False fluidity

Today is special because it marks the end of my 46-fl. oz. bottle of 100% cranberry juice....  Or so I thought.  After rinsing it out and throwing it into my recycling bin, I realized that I had been drinking 100% cherry juice all this time in my "home curing" of my frequent UTIs.  I'd thought it tasted a bit different than my normal cranberry beverages, although still tart.  Oh well, it still works.

I only have one thing to say

     I need to learn how to self-serve my own frozen yogurt without it looking as though it has been giving itself a little self-service of its own....  Hey-o!  Gross.

     Also here's a picture of be trying to look "British".  Is it working?

Give me something to blog about

Please!  Give me something to blooooog about!

-I feel good about myself for posting grades for my students' assignments and participation grades per week on Compass, as well as providing a link to a map of the building where they will have their final written exam, a link to the conflict request form, and worksheets that they may have missed due to absences, all on Compass.

-I don't feel better about myself for eating 5 Snackwells cookies instead of 5 Double Stuf [sic] Oreos.  I bought one package of each at Walgreen's today.  I had been planning on avoiding purchasing Oreos all together, but as I had been thinking of them before having gone to Walgreen's, and they ended up being prominently displayed in the store when I got there, I decided it was fate and bought them anyway.

-I feel somewhat good about myself for adding some information to my powerpoint slides for my Tuesday presentation on anglicisms in French print advertising.

-I feel horrible about myself for not working AT ALL on this "study" I am supposed to be working on for the rest of this project.  It doesn't even seem like a "study" at all, and I have barely any motivation to get working on it.

-I am working on watching "Buffy" from start to finish, completely in order.  Today, I finished season 1.

Disturbia

     Nothing very exciting has happened in my life, recently.  However, I was plagued by horrible nightmares last night.  I do not remember much about them, only that while I was asleep it felt as though something evil were running my dreams and that I couldn't escape from them.  I remember that I was living in a house with other people my age, and my room was small and wooden, with a bed that resembled the coffin-like containers on "Dollhouse".  I know that the people in the house were really mean to me and verbally abused me and attacked me.  I remember running out to ice skate in order to get away from the house for a while, but, somehow, I couldn't get away from people that were hurting me.  I remember a torn up book as well, maybe a book I'd been trying to read....  I remember the pain being so bad that I could barely stand it.  There was some sort of memory issue in the dream; the other people couldn't remember who I was, or had chosen to shun me in such a way for a period of time.  I think I triumphed in the end, actively or passively, I don't remember how.  I think the whole nightmare was so horrible, that I've repressed some of it.  I know that we don't always (accurately) remember our dreams or nightmares, but I remember trying to wake up and tell myself in the nightmare that it was just a dream, that people weren't really hurting me, but not being able to convince myself that this was true.

     From what I've read about dreams, nightmares and anxiety, I think this was an anxiety dream.  My left arm kept feeling weird and every time I checked my pulse after having felt weirdness in my arm, it was racing.  Strangely, I wasn't having palpitations, because I wasn't aware of my heartbeat; I made myself aware of it.  I think I'd had way too much sugar and caffeine that day!

     I have had a lot of weird dreams that made me think that some (or THE) evil force was controlling my dreams or interfering with them.  I think they're too creepy to put on my blog, though!  Dreams can be fun if they're wacky and surrealistic, but I'm just left disturbed when I'm being attacked and feel completely out of control throughout the nightmare!

     Sorry this post is kind of boring.  Here are some funnier dreams I've had: When I was little, I had a dream that my mom had become a vampire, but this particular kind of vampire was actually a little yellow Sony Walkman (that's right, the tape deck, not the CD player....).  I remember that we were all trying to save her and bring her back into normal, human, mortal form,  I told my mom about it the next day, and, to this day, she has not forgiven me for it!  I also used to dream about Space Quest because I was always playing it on my Nokia, back in the day.  I've figured out Calculus problems in my sleep that I had not previously understood consciously.  I also had a dream last semester that someone asked me how I remembered the IPA symbol /Y/, and I replied, "Well, it looks just like the flux capacitor from Back to the Future".  I have also been, in various dreams, Buffy or a Power Ranger (when I was younger), and I've somehow participated in adventures with The Doctor from "Doctor Who".  I am beginning to realize that my dreams are kind of dorky....

