So...I'm home. Yup. My flight was terrible, but mercifully short. Dad picked me up at the airport, we surprised mom at her office, then I finally got to meet Lucy. She is adorable and bitey. She's actually gotten quite a lit bigger. She was about 1 1/2 pounds when my parents got her, and she's about three pounds now. I'm kinda sad I missed the stage where she was small enough to fit in one hand, but she's still light and small enough for me to pick her up one-handed and carry around.

I was actually a little freaked out at first because, recently, I've been breaking down raw chickens larger than her. Like, literally popping joints, cutting flesh, and ripping spines and ribs out with my bare hands. Having a small dog and likening her to my Fundamentals of Meatcutting final is terrifying. I'm starting to adjust, I don't panic nearly as much when I pick her up and feel her tiny bones when I hold her.

Still haven't seen Deathly Hallows yet. I wanted it to be a family thing, since mom, dad, and I have been going to see the movies together since dad started watching the movies. We're gonna try and hit the theater tomorrow. I intend to eat Red Vines. C:

My nails are painted green and silver right now. SLYTHERIN PRIDE!

I HAVE been doing NaNoWriMo, but my wordcount is so pathetically low right now...I blame my suitemates, they seem to think that "Leave me alone, I'm writing" means "drunk dial me in tears" and "criticize my taste in music and my hobbies." I need a new pair of headphones and maybe a taser.

Oh, anodyne_geno, when will we be able to hang out and play RB3? 8> I have the excitement!

Did it for shits and giggles, figured some were eerily appropriate enough to post it. Today is a pretty good day for music. Good job, iPod.

1. Put your iPod (or media player) on shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN, NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
( Results below the cutCollapse )

And now for some angst. A friend of mine passed away a few years ago. I go through periods where I don't think of him very much, then I see something that reminds me of him (usually something Phoenix Wright-related) and I feel terribly guilty and mope about how I let myself forget him for a little while. I have no problems dealing with grief and I'm incredibly happy that he's no longer suffering, but I can't help but think that my world would be a little brighter if he would still be in it. I actually can't listen to Ellis' "my buddy Keith" stories right now because I feel just a little heartbroken that me and my buddy Keith never got into that many shenanigans. :C

Also, Nelson (the one from high school, yeah) indirectly asked me out. So I indirectly turned him down. He started being creepy, so I turned him down more directly. Stiiiill being creepy. gtfo, creeper. How do I make him go away? D:

My Fundamentals of Foodservice Production teacher has an accent I really can't place, ends his sentences with "eh" sometimes, and mentioned poutine during a lecture. So...He could be from Wisconsin. OR CANADA. This is the man that's teaching me how to make soul food. What is sense-making?

All things considered, he's my favorite chef thus far. He's upbeat and likes to joke, but is very serious when he talks about sending us out into the industry. I actually think I've landed myself in the chef's pet position. Unlike in high school academics or even at my tech school, I've been really putting forth a lot of effort in my classes here. I think my parents were kinda worried that I'd dick around and not get any work done, but...

I feel like there's a wall between myself and trained chefs. On my side of the wall, there's decent quality food, raw talent, and true enjoyment. I don't even think I've climbed the wall entirely, but I found a little peephole somewhere along the way. On the other side of the wall, there's excellent quality food, honed skills, and fierce love. At the risk of overly-romanticizing things that need not be overly romanticized, I saw my possibly Canadian cutting up an onion the other day. He was chatting with one of the students about technique and practice and the value of good tools, maintaining eye contact with her and cracking jokes. The beauty of it is that he cut the onion in perfect julienne strips with a speed that you just don't see outside of a professional kitchen. (Even on Food Network shows, the chefs cut slowly and deliberately so as not to inspire home cooks to try speed cutting and end up hacking off a finger.)

That level of skill is what I want. It might be years off and I might not realize when I hit that marker, but I still want it. The chefs here at school carry themselves with a sort of steady confidence that you just don't see on shows like Hell's Kitchen or Top Chef. It amuses me when students try and pick fights with their chefs, try and act like big dogs that lead the pack. It just doesn't work that way. The only reason we're in our kitchens is because our chef has allowed us to be there.

For now, I leave class each night feeling successful and happy. I'm not trying to find a boyfriend or push boundaries with the friends I have. The only thing I'm honestly working towards is my education, and the rest of the world can just fall into place after that if it so pleases. Cooking comes naturally to me, so there's nothing to be scared or stressed about to the point where I lose sleep. Life is pretty good, I think.

