Eat All the Food!

So Katie and I are in a cooking class together.  Yes I realize many of you might be laughing about this, thinking, "Seriously? You're in college and you're choosing to take a cooking class?" (or maybe that's just my mother thinking that).  But let me point a few things out.
1. This is my only class on Fridays.  All I do is cook and eat delicious food for 3 hours.
2. We get a free meal every Friday.  We usually stuff ourselves to the point where I don't even really need dinner, so it's basically two meals at this point.
3.  Since we are the last class on Fridays, we get all of the food that they have to throw out.  So I get even more free food!!
4. We get delicious recipes out of this as well.
5. We get to rock out to Rebecca Black's "Friday" every week.

Ya I know, the last point doesn't get me either.  But the first four are great ones!  While we're cooking, we love to sneak food.  We're hungry, poor college students!  We can't help it!  Our favorites are the batters....This is a problem.  There is a rule against eating batter.  How rude!!  No worries readers; we found a solution! We said, "Smerf it!"

This was taken by our lab partner.  That behind us is our sink: the only safe zone in the lab.  We both suddenly ducked down and started licking this delicious chocolate frosting off of the beaters.  A couple people saw us (luckily none were the teacher or strict TA's).  We got some weird looks, but I think they were just jealous they didn't think of it first.

I'm good at breaking and entering. Or others are just bad at locking doors.

Our building, good ol' Glenwood Number 4, is the furthest one from campus.  It's so far!  Once I even get to the Glenwood parking lot I have to walk past 3 buildings just to get to ours.  Sometimes my subconscience gets impatient, and I become sure it can't be that far.  So I unconsciously turn into the third building and go into the matching apartment there.  The first time this happened was during the first week of school.  We were still unpacking, and there were boxes and dishes and misc. items all over the kitchen. We all left that morning vowing that we would organize when we got home.  Well, when I walked into the apartment after school, everything was clean and tidy, and there was even a vase of flowers on the kitchen table!  I froze, thinking to myself, "Wow!  My roommates have been busy!  I wonder who got the flowers!"  As I continued to walk through the entry way, however, something felt off.  The couches were in different spots, and the decorations that we had haphazardly put on the wall that morning had disappeared.  That's when it hit me.  This was not the apartment I was looking for.  I quickly exited that apartment and shut the door, then walked out of the building like nothing had happened.  When I finally got to our building and entered our real apartment, there were the boxes and dishes and a distinct absence of flowers in a vase.  Home, sweet home.

This has happened numerous times since then.  You would think that I would learn that we live in building 4.  Actually, no, let's be real here.  I'll never learn that, but you would think that the owners of the apartment I keep walking into would learn to lock their door.  I've met them now, they're very nice.  They were pretty convincing when they pretended to understand why I can't figure out where I live, even after 3 months.  I'm sure we'll soon be on first name basis, and then they can give all my information to the psych ward and have them come pick me up.  They know where I live and everything.  So, if one day I just up and disappear, I'm either at the matching apartment one building over, or in the psych ward.  Either way, please come get me.

Wow dad, your Alzheimers has really gotten bad!

We think we are hilarious.  Sometimes I'll relate our stories to a member of my family; I can barely get the story out due to laughing so hard.  Our antics our met with silence and occasionally a courtesy laugh.  Every now and then I get lucky and can get actual laughs.  That's when I know we've scored; we've been validated.  As this only happens every now and then, there's a small part of us that hates those people who are naturally hilarious.  Mostly it's respect, but jealousy is definitely in there.  We wish we could be that funny on cue.

There's one person we know who we can't hate, even though he fits the funny person profile perfectly.  We love him too much.  His name is Ian.  He was the RA of the boys hall we were paired up with last year.  Since we moved, we don't see him anymore (which is rather depressing).  One day on Facebook, Ian posted about how he needed to borrow some racquetball equipment.  Being the lovely person that I am, I told him he could use mine.  A day or so later I receive this wonderful voicemail from him:

Ian: "Hey Jessie. How's it going?  It is Ian.  I just want to thank you for letting me use your racquetball racket.  I'm actually using it for a date on Saturday morning.  So if things go well, I'll name my first daughter Jessie "Smerfson".  Then one day in the future, she'll ask me, 'Dad.  Why am I named Jessie?' And I'll tell her, 'Well Jessie, I actually don't... I actually don't remember anymore.' And she'll be like, 'Wow dad, your Alzheimers has really gotten bad.'  Sorry I couldn't say that without cracking up."

