Also, I haven't been eating all that much for lunch these days. Right now I'm staying in a dorm and they don't serve us lunch. I end up pilfering the bread served at breakfast and, if I'm lucky, a piece of fruit for lunch. It's very expensive here. Is it bad that I'd rather save money on food so I can by a metro ticket to the beach after class?
Today is my last day in the United States. I leave for Barcelona tomorrow afternoon from Chicago O'Hare and I'm driving up from my house with my parents early in the morning to get to Chicago.
It has been a good day. I woke up early and went for a run, something which I hardly ever have the motivation to do early in the morning. I love running but generally it's not the first thing I crave when I awake each morning. But perhaps today someone knew that it was my last day in America for a year and decided to make the weather my favorite kind. The clouds were grey and ominous as they took over the sky, rolling in over the now six-feet-tall corn husks. It was a bit drizzly and only sixty-eight degrees, offering a light breeze solely to those awake early enough to take advantage of it. Running through Lake of the Woods was so peaceful. The only things I could hear were the trees blowing in the wind and my own feet hitting the pavement. I decided to turn off my iPod music. Sometimes I enjoy the silence.
I came back to my house and made my typical oatmeal and fruit breakfast with coffee. My bud Emma then came over and we had one of our glorious conversations over some more coffee. I love talking with her because we comment on all the unsaid aspects of life upon which we totally agree--about weird dreams we have, experiences we want to have, and adventures that we can only hope to have, about how you have to work at being happy, about who we are and who we want to be, about dogs and books, and anything that our stream of consciousness allows. They're not always deep conversations, but they are always interesting.
Anywho, I have some last, last-minute packing to do. Then I am going to spend some time with my kitty and watch The Mentalist with my parents tonight.
My next post will be from Spain. Ciao!
Definitely this one by Giada di Laurentiis. She now has released many cookbooks, but this was her first and we bought it just after it came out a few years ago. My favorite recipe in it is a pasta with broccoli rabe, orecciette pasta, spicy italian sausage, and tomatoes with an olive oil and garlic sauce. My family has cooked the recipe so many times and we have modified it to our liking. Once for my birthday my parents made enough of this pasta to serve all of my fifteen guests at my party. Everyone enjoyed it.
4. Select 1-3 recipes you will cook for your special guests.
No. Since they're such special guests to me, I'd just ask them what they wanted and then go from there.
5. What will we be drinking that's available?
Water, ginger ale, iced tea, and coffee are a few of my favorites. Also, I love wine. I have developed a taste for it growing up because my step dad LOVES it. We have a wine cellar in our basement, visit wineries around the country, and have wine shipped to the house regularly. A few years ago when my family took a vacation to Sonoma in California, we visited this winery called Imagery, among many other wineries. They have the neatest wine labels that always feature the Parthenon, whether subtely or blatantly.
But yeah, there would definitely be wine at my party. Riesling is my favorite. It's nice and sweet.
Everyone's "self" is a representation that they constantly work to maintain (i.e. the way they choose to dress, their vocabulary, the activities in which they participate). Is there really such a thing as a "true inner self"? I'm not sure there is. It seems only a fabricated veneer to me. Thus, I love to play with my own representation via fashion, words, writing, etc. So what if I carry around in my purse a stuffed black cat wearing a dress? Does that change how someone might characterize me? It's interesting to think so, and of course it alters an outsider's perception of myself. When I was on the plane back from California last month I saw a woman who was older than me, but still in her twenties, wearing a pink jacket with bunny ears attached to the hood. She was also holding a pink stuffed bunny to match. That's not something one sees every day, and it definitely made me stop and look at her for a second because there was obviously some theme going on there. I love noticing quirks like that. I call it the "inner-geek" -- everyone has their own.
This picture describes my writing process. Caffeine somehow stimulates me to write, thus my iced tea. I swear, iced tea single-handedly got me through the entire college application process a few years back. Also, when I'm staring at the blinking curser on Microsoft Word, trying to think of what to write for a paper, I obsessively floss my teeth. Yes, every single time. There is no wasted time with me. I keep tucked under the strap of my journal a polaroid of my parents and me when I was a baby. It inspires me. Also, there are small scratches on the photo which give it even more character. My Birks are in the photo only because I love photographing objects on different levels and at different distances. I admire people who can do this really well because it gives a flat picture dimension, even without a camera that renders depth of field.
A friend of my mom's saved all those stamps for me because she knew I liked them. They are all from Switzerland. I cut them from the envelopes and display them on my desk like mini artwork. As for the other things in the photo, I love jewelry and teasing my kitties with the koosh ball. Also, you can see the yellow skip card from a mini travel Uno deck I have. The cards are so small and cute.