I only date guys who drink snapple

     My only cooking pot stared up at me from the bottom of my sink, old cheese stubbornly clinging to its insides, resisting the relentless scrubbings of my sponge, one of the ones that's scratchy on one side, and soft on the other.  Suddenly, I realized that I had discovered steel wool sponges in a drawer I had forgotten about next to my under-the-sink cabinet.  I pulled one of the steel wool sponges from an S.O.S. box that boasted extraordinary spongey cleaning results when pitted against sticky, clingy bits of food.  It was round, and, strangely, blue, but I decided to use it anyway.  Wow!  A few swift scrapes of the steel wool, and the cheese came right off the pot.  I was amazed....  But... What was that?  Why was the water turning blue?  Had I been..... SABOTAGED?  

     Oh no, what will I do?  I panicked.  Is this some kind of special poison that will embed itself into my cookware and become activated every time it gets wet?  Will I never be able to use this pot again?

     I gathered my wits and checked the box.  It was very hard to find this specific detail, but it turns out that one of the amazing things about this sponge is that it contains actual soap.

     Although the blue liquid that pours out of the sponge upon adding water can be disconcerting, and it is only meant to be used once (Once I read this, I scrubbed nearly everything in my sink with the sponge), this is one badass cleaning weapon.

Just words....  Not a contender.

FML: A Very Lemon Weekend

     My sweet weekend soon turned sour at the bus terminal at about 12:45 am, waiting for the bus to go home when I realized that I no longer had my keys.  I had been having a fun Saturday night, drinking at Esquire with Jessica, Chris and Sean, as well as Dan B., who kept referring to me as "Liz Lemon".  Little did he know that his description would turn out to be so accurate.   

      Luckily I still had my phone and Sean, so we called the remaining friends at the bar to ask if my keys were still at the table or if anyone at the bar had found them.  No such luck.  I ended up staying on Sean's couch and throwing out my last pair of contact lenses (I knew I should have ordered more....  I will probably have to wear glasses for the rest of the semester.) because I can't sleep in them and he didn't have any contact solution, not being visually impaired as I am.  I had called the bus company, and the person I spoke to took down my information and told me that they'd call me if my keys had been found.  The next morning, I still hadn't received any call.  

     Now, let me inform you what "my keys" actually signifies: On one single orange Illinois lanyard that I'd gotten for free on Quad day, I have my student ID ($20 replacement fee for that), my fitness class pass (okay, I haven't been to a class this week, but I'd been planning on attending at least a few more class sessions), a rape whistle, complimentary of my sophomore year dorm, the key to my parents' house, the key to my dad's old Nissan (which has since been sold), my apartment keys, which include a door key, a fob, and a mailbox key (at least a $75 replacement fee) and all my FLB keys (outside key, office key, and my overhead compartment key).

     After having watched the 3-hour French movie, Indochine, which is required for our French Around the World class, with Sean, I called MTD back to see if the bus driver had turned in my lost items.  The woman who answered told me that if no one from MTD had called me, nothing had been found, but that the bus driver might have dropped my keys off at the terminal office.  Which is closed on Sunday.

     Sean offered to let me stay another night at his apartment, which was very kind, but my day starts at 8am tomorrow, and I need to do lesson plans and homework, and I would worry about getting from his apartment to FLB by 8 in the morning.

     We drove down to the area around Esquire and searched a bit ourselves, but came up with nothing.  Finally we stopped by my apartment management company.  Which, it turns out, is closed on Sunday.

     I ended up having to call the emergency maintenance number ($75 fee if they don't consider your problem an "emergency") to get a maintenance person to come open my door for me ($75 fee).  Sean dropped me off at Espresso Royale to wait for the maintenance guy, where I ate lunch in the loft by myself, greasy hair, last night's makeup, pants covered in food and mud I had kicked up walking in puddles last night and inflicted by a hole I'd noticed last night.  As if my appearance and situation were not Lemonesque enough, a cute guy at the table adjacent to mine asked me a question about statistics (actually a rather simple one; he asked me what a 1:1 relationship was in the context he had been reading about....  It turns out (that is, it has been divulged by my eavesdropping of his conversation with a classmate that stopped by to talk to him) that he is an acting student.

