Time For A Happy Hiatus!

Hee hee. I remember reading the word "hiatus" in Lord of the Flies in 9th grade and thinking it was a plant. Ha. Okay. Well. Now that that tangent is over....

So, I will be heading back to college tomorrow, but only for a little while. Because after that, I will embark on a trip to Gallup, New Mexico to try my hand at some actual teaching-y things! I might die. I might get eaten by bears. I might get swallowed whole by a whale. I don't quite know what will happen. But I guess college is a place for deciding whether or not you like adventure! And also trying new things. Neither of which I'm very good at. But you know, a little practice never hurt anyone! (Except for that time I sprained my hand at soccer practice.) Anyway.

I'll be heading down at 5:30 am on January 2nd, with six other students and one professor. I wanted to teach either Spanish or English, and while I did get placed in a high school Spanish class, that class also happens to be Algebra I. So. I haven't taken math in three years. But that's probably not important. The math part is probably also the dying part. Although people assure me that it's not as hard as I remember.

I'll have to be taking a break, I think, from the normal format of this blog, as being a how to sort of thing and perhaps just write about my experiences. If I'm not too exhausted from teaching and our weekend excursions. But I'm sure I'll find time to let you in on at least one or two important things that have been happening down there in the desert!

Are there turtles in the desert? Perhaps tortoises? I don't know.... Maybe I should find these things out before I just expect them to exist....

I hope it won't be too cold down there. It apparently gets warmer during the day, but at night, it can be around 10 degrees. Not that that's any different from living in Minnesota/Iowa. I'd still like to enjoy some warmer things, I think.

I'm a little bit sad to be leaving my friends here so early, especially the ones I don't get to see very often, but sooner than I know, May will come around, and there will be a whole summer to enjoy! And I am pretty excited about teaching and New Mexico and adventure.

Hopefully you all have a wonderful New Year and New Year's Eve, and I will see you all IN THE FUTURE!

How To: Avoid Studying for Finals...

...by making a bunch of lists of your favorite things!

This is what you're saying right now: "Gah! I thought this blog things was going to give me advice on college and stuff! Why are you writing about things that I don't care about? Stop doing that!"

Well, too bad. I don't mean to insult all of my readers, but I like to write about stuff that I like. And also, nothing advice-worth-giving has happened recently. Plus, this way you get to learn about me! Me, as a person! Instead of just all the things that I know! So, here we go!

Favorite Colors:
1. Orange
2. Purple
3. Red
4. Orange
5. Cerulean
6. Orange
Favorite Toasts:
1. Cheesy toast
2. Butter toast
3. Cinnamon toast
4. Peanut butter toast
Favorite Animals:
1. Turtle
Favorite X-Files Episodes:
1. "The Post-Modern Prometheus" S5E5 (Tie: This is the best because Cher, and also emotions)
1. "The Goldberg Variation" S7E6 (Tie: This is the best because I'm obsessed with cause and effect)
2. "Bad Blood" S5E12 (Hilarity)
3. "Je Souhaite" S7E21 (Also hilarity)
4. "The Unnatural" S619 ("Did you bring enough ice cream to share with the rest of the class?" "It's not ice cream. It's a tofutti rice dreamsicle.")
5. "Quagmire" S3E22 (The dog. Although, spoiler: it gets eaten)
6. "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" S6E6 (Brain messing with potential)
7. "Hollywood A.D." S7E19 (Three-way telephone bubble bath)
Favorite Superheroes:
1. Iron Man
2. No, just Iron Man. Sorry.
Favorite Harry Potter Books:
1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Deathly Hallows
3. Sorcerer's Stone
4. Half-Blood Prince
5. Goblet of Fire
6. Order of the Phoenix
7. Chamber of Secrets (Sorry, but my hatred of Lockhart is worse than my hatred of Umbridge. That might be a lie. I really don't know.)
Favorite Food:
1. Tuna Fish Hot Dish!!! Ahhh!
2. Stuffed Manicotti
3. Strawberries
4. Strawberry Ice Cream
5. Strawberry Shortcake
Favorite Turtles:
1. My Giant Stuffed Turtle
2. My Smallish Stuffed Turtle
3. My Turtle Slippers
4. My Largeish Turtle Figurine
5. My Barbie Turtle
6. My Little Turtle from Heather
7. My Shell Turtle from Maria
8. My Bobble Head Turtle from (someone?)
9. My Little Turtle from my Brother
10. My Paper Turtle from Maddy (also a bunch of turtle comics)
11. My Sparkly Turtle on an Orange Background Necklace from Rachel
Favorite Songs: (These are subjective to the day/week/dare I say minute? that I choose them.)
1. "Don't Worry, Be Happy" - Bobby McFerrin
2. "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" -Coldplay
3. "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." - Noah and the White Whale
4. "Tell the World" - Eric Hutchinson
5. "The Banishment Song" - Fruit Bats
6. "When U Love Somebody" - Fruit Bats
7. "Heavy Heart" - O.A.R.
8. "No One's Gonna Love You" - Band of Horses