You see why we love this kid? I listened to this voicemail on the way home class.  I had to control my peals of laughter seen as how I was around random people and did not want to look psychotic.  As soon as Katie arrived home, I played it for her.  Repeat with Sara and Marina.  The only reason we could hear the rest of the message is because pillows were near by that we could shove our faces into.  All of us loved it.  It still remains saved on my phone.  Every now and then, we pull it up just so we can listen to it again.  Our dream, maybe with some practice, is that we can be on the same playing field as these type of people.

Hold the Carrot

In the middle of our adventures this morning, Jamba Juice called.  They asked us to please never ever ever (like ever) apply for a job there.  In fact, I think we could get them to pay us to NOT work there!  Why you ask?  Great question.

Last night, we had an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon with some friends who had never seen it.  It's a wonderful show and if you haven't seen it, you'll love it.  Anyways, as most marathons go, this was a call for major amounts of junk food.  We did not skimp.  Double stuffed Oreos, donuts, two bags of chips, jelly beans, 3 bags of popcorn, and a tube of cookie dough.  Unfortunately, a better part of the food was eaten that night.  Katie and I stayed up even later after this watching a chick flick.  We woke up this morning wondering what to have for breakfast.

After so much junk food, we were so sick to our stomachs and overloaded on sugar that even Pinterest's deliciously sugary recipes had no appeal.  That's when you know it's bad! We have recently acquired a blender and thought it would be a fantastic idea to make a smoothie!  We thought we would throw in all sorts of healthy things such as an apple, strawberries, yogurt, and juice.  Having seen my parents my make an extremely healthy smoothie everyday for years, I thought, "hey! why not throw in some of their ingredients!  You can't even taste the carrots they put in!"  I just received some free carrots from our cooking class so we pulled them out.  I grabbed the biggest one thinking the bigger, the healthier!  Can't go wrong with that right....wrong. very wrong.

We threw the massive carrot in and cranked that puppy up!  Excited to taste our masterpiece, we grabbed a spoon and tried it out.  Note to the audience: carrots have a very dominant flavor.  It tasted heavily of carrots!  This is not how we imagined our delicious fruit smoothie turning out.  What else could we do but add in more ingredients to make up for the taste!  Lots and lots of strawberries were added and a splash of juice. Repeat.  No matter how many more ingredients were added, it still had a slight taste of carrot we could not shake.  We finally cut our losses and gave up at the point when our blender was full.  We could not repeat anymore.  That smoothie was about as smerfed up as it would get.  All in all, it was still pretty decent!  Although we might have just been saying that to make ourselves feel better...please just let us believe the former.

Scooters, and the Many Uses Thereof.

We got ourselves some brand new wheels, y'all!  

Isn't it hot??  We named him Jorge.  It's a Spanish name, apparently.  Which means it is not pronounced like "George."  Duh.  Who would think that?

In testing out our new wheels, we've taken Jorge all over Helaman Halls.  Outside, inside, even up and down the stairs.  We've discovered that it's so much easier and faster to scooter down the hall rather just walk.  Psh.  We don't walk.  Come on.  That's so mainstream.

Because of Jorge the scooter, we have stumbled upon an important truth- and we even did it using the
scientific method.

Step 1: Ask a question.
Would it be beneficial to you to have a scooter if you were randomly being attacked by a mad man?

Step 2: Do background research.
Surprisingly, there are not many scholarly articles on the most effective use of a scooter if one is being raped or molested.  Too bad.  So we settled with asking a few of our hall mates what they thought.  Mostly, we just got weird looks, so we abandoned our research and moved on to step 3.

Step 3: Construct hypothesis.
Having a scooter like Jorge with you in the event of unsuspected attack would be beneficial because you could scoot speedily away.

Step 4: Test with an experiment.
This was easy enough.  Katie and I took turns playing "Mad Rapist" while the other scootered down the hall at high speed.  Turns out, no matter who was running and who was scooting, the runner could always catch them.  We wanted more evidence, however, so we recruited Leah to help us.  She was very willing to chase us down the hall, and the same thing happened.  It wasn't until she switched roles that we realized there was more to this experiment than met the eye.  Leah, upon being chased, turned around to face her attacker.  She picked up Jorge the scooter and began to beat the "Mad Rapist" until she no longer felt threatened.  Then she calmly set Jorge down and walked back to her room.