     I haven't changed my locks yet.  By the way, in case you don't believe in astrology, here is my horoscope for today:

Here is your single's love horoscope for Sunday, April 19:

Some changes are in order when it comes to your household. Your dual nature seeks balance and harmony, but your living situation is anything but. Whether you live alone or in an animal house of sorts, keep it simple and stick to a plan. 

(Yes, I am patheticsville and get free single's love horoscopes emailed to me by astrology.com)

     Now I'm in my apartment, waiting for a stalker who has looked up my address by seeing my name on my ID card to come rape and pillage me.  Too bad he has my whistle.

KULTCHAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

     I'm having a pretty cultural weekend, as my weekends usually go.  The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and I spent the afternoon sitting on the quad doing some reading, listening to some not so cultural conversations of a young group of girls who kept singing off-key, gossiping about friends, and playing youtube videos on their iPhones.

     On my way home, I heard drums coming from the amphitheater of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and decided to attend some of the free concerts offered there for the second day of the Boneyard Arts Festival.  The local groups that were playing while I was there were the Mande Drumming Ensemble, the Didjeridu Ensemble, Balinese Small Ensembles, and the Adzudi Drum Club.  The music was very entrancing and although I don't normally listen to "world music", I was in the right mood for it, and it was exactly what I needed at that time.  

     Later that evening, I went to see "Observe and Protect" with Chris, Jessica, Sean and Dan B..  The movie was pretty good; I can see how one could be disturbed by it, although it is billed as a comedy.  I definitely recognize that it is scary to think that there are people in the world who think the way that some of the characters in the movie seemed to think, but I was detached enough from exposure to those kinds of mentalities at the time that I saw the film that it wasn't an uncomfortable experience for me.  I thought it was rather well-done and entertaining.  Thought-provoking, even ;)

     Of course, we went to Steak 'n Shake afterwards.  During dinner, Jessica revealed that she had been caught by ebay for "shilling"; her boyfriend had placed false bids on her items in order to make the price/demand higher, and they eventually got caught for it.  I had heard this story before, but she had not previously told me, to my recollection, that (1) she had to go to the ebay equivalent of online traffic school after her incident was reported (2) the particular items she had been selling were 3D puzzles, much to the delight of everyone at the table.

     Jessica and Sean ended up crying from laughter, and consoled one another and a tearful embrace:
     Chorus: What kind of 3D puzzles did you sell?

     Jessica: I had a lot of castles....  I didn't sell Cinderella's castle, though.

     Sean: Oh, you wanted to keep it?

     Jessica: No, no one wanted it.

     Sean *dies of laughter*

     Today I inadvertently went to the crafts fair in the Union, and ended up buying a cool shirt from a friendly and charismatic (chef charismatique?!) local t-shirt designer.

     On my way home, I saw this cool design (I think it's spray painted on the ground) on the Medical Sciences walkway:

 
     I've decided I want to spent a good portion of the rest of my life listening to George Harrison and watching "The Office", "Buffy" and "Doctor Who" on my laptop.

And that's what it's all about

I had a great Easter weekend!  I must begin with the shallow points:  

• I bought Clinique Happy Heart body wash for the first time and it smells soooo wonderful, and since it was Clinique Bonus Time at Macy's, I got a free bonus kit with my purchase which included a cosmetics bag, a "youth serum" (which I gave to my mom), mascara, lipstick, moisturizer I'd been thinking of buying anyway, and a blush stick.
  
• My mom bought me an actual sports bra (It had been years since I'd owned one, and I'd grown sick of yanking on the bra straps of my various pushups and other inappropriate for working out undergarments during fitness classes) and silky beautiful pantyhose (I'd been buying pairs at Walgreen's, and these are Donna Karen.  BIG difference.)
• My mom also gave me the pair of silver ballerinas she had to wear when she played on Oprah.  I could tell she loves them, but she said she wouldn't ever wear them for a normal occasion in public.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not above that at all!

     I got to see my sister this weekend, which was awesome because we don't see each other very often anymore and she's going to North Carolina for music camp (is that the right term?) this summer, which is awesome, but it means that we won't get to hang out much this year.

     I also got to see the rest of my family and friends of the family, and we had a really fun time eating at Lulu's in downtown Evanston saturday night and going to church and having Easter dinner at our house in Evanston.  I have more chocolate/Easter candy than I know what to do with.  Please help me eat this!  I also have a new iTunes card to spend.....