Wow. That's a lot stuff. I hope you took time to read it all. But if you didn't, that's okay. I had fun making it! Lists are fun! Let me know if there was something not in a list that you want to know. I'll be happy to oblige!

Interesting

So, I just noticed that the font size on my last post got bigger and bigger and I'm not going to change it, because I feel like it sort of represents my feelings of impatience that occurred while writing it. And it amuses me. Also, that last post was really pretty cathartic. I enjoyed it. You should rant about stuff more often, self.

How To: Reflection

Just, just close your eyes, and imagine yourself in a peaceful, happy place, surrounded by turtles (not the meat eating ones, the nice, cozy ones that only eat lettuce) and with a delicious drink of juice and ice cubes in your hand, feeling the wind blowing on your hair and maybe a soft kitten sitting on your lap (if you like that kind of thing and aren't allergic) and NO.

Nope. We're done with that. I want to talk about ANGER. Anger and madness and frustration and procrastination and ranting and all that stuff. Mostly because I'm avoiding do important things. I don't even have an advice today. Nothing of important advice-giving excitement has really happened to me. Soon, though, I get to talk about finals. Not that my finals experience will be a normal one. But I'll leave that til later.

So, first of all, I want to freak out about stupid group projects! Like, HOW IS THIS STILL A THING? I THOUGHT I WAS FREE BUT THEY LIED TO ME LIARS LIARS LIARS PANTS ON FIRES. It wouldn't be so bad. Except weird kid cited Wikipedia. And then I had to find a source that said the same thing that the Wikipedia article said. And you know what was the most frustrating thing about that? The fact that it only took me three minutes to find an article that said the EXACT SAME THING AS WIKIPEDIA. That means, weird kid, that you could have taken three extra minutes and gotten the same information, and I would have no reason to hate you right now.

And also, weird kid number two, maybe you could send me your notes. I mean, I basically know what they say, because I basically told you what to research, but still. The paper is due tomorrow, and you've had these note for like, four months. But I guess I'll just make stuff up because I have to work tonight, so who needs to know what you think about things anyway? But actually, weird kid number two, I'm kind of giving you a pass because you make that class way more entertaining than it would normally be if you weren't there making slightly inappropriate comments everyday. So there's that.

Oh, yeah, and weird girl? Maybe if you want to make me think you did your work earlier than you actually did by changing the citation access date, you should pick a day that actually exists, like not September 31. Sorry to inform you that that's not a thing.

Sometimes I'm really concerned about the people that they let into college.

I mean, there was an essay involved in this application process. If you can't even write complete sentences, how are you here? Complete sentences need a subject! Not, "Making a profit off of the incidental trends and swings of the market."That's not a sentence! Stop! Please, make it stop!!

Also, for this paper, I've had to do a lot more research than I originally thought I was going to need to do. Many of the researching things I've done involve watching videos about economics. It was basically like flashbacks to AP Econ senior year of high school. And I became overly anxious about the fact that I don't remember any of that stuff that I supposedly learned. And I worried that I probably shouldn't have gotten a 4 on the AP test. But, you know what? That's all in the past. Who never has to take another math, science or economics class? ME! Because I can memorize stuff for about four hours and then it's lost. It's all gone. Stupid brain.

Except apparently I have to take a math test to enter the teach program. Hopefully someone will tutor me, because I can barely do basic math skills. Although, why you need to know how to do math to teach Spanish or English is beyond me. Maybe they just want you to be a well-rounded person. But if that's the case, HOW COME THE PEOPLE STUDYING BIOLOGY WRITE SENTENCES LIKE "Making a profit off of the incidental trends and swings of the market."??????? Is this just a double-edged sword of swordsmanship that I am unprepared to deal with? Is this the real world that I am unprepared to deal with? Do I even exist on the same plane of existence as the rest of the world?