I have revived my beloved Canon Rebel. My poor baby was languishing on the top shelf of my closet with nobody to hold him for the longest time. Lately I have been using my Sony point-and-shoot, and although light and convenient, Sony is nothing is like my Rebel. Both, however, will make the trek with me across the pond to the motherland. This photo is a favorite because, in case you haven't noticed, I love using mirrors in photos. Also, the Reading Room in my house is the bomb diggity. I love the shelves of plants in front of the window.
The sleepover was really fun, maybe because it transported us back to our junior high days of orange and blue P.E. uniforms, humiliating flexed arm hang experiences, science fair projects, scarring images of Mr. Stipp doing Taebo, talking back to our Spanish teacher, being taller than all the guys (I never had this problem and still don't), and over all awkwardness.
"Do you remember when Mrs. J was pregnant and she sat down on her stool and it collapsed?"
"What about when Mr. Weimer's projector lit on fire and he yelped 'What do I do?'"
"Or when Courtney Williams shot the rubberband down Mrs. Higgins' shirt?"
"Miss P's constant neck bobbing as a result of her enthusiam for art?"
"Q: If you could bring only one thing to survive when you were stranded, what would it be? A: Books. (Long Pause) In case the fire gets dim."
The memories just kept pouring out. We didn't have to behave like our current selves as young adults in their twenties with part-time jobs and other commitments. We were once again in junior high when we didn't have many other commitments besides solving simple algebraic equations at night. I don't look back on junior high with nostalgia; I have no desire to return. But remembering it is fun. It's always good for a laugh or two, discussing how each other's history intersects with another until they all combine to become different parts of one long story--your shared history.
Taken by the Music
I then stumbled upon this beauitful piece of grahpic art at Polyvore. Image created by butterfly.-01. Great job my friend!
The Queen by Butterfly @ Polyvore
It's so nice now that I've edited my blog so I can post large images. Hooray. I have not had much inspiration to write a lot lately since nothing really worth writing about is going on with me right now. Take now, for instance, I am writing about how I have nothing to write about. Eleven days until Barcelona!
Each stack of coins equals one dollar and I taped them together so it will be easier to count out when I go back to Walmart to buy my new Ironman. All the quarters are in one Ziploc. Luckily I didn't have to resort to using 100 pennies, though I did count some out just in case I ran short of silver coins. Watching me do so, my mom graciously contributed a dollar bill to the cause.
Walmart really does have unbeatable prices and cool things. I don't care about the whole "Walmart is bad" thing because even if it is taboo, it helps me finance my life. On another note, Miley Cyrus has paired with Max Azria and developed a very nice clothing line which I saw at Walmart today. I couldn't resist buying this vest.
I like Miley. Maybe it's because she's so "taboo" now and the taboo factor makes me like her more. I am drawn to taboos, and garlic too for that matter. Mmmm.
I'm desparately trying to see most of my friends before I take off for Barcelona on Aug. 21. It's getting to be crunch time and I've started to think about thinking about packing. I hate packing; it's so stressful. And packing for a year to go to a country that you've never been to is, admittedly, a bit daunting. But I'm SO excited!
At the potluck last night my friend Megan french braided my hair. I love having it french braided! I cannot do it very well myself and trying to french braid my own mane is nearly impossible. My arms start to cramp up with pain resembling that of the kind I felt when running the San Diego Marathon. Anywho, Megan did a really good job and had a lot of patience because my hair was so tangly. I kept the braids in to sleep and got in bed with Bukowski.
Today I have a few things I want to do.
This is a view of the side of our house from the stairway leading up to the loft, and normally there wouldn't be a green dumpster in view, but the house next to us is still being built. That's the vegetable garden to which my step dad eagerly tends and there is a stone path that goes around the perimeter of the house. 
The backyard view is so cute with the garden railroad. The little house is a children's playhouse that my step dad constructed and uses as a shed for garden tools. I spent all of yesterday morning upstairs in the loft, huddled in a blanket and reading The Shadow of the Wind. The latter is a gothic novel set in Barcelona (yay!) with wonderfully ominous passages. I love gothic literature. It was an appropriate read for yesterday because just after I took the above photos, a huge thunderstorm rolled in. The clouds were absolutely treacherous and very promising of the storm to come. As I mentioned, I was reading my book when I looked up and peered out the window. I watched as the sky turned black and the yard light in our backyard clicked on, sensing night time. Still in my pajamas, I skipped down the stairs and ran outside to take a picture of the clouds. Just as I stepped through the door the rain began and pelted me in the face. Nonetheless, here are the resulting photos.
It was beautiful. Summer storms are definitely something that I never experienced when I lived in Los Angeles. I love them.