Step 5: Analyze results and draw conclusion.
If you are ever scootering through campus, be aware that although it may be faster and less work than walking (especially down hill), nothing is faster than just plain running.  So if your fight or flight instinct tells you to run, ditch Jorge.  He'll live, I promise.  And he might even find it in his heart to forgive you.  Eventually.  But if your fight or flight instinct tells you to beat the living daylights out of the creepy man behind you, smerf off and let Jorge do all the work.

Mercenaries For Hire

Ok well maybe not mercenaries, it just sounded cooler. Actually, Katie and I are now master Private Investigators. But I mean that's basically the same thing right? Who hires a PI unless they plan on killing people. We just multi task. I guess that means we can charge you double! Anyways...

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Marina. Marina was in the process of obtaining housing with her friends. But you see, Marina was running late for class and did not pay attention to the instructions given to her by her friends. Those instructions were to fill out her information on the last sheet of her contract. At least she was kind enough to provide her signature (but only one, don’t get crazy).

[Insert Marina’s friends: Katie and Jessie, here after told from Jessie’s perspective]

So we made our decision on where to live for next year. We read the contracts…well really I read the contract and told them the important stuff. Now all we had to do was sign and turn in our contracts. However, we were having trouble finding a time where we could all trek over to the office. You see, we all have very different schedules and there is never a very good time that all of us are at home. It was then decided that Katie and I would have the honor of representing everyone. As they both had class and would be gone by the time we retrieved the documents, we told Sara and Marina to fill out their contracts and leave a blank, but signed check in the rooms and we would handle the rest.

Apparently Marina felt we should get to know a little bit more about her.

The back of the contract held tons of information such as home address, emergency contact, driver's license number, social security number, birth date, etc. There were also portions that needed to be initialed and a signature at the bottom. Guess which part we needed Marina to fill out? Yes, that's right, all of it! Guess which part Marina filled out?....only the signature. This put us in quite a bind. I had a class that I needed to be back for shortly, the office was closing, and Marina had no service for her phone nor would she had seen it if we texted her. So we did what we do best..creeping :)

That's right. We stalked Marina. We started with what we knew: her name, birthday, phone number, favorite color, age, email, and we hoped for our sake that we assumed correct on her criminal record. Next came the ward directory which had her home city. Then we moved to Yellow Pages where Katie searched her last name in the right city to find her home address. Using Facebook's contribution of her mother's name, we confirmed the address. All that remained was a social security and driver's license number. Being Marina's close and personal bestest friend...or her roommate...I happen to know where she keeps important documents. Luckily this super secret place was unlocked. I rifled through all of it until I held in my hand that golden little card with her SSN on it!

Yes, I know you are thinking how we failed to obtain every aspect of information, but cut us some slack, it was our first job. And if I had my dear friend Matt on call, I'm sure he could have easily walked me through hacking into the DMV to get her DL#. But seen as how I had already reported on my contract that my criminal record was clean [and it was written in pen!!] , there was no risking it. I don't think they would take lightly me smerfing government organizations.

Katie willingly took the identity of Marina long enough to initial all spots. And there you have it folks: a finished contract, completely and totally true. That is the whole and honest story of how Marina got hijacked. So the lesson here is...do what Jessie tells you! Or you run the risk of identity theft.

As Long as it's 3,000 words...

I told Katie that she either needed to put me out of my misery or come write my paper for me.

She sent me:

APaperForMarinaYouAreVeryWelcomeHereIsYourA

Marina Haddock

Professor Something

Mythology 101

13 February 2012

Mythology is a Perversion of Decency

Everyone is familiar with the classic Greek myths. The tales of Greek heroes and gods are shared in early school years, and later analyzed in high school and college. It is easy to be blinded by the popularity of the highly dramatized Greek legends and overlook the disturbing themes underlying our favorite tales. Nearly every Greek myth bears at least a slight mentioning of incest, rape, or unicorn beating. This problematic pattern allows readers to ponder the real meanings behind the classic Greek favorites, and to explore the possibility that the Greeks aren’t as “cultured” as we have believed for centuries. In fact, is it possible that the Greeks are just greedy unicorn users and abusers as well as dirty, dirty pedophiles? Could it be that all the celestial Greek inbreeding is the REAL leading cause of puppy deaths today? Indeed, recent scientific discoveries and preliminary tests are the beginning of what will be a long, thorough investigation into the Greek psyche and internal reasoning.