Is this what an existential crisis feels like?

I'm gonna go eat cookies now. Because that's nutrition. Yesterday morning I ate cookies for breakfast because I missed real breakfast. Maybe that's why I'm so irritable today. Someone who knows how to science should study those things. (I just turned science into a verb. Because I'm an English major, and I can crush all the rules.) Rule crusher! (For the record, only English majors can crush the rules of English. And only biology majors can crush the rules of biology. you stick to your weirdo science-y things, and I'll stick to my not-so-weirdo English-y things. Deal? Deal. DEAL WITH IT.)

Also, I should write my Spanish presentation. I kind of know how it will go, but I don't want to write it down, because I'm all about denying reality. (One of the articles I read today about economics said that poor people are poor because they deny reality. I guess that explains a lot. Or I'm just in college. I don't know. Either way.) It's like, if I go write it down, that means for sure I'll have to do it at some point in the future. If I don't write it down, it's more like, "Hey! There's still a chance that this class will be cancelled, or maybe the building will explode and your professor won't remember what we were supposed to be doing because all her notes exploded too!" Yep. That's definitely reality.

I'll give you a hint though. I'm doing an infomercial about turtles. And shoes. Together. Turtle shoes. Slogan? "Is your life going too fast? Strap some turtles to your feet, and watch as life slows down so you can enjoy every minute, second and millisecond!"

I might even use paint to depict my idea. That's basically skill.

How To: Monopoly

No, no. Don't worry. This isn't how to economically take over the world by owning every single thing that anyone in the world would want, therefore making it so you are the only one who makes money off of anything. That would be cool. However, I do not possess this skill, the one of taking over the world, so I feel unqualified to speak on it. But. We will talk about something much better. Something much more intense. Something... something essential to life itself. Monopoly: The Game.

I SEE YOU SITTING THERE SHAKING YOUR HEAD AT ME LIKE I AM INSANE AND THIS IS NOT TRUE. I AM NOT INSANE. I AM ABOUT TO TEACH YOU THE BEST THING YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE EVER. SKILLS. A VERY IMPORTANT SET OF SKILLS. MONOPOLY SKILLS.

First, you should set up a slightly different set of rules than the ones the game provides for you. For example, you should be able to buy houses whenever you want. Provided you own the property, of course. But this makes the game go much faster, because Monopoly does take a long time to play. Unless you have skills. Which I am about to teach you. Anyway. You should also implement the rule that if you are in jail, you are not allowed to speak. This saves the person in jail a lot of their voice, because then they don't have to whine about being in jail for three turns. Also, you should put all the house buying money, and any money that you normally pay to the bank (aside from buying properties) into the free parking, so that when someone lands on free parking, the rest of the players have a common bond in hating the person who has just gained a ton of free money.

Now, if you're like my family, you have four (at least) different versions of this game. However, our "real" version has become hard to play, because some certain, unnamed small children lost all the houses and hotels. So usually we play the electronic version that uses credit cards.

Here is my advice: Always be the banker. Because the banker is basically in charge. And with credit cards, it's slightly easy to cheat. No one can count their money, and no one knows how much money they have unless you tell them (unless they're a weirdie and keep meticulous track of their monetary gains and losses.) People probably won't notice a thousand dollars missing here or there. Except, I have to recommend not cheating until you've earned the trust of your other players. And even then I recommend not cheating at all. I'm just saying it's possible.

Then, you should always buy the railroads. But only if you can get all of them. Trade whatever you have to to get them from the others. The railroads will be most valuable to you. Most valuable. Then, buy the orange and red properties. And put as many houses and hotels on them as you can. Try to never buy the blue ones, the super expensive ones, because no one ever lands on those. Because blue is a lame color. From there, work your way down the cheapest properties. My dad calls this being a slum lord. I call it strategy.

Eventually, this game becomes a test of seeing who can stand being bored the longest. Eventually, a small child will quit, and your opponents will dwindle. Eventually, even if you don't win by winning, you win by everyone else leaving the game. The test of not losing all of your money, even if you have to give up all your properties, and staying in the game until everyone else has QUIT QUIT QUIT will make you the sole victor of Monopoly.

Because you know what they say: Quitters never win, but they sure do make it easier for ME, THE ULTIMATE MONOPOLY PLAYER, TO DOMINATE THE GAME AND POSSIBLY THE WORLD. (Not with economics, though. I have a different world domination plan. (That I won't share with you.))