     I spent enough time with my Latin books for my family to think I'm studious.  Ha.

     One friend of the family told my mom that I'm "too pretty to be a professor" and her daughter told me to my face that I'm "too young to be a professor".  I kindly reminded everyone that I'm not a professor, and just wait five or how many more years and see if they still think this is true, but thanks anyway.  Although I suppose that if I look like a 16-year-old now and the my rate of aging does not accelerate, I have a good chance of still looking youthful at 27....  Right?

     My mom broke out the scrapbooks of ancestors we have in our house, but I neglected to take pictures of any of their contents, and am really kicking myself because I need to do a presentation on my family's immigration history for Italian class on Tuesday!  I have no idea how I'm going to pull this off because now I have no visual aids unless I search the Internet for my family, and the only information I have on most of my family's immigration to the US consists of "family stories" because parts of my family came over here before it actually was the United States (i.e. they were British and came over in the 1600s, most likely for religious reasons.).

     Shout-out to those who ran the half-marathon at U of I!  Congratulations!

Product review Wednesday

     The things that have changed in my life recently can be told through a series of reviews concerning changes in products I have made.

Ocella

Ocella is the generic pill for yasmin, and it was prescribed to me by my dermatologist along with spironolactone, a potassium sparing diuretic (My acne is hormonal, so he said that these medications would be quite effective for my kind of acne).  Before beginning Ocella, I decided to look up this specific pill because I had never heard of it before and I was excited to learn all that I could about a medication that might actually relieve me of my flocks of zits.  Upon googling the drug, I found many distressing posts on various blogs (with acne bents as well as medical ones) explaining the horrible side effects some women had experienced upon beginning this pill.  Although my parents warned me not to get worked up about these posts, that could have been written by anyone, after having started the pill, I became more and more anxious every day.  The first week I was on it, I had such a severe panic attack that I had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night.  In subsequent nights, I had panic attacks (nearly every night, in fact) but I was able to talk myself out of them, telling myself that my problems were probably psychosomatic and that I was just expecting to experience side effects from this pill.  Unfortunately, the heart palpitations and breathing problems became more and more frequent, happening almost every night and starting to occur during my classes during the day.  Even though I had had my potassium checked (Ocella paired with a potassium sparing diuretic such as spironolactone can increase your level of potassium) and found that it was high, but not too high, and even though I knew that I was in good health, I realized that even with my anxious, worrisome nature, this level of anxiety was not normal for me and it was affecting my life on way too many levels.  I stopped taking the medication and now I am much calmer, and haven't had a single panic attack since (This is my fifth day off Ocella and my fourth day off spironolactone.).  I read online that panic disorder can be linked to Ocella, and although I'm not sure how credible the sources I read are, I am highly tempted to claim that it was Ocella that was causing the problem (My dermatologist had me go off both pills, though, because we don't know for sure what could have been causing the side effects.)

I did notice a dramatic change for the better in my skin, acnewise, but the side effects were not worth clear skin.  I am still using the topical treatments that I'd already been using, so we'll see how it goes.

Maybelline

I love Maybelline products, and have been using their powder (sometimes I buy their mineral powder, others their shine proof powder or something of the like) for about a year now.  I've noticed that their plastic cases have a tendency to crack easily, though.  I have a set of their blush in a broken case, and the lid to my powder, which had been cracked for a couple weeks, finally broke in two.  I have had this happen before with Maybelline powders (not with the mineral kinds though, which seem to be in a sturdier case) and with the caps to their foundation sticks and it's always annoying, but I deal with it because I like to use their products.  I know plastic breaks, especially if it's thin and you occasionally carry it around with you, but I wish the company would come up with some more durable packaging.

Clinique

I loooove the Clinique Superfit liquid foundation I bought from Sephora.  The only complaint I have is the same one I see in some of the comments of the product on their website, posted by other extremely pale people, apparently, which is that even the lightest color is not really that light.  For me, it is not only a bit dark, but it is too yellow (a problem that I often have with makeup foundations).  I have pink undertones, but it seems that some makeup companies tend to make their lighter shades only in yellow undertones.  Although yellow is good for concealing purposes, and sometimes I wish I had yellow undertones, but I don't, and so I look a little weird in this color (My Italian teacher thought I had gone somewhere warm for spring break.  I didn't tell her that I had stayed in Illinois and simply switched to a foundation that was too dark for me!).  My Maybelline powder is a lighter shade, though (however still more yellow than pink), so it evens out well enough (I'm a powder AND liquid girl.)