I sent her: The paper is for my philosophy class. But thanks. I'm probably putting this on the blog.

However, I am still working on the paper, and I hate it so much that I'm seriously considering throwing this in on the end. I don't think anyone will notice, do you?

because a prank war isn't a prank war unless it starts with a bottle of urine.

it started with an empty bottle of powerade. things just went bad from there- because nothing good comes from late nights. let me begin with that.

about two weeks ago, our dear friend leah was sitting in our room, talking with us, when she picked up a powerade bottle and said "hey guys, i'm going to pee in this." i was like "sure, ok leah, whatever" and dismissed her. until a bottle, helpfully labeled "Pee for Katie" showed up in our fridge. after some very scientific tests, it was confirmed as pee.

one of these things is a bottle of urine. the other is a piece of corn. guess which one leah was freaked by?

we were appalled and revenge hungry. so on a fine sunday evening, we snuck into her room while she was out and stole her closet door as well as the face to her dresser drawers. unfortunately, she figured out what was going on and caught us in the act. that was the turning point in which leah opted for war.

before/after

sara, jessie and i went to my house last weekend for some much-needed girl time. fearing revenge, we were careful to make sure the doors were locked and no one left leah any chance to break in. i should have seen the signs saturday night, when leah starts texting me, asking me if i like sausage, but not telling me why.

anyways, we came home monday night to a room completely SMERFED up! she inflated over 100 trash bags and hung them from the ceiling and walls, she switched mine and sara's mattresses, she wrote "poop" all over our window, she switched all our drawers (jessie's and marina's, also) and she hid a bunch of vending machine sausage on a secret shelf. also, she claims to have peed in our sink. probably, that really happened- we don't like to think about that.

the moral of the story is that leah is a wildcard, but revenge is in the works. more on that later...

no worries, we only TRIED to kill each other

This semester, I registered for a beginning racquetball class hoping to improve my game...however, I believe that I have gotten worse. It's probably my own fault. In this class, I am not alone. My friend Vanessa has it with me. You know the drill: if you know someone within your class, you usually practice with them. This may not be such a good idea. You see, Vanessa and I try and kill each other.

When we actually end up playing a game, we only partially play. A fourth of the time, we spend watching the ball fly by us, too lazy to chase after it. A fourth we actually attempt to to hit the ball, but completely smerf it up. The next fourth we spend on the floor laughing because of our ridiculousness. And the last, we actually play. You see how this is a very counterproductive class?

Lately however, I've been noticing a trend. Either we subconsciously hate each other and our mind guides our racquet, or Vanessa and I have amazing skills of almost hitting people. We have a record number of near misses on our score charts. A few hits have even been noted. But nbd guys, we're not actually trying to kill each other...it just comes naturally.

What's even worse: we've started playing doubles in class. We have played three games. Out of those three games (and six people) we have 'almost' hit every single one of the players (including ourselves) multiple times. And out of those three games, we have at least hit someone in two out of the three games. However, we are not to be held liable; we warned them in the beginning that we are "very good at almost hitting people". I even apologized!!...through our fits of laughter. (yeah, most of the hits were my fault..) I did feel remorse (my bad Matt and girl whose name I can't remember), but you have to admit that it is slightly hilarious.

Needless to say, Vanessa and I have become really good at dodging accelerating projectiles. But if one day I just vanish from off this blog due to untimely death via racquetball...you'll know why. But don't blame Vanessa, it's not like it was on purpose or anything...

things be gettin' real up in hurr.

the knuckle tatts are back. with a vengeance.

things started simple enough... sara wanted to reintroduce my thug life.

that sparked a hallway fad. i took a break from accounting, and started demanding to see some knuckles. everyone i got to walked away with a sweet gangsta persona (or something like it).

just for kicks and giggles, marina found this:

be afraid. or we'll smerf you in the esophogus with our new, intimidating knuckles. more likely, we'll just bare our knuckles at you and give you our most gangstalicious face (see immediately above). anyway, if you want some sweet tatts, you know where to come.

as a fun corollary, can you spot what's wrong with my renewed thug life tat? brownie points to whoever figures it out first.

