For Poodle

Because I hardly EVER get tagged for these things and it boosts my ego to think that someone actually wants to know this stuff.


Five Movies You Can Watch Over and Over:
1. 10 Things I Hate About You
2. Beaches (because it reminds me simultaneously of Kath and my mom)
3. Anne of Green Gables (my sick day movie)
4. Wedding Singer
5. White Christmas

Five embarrassing Songs that You Know All the Words To:

First of all, I'm really good at remembering lyrics so if I've heard an embarrassing song I probably know all the words.

1. "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine
2. "Hit my Baby One More Time" by Madame Spears
3. "Jesus Take the Wheel" by that American Idol chick
4. "Lady in Red" by Seal? (Thanks a lot stake dances)
5. "Mambo Number 5"

Five Memorable Halloween Costumes:
1. Child-like Empress from Never-ending story
2. Cleopatra
3. God's Gift to Men
4. My sister as a zombie
5. The ear doctor as a lawn gnome

Five Occupations that You Know You Could Never Do:
1. Day Care Provider. 20 screaming 4 year olds is my version of personal hell.
2. CEO. I don't like having to fake like I am interested in hearing what other people say.
3. Travel Agent. It would kill me to think of all these awesome vacations for other people to take.
4. McDonalds crew member. I would be constantly in a power struggle with the crew chief. It would just be too hard to take orders from someone when I know the best way to make the chicken nuggets.
5. I can't think of anything else.

Five Books You've Recently Read Outside of Schoolwork:
1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
2. The Secret Life of Bees
3. 700 Sundays
4. Son of a Witch
5. Chronicles of Narnia

Five Ways to Perfectly Spend an Afternoon:
1. Going to a Movie
2. Getting an early dinner with the ear doctor
3. Walking around the Mall making jokes with a friend
4. Having a snow ball fight
5. Going swing dancing

Not Your 5 Favorite Foods, But the 5 You're Most Likely Eating:
1. French Onion Soup from Mimi's
2. English muffin with ridiculous amounts of delicious melted butter
3. Diet Pepsi and a bag of pretzels
4. The ear doctor's famous potatoes
5. Pear Spinach Salad

Five People Who Must Immediately Respond:
1. The Takahashis, because Eleanor freakin never posts
2. Mags, because I always like to know what she's thinkin about
3. Anth, because her little baby needs to know this kind of stuff. Remember, it's for posterity, so be honest
4. K, because she's awesome
5. Can't think of anyone else

My trip

How cool is it that my big huge awesome trip is so close that I can look at what the weather will be like on the 5 day forecast!!!!!

I checked it out and it says it will probably rain on the first day we're there, but the second day will be partly sunny!

This week is pretty much a wash for me. I have absolutely no desire to get anything done. All I want to do is hang out with friends and pack for my trip. I think I'll end up taking a mostly empty suitcase and bringing back tons of souvenirs. I'm SUCH a tourist, but I don't care.

So, in case any of you were interested, here is the barebones plan of our trip.

Arrive in London and rent a car to drive up to Carnforth, which is in the Lake District (I think). This will be an adventure since none of us know our way around and we'll be driving on the wrong side of the road.

We will spend 6 days up there touring around checking out the countryside and seeing castles and stuff. One day we are driving up to Scotland.

At the end of our trip we're spending 3 days seeing London. We are going to do all of the stuff that you really should see in London and hopefully go to a show one night.

Then I will fly back home to Colorado and somehow go back to school and work and being productive.

Until then,

Cheerio!

Becoming a Food-ie

Lately I have really started to enjoy food.

I've always liked the eating of it, but the last 6 months have really started to pique my interest in mixing flavors and becoming adept in the kitchen.

This is why I've fallen head over heals in love with a new show on Bravo.

It's called Top Chef.

Its a bunch of people who think they can really cook well in a reality show competing to win money.

The thing that gets me about this show is that when something doesn't come together they make excuses. They sit at the judging table and complain about the time constraint or the freezer not working, or the ice cream melting in transit.

"History will never accept difficulties as an excuse."
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Albert W. Daw Collection

Similarly, as a TA I hear repeatedly from students that the classes are just too hard. They whine to me about how much time and effort they have to put into their assignments.

In response I furrow my brow and say, well, this is engineering. No one said it was going to be easy, but I promise it will be worth it.