In other news, Rissa and D are mad at each other. I gave both of them contradicting advice when they saw me at different times. They're still fighting...Tonight, though, they learned that a new episode of Glee = and not a single fuck was given. XD

Complaining about my suitemates feels like I'm beating the shit out of a dead horse, but this is something I need to share. It's kind of hard to recall the events in the exact way they happened since everything was covered in a haze of anxiety and I was exhausted. I'm consulting the panicky tweets I spammed the other night just to be sure.

( Under the cut because it's kind of a long post I guessCollapse )

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING MUCH COOLER.

( ADORABLE PUPPY BENEATH THE CUTCollapse )

Welp, I need to go shopping. Running out of laundry detergent and duct tape. Guess I should see if Rissa and D are awake.

My suitemates hate me loooool. I don't smoke, I don't stay up as late as them, I don't like rap, loud noises scare me, etc. Roommate switched over to suitemate's room after, like, one night of dealing with my being in bed by 2 AM. XD SO HEY, ROOM ALL TO MYSELF.

I know I was all worried about her liking me, but, honestly, we just don't mesh. She's quite convinced that I am a bitch of epic proportions just because I don't wanna sit out in the quad with her. There are waaaaaay too many smokers out there, and cigarette smoke makes me sick. Both of them are the "have-to-be-constantly-moving" sort, so I've actually been all alone in the suite quite a bit. I'm not really sure if I'm surprised or not that I've been the tidiest out of the three of us. I guess I'm just used to clean and cluttered at the same time? Like...I'm not afraid to use my dishes because I take the time to wash them every time I use them. My suitemates just leave cups and wrappers laying around everywhere. =/ I only clean them up if they're in the areas I use, like the vanity, the bathroom, and the shower. My desk could use a little cleaning up, I guess.

Um...Classes. Eeek. I've only had two lab days, but the labs are way tough. I'm in bartending right now, and that's not physically taxing, but being in one setting for six hours is harsh. We got to taste three types of beer today and discussed what situation we'd drink each in. The pale ale tasted like apple juice. :> Then there are the people that were like "WOOO!!! BEER!!!" and the people that were like "EW!!! BEER!!!" and nobody really seemed to get that we were in class, there to learn and try new things. I'm not a beer drinker, but I wasn't about to refuse it just because of that. It's the same as any other culinary class. Gotta try it to know it.

Basically, I've dragged myself back to the dorms and then around the city for milk the last couple days. Six hour labs are really tough, since I make myself sit all tense and attentive and 8| while I take notes. XD

Well...Back to my beer homework. I am reading it all in a Germany-type voice in my head, just like I read everything to do with vodka in a Russia voice. YAY. ALCOHOL IS FUN.

I will tag this later. Maybe. I'm still kinda dead.

lol does anyone remember that show?

I like how all of LJ has rallied against this connection to FB and Twitter. Twitter, I wouldn't mind as much. My fandom life and my twitter life are connected. Facebook, however, is my attachment to RL. Most of my FB friends don't know I have a twitter or an LJ or an interest in fandoms since it's really not something I broadcast to non-fandom people. I mean, unless I wanna freak someone out by reading them some Jonas Brothers fanfiction I found. LOL

Still, look at all the bitching I've done about work and school in the past. Teachers and employers are looking at Facebook to determine whether a student is right for a job, and seeing links to my bitchy "OH MY GOD I HATE EVERYTHING" LJ posts is not something I want to happen. It's the same reason why I've never let anyone see and take pictures of me when I've been drunk (granted, actually SEEING me drunk is an elusive occasion), making rude gestures, or randomly macking on people (even more elusive than seeing me drunk >_> ). I don't want Facebook to be full of pictures or commentary that would damage my chances at getting a job. My LJ is FULL of things that could do just that. XD

If shit don't get fixed up proper around here, I'm taking my ass over to Dreamwidth permanently. Got an invite from pan2dapan back in October or something, I was gonna use it for an archive, but I really haven't written anything lately. I might set that up today.

AND FOR THOSE THAT DIDN'T KNOW: I moved in on Monday, explored the city, and went through orientation. Still haven't decorated yet, but that's (probably) gonna happen today.

( And now for my random COLLEGECOLLEGECOLLEGEEXCITED tl;drCollapse )

If you desire to mail me things, lemme know and I'll IM you or PM you. <3<3<3

I owe the Hetalia poster and cards from Otakon to pan2dapan and monarchist and my other Ben 10 Alien Swarm premier poster to tonks17. I'll get your addresses as soon as I can figure out where the post office is so I can buy poster tubes!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I leave this Saturday. THIS SATURDAY. Dad and I are arguing over which one of us should pick where we're going for dinner on Friday night. I say him because the 27th is his birthday, he says me because it's my last day.