Happy Death Poems

Yes. You read that right. Happy death poems. We had a contest to see who could write the best happy poem about death. Katie and Marina and I each wrote 3, and then we had Jessie be the judge. However, she was indecisive, so we called in Leah to be a guest judge. She, also, couldn't decide between two of them, so we called in Emily, Vanessa, and Nicole to have the final say. Here are the contestants:

Sara:

I'm writing of death.

And yet I am so happy.

I am the winner.

One day there was a man named Frank.

He was angry and tried to rob a bank.

So he ran through the door

And fell to the floor.

Turns out he was killed by a tank.

According to Gandalf, when you die

You don't get a huge face full of cow pie

You see silver gates

And your old dead mates.

So don't be scared as your body begins to fry.

Marina:

Hiding in the tree-

the big deer walks by at last-

perfect shot- got him!

He broke my heart again,

so I shot him in the head.

There was much rejoicing.

I chased after it for hours

almost got it near the flowers

when I tripped over that vase

I saw it laughing in my face

but that fly no longer cowers.

Katie:

there was a dead girl.

she died laughing at our blog.

totes a true story.

sara just told me

i have to write another.

dolphins are the worst.

guys, i hate haikus.

really, i hate writing these.

vote for me, i'm best.

Leah:

i savor the smell

when i am in the bathroom

unclogging toilets

Random Other:

Don't dwell on revenge.

Anger not at stupid folks.

They all end up dead.

The winner ended up being the one about the tank, but it is still a confused and insecure victory, as none of our judges were incredibly sure about their choices. Oh well.

Comment and/or vote! Which one do YOU think should win as the happiest death poem???

i have a dream.

i have lots of dreams, actually. in fact, i spend a good deal of my nights dreaming (and not getting proper sleep), which is why i have the under eye circles of a meth addict.

sometime in the last few days, i had a dream in which i was a contestant on a game show about neat freaks. if you have a messy room, you're off the show. serious business, guys. in that dream, the judges came to my room while it was a mess, so i begged them to give me another chance. after they agreed, i made jessie and marina move all my crap into their room, so it'd look like i'm a neat person. they came back, and i was approved for another episode. and that was the end of that dream.

now normally i don't have dream sequels... except for this morning. i dreamed that i could hear the tv crew next door, making a surprise cleaning check. i knew i was next, but the room was a mess, and smerf it, i wanted to win that show!

when i'm tired, i don't think right. last night, we had an impromptu 2am pizza party, so suffice it to say that i was extremely tired this morning. so tired, that i actually got up, out of bed, and started cleaning, so i wouldn't be disqualified from the competition. no joke. after about ten minutes, i realized that it wasn't real and i could probably go back to sleep, but by then i was invested in this chore, and too tired to understand that i was behaving like a crazy person. so i just kept cleaning.

finally, i crawled back into bed, satisfied with a room neat enough to pass a cleaning check for the most boring reality tv show ever. not the strangest thing i've done while semi-sleeping, but it makes the top five for sure. on the bright side, i can't remember when the last time my desk was so neat.

Why we can never get anything done

We've started a new trend. Like planking, but different.
We call it "window-stuffing."
Observe.

Then, Jessie had to get creative. Instead of just getting up into the window, she proved her superiority by smerfing all her limbs into the small space. Naturally, we wouldn't be outdone.

It takes skill, but I got it....eventually.

It was hard work.

Katie never did get all the way into the window....

So, if you are ever walking by Stover Hall and see strange things in the windows, just rest assured there are homework assignments needing to be done. Thus, the act of window-stuffing.

true story.

sara starts laughing. i creep on her, and immediately know i have to post this. if you don't know why, quit smerfing around and get to reading.

-katie

the lazy student's guide to surviving finals.

finals week.

the week where nothing is normal, all college norms are temporarily suspended, and no one gets quite enough sleep.

(we had a giddy laugh about this at 2 am the other night...)

i decided there are three key rules in surviving finals week.