I'm so tired of people constantly complaining that things are hard for them when they've put themselves in the situation.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As a full blooded, red headed Scotts-Irish lass I'd like to wish you all the luckiest of days.

For all of you interested out there I thought I'd put together a little St. Patrick's day trivia test. If you can answer all of the questions correctly you may consider yourself Irish for the day.

1) When was St. Patrick born?
2) What are all of the shapes and colors of the marshmallows in Lucky Charms?
3) Where and when was St. Patrick's Day first celebrated in America?
4) What gift do you get if you kiss the Blarney Stone?
5) How do you find a leprechaun?
6) What happens if you ask a leprechaun for four wishes?

Scared of the Dark

I have a confession to make.

When I got to bed at night and walk across my dark room to my bed an embarrasing thought flits through my head.

It is quick and fleeting, but somehow evokes a slight emotional response.

I momentarliy think that someone/thing is going to reach out from under my bed, grab my ankles and drag me under my bed.

Yes, I am 24 years old and this fear still haunts me from childhood.

I blame Fred Savage.

I'm looking into getting the clapper so that I don't have to walk across my room in the dark.

Slight misrepresentation

A co-worker of mine is reading Under the Banner of Heaven and forwarded me this article. I haven't read the book, so don't really have an opinion about it. My co-worker comes in almost every day to talk about my religion and faith, which is fine becuase we are friends and it isn't in a confrontational manner at all.

From what I gather, the story is about two people (one being Dan Lafferty) who have been ex-communicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who ended up killing their sister-in-law and her baby becuase they felt they had a divine revelation from God to do so.

Crazy, I know.

I'm fine with people writing whatever they want to about my religion.

I'm really ok when people really study it and come to their own decision about its tenets, even if those ideas are completely opposite of my own.

What kind of annoys me is when people make stupid comments about people and faith like this:


"I don't believe Dan Lafferty is crazy or a psychopath," Krakauer said. "He is an example of an inevitable outcome of strong belief."


How can an educated person really only look at this one example of ardent faith/belief and use that to stereotype people who have strong beliefs.

If he is going to do that, I'd feel like it would be alright to counter with an example myself.

Ever heard of a little lady called Mother Teresa?

I'm pretty sure you could say she was a person with "strong belief" who somehow managed to avoid the "inevitable" outcome of killing a member of her family.

Jeez, some people.

Prof. Ear Doctor

Hey, if anyone has a free second to think about the ear doctor and wish him good luck today at 11 am Mountain Time, please do it.

He's teaching his first collegiate level lecture today and he's going to rock those undergrads world's!

Katie related Tid-bits

• Yesterday it snowed a ton here in Colorado. Foolishly, I wore my very long, worn out jeans and my new green tennis shoes. After one walk across campus my pants were soaked to the knee and my feet were freezing.
• When the ear doctor took me to dinner I didn't want to be wet and cold so I threw my stuff in his dryer and wore his huge sweatpants, boy-socks, and hiking shoes. It looked ridiculous.
• After dinner I went out with my school friends. We saw a pretty decent band play and had some laughs. It was the first time I'd hung out with these boys outside of school. It was awesome.
• I went to bed last night looking up at the constellations of glow-in-the-dark stars that someone probably stuck to my ceiling 10 years ago. It reminded me of my room from high school and I happily fell asleep missing my family.

What a pain

Just thought you all should know that the weather here in Colorado was so nice this weekend that I actually got a pretty decent sunburn.

That dermal pain should then be added to my aching back from playing intense ultimate frisbee with a bunch of boys.

And my throbbing finger from the blood blister developed from pinching it in my sliding glass door.

Despite my mighty injuries, I had an EXCELLENT weekend.

Thanks for asking.

Donald Trump is cringing

This morning as I was getting ready I was listening to the radio. An advertisement came on the air for the local Indian casino.

Their schtick was pretty much the same loud talking-music booming announcer promising a good time as every other casino commercial. Except for one small thing.

If you come into the casino Tuesday nights they'll give you a free porcelain doll.

What??

Are curly blonde headed dolls really enticements for the players of blackjack?

Maybe the casino should hire someone besides 9 year old little girls to run their marketing department.

The little things

The ear doctor just called me is "boo" via text message.

It made me laugh out loud.

This is how I know we are great together.