Friday Five

1. The first month of school is almost over, and I've definitely been enjoying myself so far. I got a 'B' on my first history paper, and an 86 on my first math exam. I'm actually really pleased with the math grade, because math has always been one of my worst subjects. I'm proud of myself for making 'B's.

2. Tonight was my friend Chris's birthday, so we all went to see Looper. The movie was good, and I'm not really going to go into it right now because I'd feel like an ass if I spoiled it for anybody (if anybody even reads this) so we'll leave it at that: it was good. Wells and I drove in my car to get there, and after the movie it was decided that I would drive almost everyone back - 8 people. We actually managed it pretty successfully, with me driving, the biggest guy in the passenger seat, 4 people on the back seat, and 2 people sitting on the floor between the back and front seats. The car was insanely heavy, and we rode the whole way back terrified of getting pulled over for having too many people in the car. So on the whole, a great and vital experience.

3. I'm actually kind of getting into rugby now. Not necessarily to play, but at least to watch. Wells is totally into it, as she's actually a part of the team, and Chelsea, Meghan and I went to watch her last home game a few weeks ago. Tomorrow the women's team is playing two games against Shippensburg, and I will definitely be there to cheer them on!

4. This isn't really a relevant life point, but I've noticed that I use the word 'definitely' a lot. I'm not really sure why I do that, but if you read back through my past posts, it probably creeps up in all of them at least once. I need to watch myself better and use more of a variety of words, because I don't think I actually say it that much when I'm just speaking normally to people. It only creeps up so much here...unless I'm totally wrong and I actually do say it all the time. I guess correct me on that if you know me, and if you don't, you'll just have to take my word for it.

5. My printer isn't working! I know this isn't really any kind of relevant point either, but it's causing problems in my life right now. Chelsea is taking a practice LSAT in DC tomorrow - the real one is next weekend, so be thinking about her then! - and she needs to print out her practice test and answer bubble sheet. I don't remember what's wrong with her printer but she needed to use mine, or anybody else's, and mine won't work either......UPDATE: IT'S WORKING THIS IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW YAY!

Sunday Pizza // Busy Bee

Normally my roommates and I have 'family dinner' - where one of us makes dinner and then we actually all sit down and eat it together it's so much fun - on Fridays. However, when it was my turn last week, I wasn't actually here on Friday, so I made my dinner on Sunday (This was also interrupted by the fact that I forgot my wallet at home-home so I had no money and Meghan had to meet me at Shopper's and buy my ingredients for me. My parents overnighted my wallet back to me though so I got my bank card yesterday and paid her back today!). I made four homemade pizzas: one veggie with green peppers, spinach, and mushrooms; one pepperoni; one plain cheese with old bay; and one white pizza, half with spinach! They were all delicious - I ate six pieces, oops - and we had a few friends over to eat with us, too. Jon is a sophomore, like Wells and myself, and he lives up on the ninth floor and came down. I met him last year, with his roommate Chris. Chris was also invited to our little pizza party, but he went to the Ravens/Pats game instead (Go Ravens?). Chelsea's friend JD came too, and he brought Meghan's crush Danny. JD and Danny got here late and only stayed just long enough to eat though, and then they had to leave due to a family emergency. Jon ended up hanging out for most of the night, and we watched a few episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is basically one of the best cartoons TV shows I've ever seen.

Now I'm really just posting this to put off having to do my own work. The end of September/beginning of October seems to be when professors are really starting to get in gear. I had a Math111 - Intro to Probability - exam on Monday (86%, which is good for me!), a 5 page English301 poem explication due today, a math quiz on Friday, English301 midterm on Monday, a History213 - History of Sexuality in America - paper also due on Monday, and an Econ200 - Microeconomics - exam next Thursday. Right now I should be making 65 note cards for my English exam, or doing math homework, or taking notes for my history paper, or working on an econ problem set. But here I am, writing about pizza. This is actually a pretty good representation of my life in general. Should be working, but thinking about food instead, while using the internet. Oh well, I'll get my shit in order eventually. For now though I think I'm going to go start on those note cards.

UMD vs WVU 2012

The football game today was pretty fun, even though we lost. Pretty much everyone there was really nice, despite the fact that we were walking around in red. Two guys actually took pictures with us for being at a WVU tailgate in UMD gear. My dad was bumming beers everywhere he could, which was pretty hilarious; he definitely had a good time. One old man actually offered us a jar after the game, saying "Have some moonshine, you're in West Virginia now!" (Dad wouldn't take it though, because I guess he's had some bad experiences with grain alcohol before). Mom ended up driving home, and I slept the whole way back to Cumberland after we stopped for some dinner at Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County.

My four-years-younger sister is unfortunately much taller than I am.

I took my dad's hat and was wearing it in the car after the game. I actually want to get a MD hat soon, I just have to convince myself that it will be worth the money. College team gear is so expensive...

Claire has actually been working on a cold or something for the last few days, so she fell asleep pretty much the minute we got in the car after the game.

Friday Five

1. Our party last Saturday was a success! The crowd ended up being mostly friends of Wells, but a few of my friends showed up, and I ended up semi-bonding with Chelsea's friends who were there, too. It got kind of old by the end, just in that I get bored of parties kind of easily and it's always nice to be able to leave and go to bed, but you can't do that when the party is in your apartment. A few people ended up staying the night, and Wells and I made breakfast for five at about 3:30 AM. It was a pretty great night.