1. NEVER study with friends

2. forget any semblance of normality

3. c's get degrees!

if you can remember these three rules, then no worries, finals week will be a breeze!

1. NEVER study with friends

my roommate (sara) and i usually go to bed around midnight, as we both have absurdly early morning classes. same with our neighbors, marina and jessie. generally speaking, we are not exactly night owls. this week... has been a little different. we've been hosting late night focus groups. and by focus groups, i mean the exact opposite. studying with friends is only a good idea if you have no expectations of attaining decent grades (if that is the case, get out of here. go ahead and scroll down to point number three, because you're not welcome here) or if you have an iron will and the attention span of a rock (they have good attention spans, right?).

our study groups immediately dissolve into chaos. maybe it's just the four of us, but studying together takes us down a road to unproductive-ville. in which we are granted permanent citizenship. mostly we end up talking about boys, school, boys, summer plans, high school, boys and food. and there's a lot of facebooking involved. moral of the story: studying is acceptable only in the following conditions: solo, twosies or a group ruled by a dictator/oldest child. if none of those applies to your study group, ABANDON SHIP- you're just going to drown in unrelated conversations and haphazard tomfoolery.

i guess this is another method...

2. forget any semblance of normality.

things get crazy during finals. people lose inhibitions, stop caring about classes and behave differently than usual. due to all our late night "study" sessions, we've become a bit nocturnal. yesterday, i left to study at nine. sara was sleeping. i came back for my wallet at eleven. sara was sleeping. i took a final at 2:30 and came back to the dorm around four. sara was still sleeping. now i don't think she spent the whole seven hours asleep, but that's not the point. later, while i was out, sara went to talk to jessie and marina and found them fast asleep in their rooms. she decided we should try this new thing: study during the day, sleep at night.

welcome to weirdville, where things are weird:

• there's a girl in our hall who is good people*. she's kind, caring and genuine. but violate finals week study hours by talking too loud in the hall and things get real. fast.
• technically, the hall lights are supposed to go off at midnight. and usually, our r.a. turns them off at like eleven. this week, they've definitely been on until three or four every night.
• on my way to a final in the JFSB, i definitely noted the presence of a sleeping student on about every other bench in the main hall.

3. c's get degrees!

let's be real here- this close to a break, can you honestly forget that once it's all over and done with, you get to leave campus and forget about school? i know i've been so anxious to finish, i've come to the desperate conclusion that grades don't even matter anymore! how bad can it get, right? well that might be taking things a bit far. but the point is, c's DO get degrees. expensive degrees, as c's don't get scholarships, but degrees nonetheless. this isn't high school- as long as you're paying tuition, no one cares about grades. this motto has been keeping me sane all week. well that, and the fact that i've been taking regular "study breaks" to watch lord of the rings. i do love me some study breaks.

the moral of the story: don't freak out. it'll be over before you know it, and you can go back to playing super mario in class and sleeping through american heritage. just remember that there is a cloud to every silver lining. in this case, a break from school and a chance to empty our brains for next semester! hooray! i have yet to hear of finals week casualties, so i assume everything is ok. it is only wednesday, there are still two more testing days so i wish everyone the best luck in finals! good luck, i love you all and don't smerf up your tests.

-katie

hang in there buddy- almost done!
i know, this doesn't really fit in anywhere, but it was too darn cute to delete

*yes, i meant good people. folks, it's a phrase. and a real one that i didn't make up.

howdy, pardners!

life is tough. we all need a break sometimes, to vent or think things through or (in my case) to ramble. hence, the blog. being the first to post is a daunting challenge, but i never back down from a challenge!*

mostly, i just want to have the bragging rights of being the first one to post a blog. so why am i here? well it seemed like a good idea at the time. i'm not the type who is good with words or has an innate humor that makes for a lifetime of blog-able stories, but i am the type to start projects right and left with every intention of developing life long talents and abilities (so far, i have three unfinished scarves, two other blogs i never post on and one dog back home who is selectively trained). probably, this will lead to another dead end buuuut... we'll see!

with that in mind, welcome to our blog and smerf out!

-katie

*ok that's a big ole lie. i back down from stuff all the time, but it's generally for relatively acceptable reasons (i.e. when spiders or hard work or any kind of physical exercise enters the picture)