That's about it.  I'm so ready for this semester to be over (but not ready to turn in my term papers!  Agh!)!

Big long post-spring break update

     I've been meaning to post a spring break recap, detailing all the fun one can have over spring break without leaving the midwest, but I've been "busy" (and lazy).  Today does not seem to be a particularly productive Saturday (although I went to kickboxing and cleaned my oven and my sink, so...  I feel somewhat of a sense of accomplishment.), so I give you the salute to the midwest (i.e. Illinois and Iowa, which are the only states besides Michigan that I really visit around here), followed by some pictures from last night's celebration of Mica and DB's birthdays:

     Unfortunately, my sister's and my vacation only overlapped by one weekend, but it was fun to visit Iowa City when we took her back the first Saturday of my spring break.

     Here is a picture of the family in front of Pagliai's Pizza, one of the best pizza palaces anywhere!  You can't see it in the photo, but there are people flipping the pizza dough in the window behind them.  My sister has her viola, because she takes it with her pretty much everywhere.

     I brought my Tigger backpack on the trip, much to the amazement of every child I encountered, who would inevitably follow me around like the Pied Piper (not my metaphor; we went to a new age store the next day where the shopkeeper complemented me on my bag, and I told him about the children, after which he made the reference to the dude with the pipe) or, in the case of this dinner, turn around in their booth and point out to their parents that Tigger was behind them every five minutes.

     On Tuesday I saw "The Watchmen" with Christine.  It was her third time seeing it, and my first.  It was kind of creepy, but really good; it held my attention for its full 2.7 hours.

     The next day I had good old American hot chocolate (at Starbucks) with Ravinia coworker Kate, where we had lively conversations catching up on our lives and gossiping about our coworkers, until the Starbucks employees started sweeping the floors and cleaning out the cash register, or whatever businesses with cash registers do at the end of the night.

     Kate later convinced me to come into work on that Friday for a "Rising Stars" concert, during which we stuffed envelopes for returning workers and tried to decide who was really worthy of coming back ;)

     On Thursday, I was a "teacher's helper" for my mom, and played violin with her violin, cello and bass students.  It was pretty fun, and according to my mom, the kids were calmer than usual since I was there.

     On Saturday, some high school friends and I met Karthik at Gameworks in Schaumburg.  Gameworks is essentially a Chuck 'E' Cheese for grown-ups.  At the beginning of our Gameworks experience, we played arcade games such as Road Rage, Blow Up The Death Star ("Star Wars"), and Shoot Zombies With A Plastic Gun and Get Really Angry When The Zombies Slash Your Face (I don't remember the actual titles in any of these games.)  I was getting progressively more and more angry because these games did not distribute any tickets at the end and I had SEEN prizes on the main level of the complex.  We took a break for dinner, during which we had pretty good food and I cooled off by eating and talking out my anger.  In the middle of our dinner break, I had to go to the bathroom, and on my way there, I found what I now refer to as the "money games" (the ones that dispense tickets), which I later played for almost the entire duration of our time there after dinner)Then, some college friends stopped by (Karthik had told them we were going, and apparently they were inspired) and seemed kind of frightened of my crazy-eyed talk of my plans to get to the money games after we'd finished dinner.  It was a good time, though, and I ended up winning some prizes with my tickets!  I'm planning on going back sometime.

Goodbye, Gameworks!  Now let's take these pictures quickly because it's cold and raining!

Mica, Chris and Jessica at Esquire to celebrate Mica's and DB's birthdays:

Sean and friend:

Anna and Julie:

Rebecca and Dan:

DB (right) and friend:

Dan eating chips out of a bag without his hands....  Unfortunately the waxpaper from his empty french fry basket is obstructing the view:

     After dancing at C-street for two hours, I took my shoes off at the bus terminal.  Chris decided to put them on and show us his catwalk skills (which are way too impressive for any of these pictures to give them justice.)