really need much preparing, since they had that last week, too) and we decided to make apple pie, too.  It was delicious.  I think there were 14 of us having the dinner tonight, which is rather a lot… But yeah. It was was fun. And delicious.  Afterwords, some of us decided to go watch a movie.  None of us really knew what to watch, but we finally decided on Catch Me If You Can, which I thought was good and rather interesting.  I don’t think it’s what I was really in the mood for, but it was a good movie… After it was over, we went over to the UC for some food and talked some more… And somehow it went from being 10:50 to being past midnight… Don’t know how that happened….  But yeah.  It was an exciting day.

Doubt February 4, 2009

After a very relaxing and restful break at home with parents and beagles, I had to return to school today in order to get ready for Spring Semester, which begins tomorrow.  When I got back, my roommate and I went to lunch to catch up on how eachother’s breaks had been.  For lunch, I had some sort of wrap… not really sure what it was… chicken with mixed greens, grapes, dried cranberries, feta, and nuts with some sort of dressing… It was really good.  Especially since I had been planning on getting a chicken caesar wrap (my favorite), but they were serving the other wrap instead. This afternoon, my roommate, some friends, and I decided to go to see Doubt at The Grand, a small, independent, non-profit theater in Tacoma.  The movie was really good.  There were a lot of intricate themes and symbols in the movie that I think I would need to watch it again to catch entirely.  I also liked that one of the guys we went with really likes discussing movies after watching them, so it was cool to hear everyone else’s opinions on the film, symbolism, etc. and to better understand some of the ideas I didn’t catch while watching the movie.  Anyway… it’s really good.  I would definitely recommend it. (Mom- sorry I went to see it without you…. but… you’re in Hawaii eating fresh, delicious pineapple and riding horses on the beach, so we’re slightly more even now… )  After the movie, we went to this little hole-in-the-wall soup place that was just down the street.  It was really good.  I had a chowder of some sort… and tried many of the others.  Delicious!  And home-made!  And cheap! Yay!

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring Semester classes.  My only classes on Thursdays are P.E. and choir.  However, since my choir director has a funeral to attend, I only have P.E. tomorrow.  I’m really not a fan of P.E….

Exciting Day! January 29, 2009

1. I discovered that one of my friends speaks Italian (or is learning at least).

2. I learned that my Prof. (who’s from Greece) was a VJ for MTV-Greece when he was younger.  He was also a hair stylist… And has chased donkeys (and doesn’t recommend it).

3. We finished our movie & (hopefully) successfully burned it to a DVD.  We will be showing it in class tomorrow.

4. I sang at the Holden Evening Prayer Service with my good friend Sarah.

5. I saw Does it Make A Sound?: Three One-act Plays which was absolutely amazing.  I loved it.  The first one was a guy who seemed to be trapped inside a box, and was about fate.  The second was a family therapy session thing but it was a musical revue (so the entire thing was various songs from musicals).  The third was about making your own choices and giving meaning to your life.  Sorry… none of these discriptions give the plays any justice.