My roommate and I talked over skype again, actually talking this time instead of making shifty eyes for an hour. We didn't get much done in the way of planning for actual school-related things, but we determined that I'm the awesome one for bringing a coffee maker and a television. XD Things will work out.

My schedule:

Principles of Beverage Service
Nutrition and Sensory Analysis
Fundamentals of Food Service Production
Purchasing and Production Identification
Skills of Meatcutting

All of my classes start at 1:45 and end at 7:45, Monday through Thursday. Friday's a catch-up day. The labs all last nine days, so I will have nine days of beverage service and then move straight into nutrition and sensory analysis. I still don't know who my meatcutting instructor is.

I think I'm gonna try and get a job at Starbucks or something in the mornings. I couldn't get a job this summer, and Otakon really hurt my bank account.

The one thing I'm going to miss the most: Not being about to cook whatever I want, whenever I want. Oh, and Wii Fit. I'm gonna miss the shit out of Wii Fit.

Bought a nice pattern for a jacket, some off-white denim to make it out of, and ordered some black habutae to line it with. The pattern said it was easy, listed all the measurements, recommended fabrics, etc. I was feeling pretty good about this. If I buckle down and work on something, I could finish it in a couple days. Beeks' costume could have been finished in a couple days if I hadn't bee constantly waiting for him to catch up or do the things I told him to do.

So, yeah, I was feeling good about my project. Naturally, things turned into a shitstorm.

The pattern I bought was for smaller sizes, despite having larger sizes listed on it. A veteran sewer, her tape measure, and a little bit of math, however, proved that it SHOULD fit me better than a larger size would, even though the pattern says it's for women with a bust size ten inches smaller than mine.

Even though it did not say it on the package, the pattern includes pieces to measure facing. I had no fucking clue and I was just going to bag the lining instead. The instructions are riddled with typos and bad translations, so I'm 90% sure that the pattern was originally in French. I need cheap muslin to test the sizing of the jacket and make sure that it does indeed fit my wonderful, full bosom. I swear, these things are good for catching cracker crumbs and getting me discounts at GameStop. NOTHING ELSE.

In the end, it became highly apparent that this project is NOT a beginner project and that it would take quite a while for even an experienced seamstress. I leave for school in nine days, and I cannot FUCKING WAIT. Get me the hell out of here, seriously. I'm tired of dad's constant racial and religious slurs and mom's passive-aggressive rants over people not doing the fucking dishes.

I've displayed remarkable patience up to this point, but I am not Buddha. I'm willing to ignore any kind of shit my roommates will give me JUST so I can get out of my parents' house.

</bitchy> I'm going to go sit at Starbucks and knit or something.

Mom sat down with me earlier to plan the weekend.. The following conversation ensued:

Mom: We're going to the fair tomorrow.
Me: I thought you said we were going on Sunday?
Mom: No...*stares intently at the side of my head* ...Sunday.
Me: Then--
Mom: You have a blackhead. Can I pop it?
Me: *LOOOOOOOOONG pause* ...Yeah, sure.
Mom: The thing about blackheads...Did I tell you we're going to the fair tomorrow?
Me: Um...Yeah. What about blackheads?
Mom: Huh? What blackhead? Wait...You have a blackhead. Can I pop it?


THIS IS REAL LIFE. YOU CANNOT WRITE THIS SHIT. Leaving for school in 14 days. And, yes, she did eventually pop the blackhead for me. It was near my ear and I could not see it to pop it myself.

I am going to finish Durarara!! tonight like a badass, and then go to bed. Heading out to the fair tomorrow to play with the munchkin and the monster.

For the past couple weeks, I've been talking intermittently with my roommate, but things have been difficult. When we've texted, messaged on facebook, or talked on skype, I feel like I've been the one to dominate the conversation. I've asked all the getting-to-know-you questions and prompted her for her opinions on things and filled the silence when she just sort of...stopped...talking.

I don't like doing that, but I can't help it. Every time a conversation, be it online or irl, falls dead, I sit and feel like it's my fault and that I have to try and revive it. My desperate attempts to inject life into a convo that's flatlined just end up making things EVEN MORE awkward. I can't help it, I'm bad at talking to people when I don't know what our common interests are. If I had at least that, then we could chat for hours. But it seems like her answer to every "so what do you like?" question I ask is "Eh, stuff."

I just don't know what to do anymore. Advice, plz? D:

On a side note, "You Belong With Me" is such a stalker song. I love it, I can't stop laughing when I listen to it.