2. Last night was a pretty great night, too. Chelsea and Meghan went to a bar for Chelsea's friend's birthday, and Wells and I decided to stay in and watch a movie. My friend Chris lives on the 9th floor and he came down to watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World with us. This was at about midnight. After we finished Scott Pilgrim (and yes, this viewing did include a drinking game, although I only ended up having one beer for the whole night), Wells and Chris convinced me to stay up and start another movie, so for showing number two we picked Across the Universe, because it is fantastic and Wells and I sing along with all of the songs. Somewhere around halfway through A the U, Chris's roommate Jon came down, and he was pretty much wasted already. The four of us crammed on the couch and Wells and Jon had a pretzel fight. Jon had shaved his hair pretty short the day or two before so I ended up spending literally about an hour and a half just rubbing his head. The whole night ended around 5, and I still made myself get up and go to my 11 am ECON200 discussion (which was a shit show in its own right). The whole thing felt very 'college', and it was fun.

3. I'm currently at home, because tomorrow the Terrapins are playing the Mountaineers at WVU, so the Feeney family will be there to cheer on our terps! Morgantown is actually only about an hour to an hour and a half away from Cumberland, so it won't be a long trip or anything. Dad is planning for us to leave bright and early at 8 am, so we'll see how that goes. I love my school and I try to have a lot of spirit, but realistically, we're going to have our own shit handed to us tomorrow, so it's definitely not going to be a great game to watch as a Terps fan. It'll be fun though, as a trip in general. I'm definitely planning on showing my Maryland pride; my nails are already painted with Maryland colors, and I'll be color scheming my eye-makeup tomorrow. I also bought temporary tattoos, so I'll be wearing Testudo on my face all day tomorrow. Can't wait!

Here is an awful picture of my nails (my thumb is red, too). They definitely look neater now that it's a day later, and this was bad lighting, but you get the idea.

4. I got to see Jim tonight, and I'm really happy about it. I know he was just in CP to stay with me like a week ago, but if I could spend every day with him, I would. He's going to Hershey Park tomorrow morning and won't be back until Sunday, so tonight was the only time that we would get to spend together while I'm home this weekend. We basically spent the whole time cuddling and being grossly cute. I guess that since we don't get to actually physically be around each other very much while I'm at school, we have to catch up as much as possible while we're actually together. I kind of wish sometimes that he went to UMD with me, but I have a ton of personal reasons both for and against that - which I don't feel like going into right now - so I guess for now I will just wish that we could be together when we aren't.

5. I've had hardwood flooring in my bedroom at home since I was about 10 or 11 years old. When I was younger, my allergies were awful, and when we went to see a doctor about it, we were told that I shouldn't have carpet in my bedroom, no big piles of stuffed animals, no overabundance of pillows in my room, etc., so we had the carpet torn up and the floor refinished. I've always liked it (to a point - without the carpet for cushion, it's a lot creakier now, which is bad when I'm up moving about in my room when I'm supposed to be asleep!) but I've also always been a little taken aback upon reentering my room after being on vacation or something. I guess that while I'm not at home, I get re-used to just seeing carpeted floors or linoleum everywhere, and then when I come home, the hardwood flooring is a bit of a shock, which doesn't quite make sense to me because I obviously spend more time at home than on vacation, but whatever. What's funny to me now is that when I come home from college for a weekend or a break or something, the wood floor doesn't look weird. I'll be gone for weeks on end and see no wooden floors anywhere and then it's nothing when I come back, but when I'm gone for a week on vacation and come home, the lack of carpet just blows my mind. I really can't explain it, I have no idea why it doesn't look weird after college as opposed to after a vacation, but I guess I just wanted to share one weird way that my mind works.

I Don't Think All Sorority Girls Are Stupid, But That Doesn't Mean That I Want To Be One.

I'm going to start this out by saying that I'm generally conflicted on my opinion of the whole Greek Life thing anyway. Sometimes it looks like fun, like, yeah, I'd like to be in this big group who all seems to like each other and have sisters and a support system and get to wear cute matching shirts and have socials and stuff. And then I think, last year when my roommates were in sororities, it all seemed so stressful and they don't actually all like each other (because how could you expect a house full of girls to all like each other anyway that's just ludicrous) and if I could be friends with all of the girls in a sorority anyway then why would I pay to be in it? It also makes me question if I could get a whole group of girls to like me enough to want me in the group too. I feel like I wouldn't be able to be completely me, like I would always be putting up some kind of front because I would be afraid that if I was really me, they wouldn't like me (which is basically just how the world works anyway). Now on to the real story.

My best friend Katie goes to UMBC (University of Maryland - Baltimore County or U Must Be Chinese) and she recently rushed for Phi Sigma Sigma. She knew a lot of the girls in it beforehand, so she thought that would help. She was really excited; she knew that while she was friends with the girls and could just hang out with them anyway, she wanted to be part of the group and be able to go to their little functions and wear the letters. She got invited back to their first invite-only function after rushing started, but then last night, she got voted out. Obviously she was very upset, and she didn't understand why she didn't get in considering how close she is with many of the members. She's found out a little bit of the reason, in that some of the older girls didn't like her, and because they were more senior members, their opinions carried more weight. She probably won't be able to find out the actual reasons and things that were said by the girls who didn't like her, because apparently all of the members are sworn to some insane secrecy and nobody will breathe a word to anyone outside the sorority (which, if it were me, you know my mouth would be wide open as soon as I left the house - maybe another reason why I shouldn't be in a sorority). She really was pretty upset at first, but now she feels better because apparently most of the girls did want her, and she wasn't the only one who was friends with the members but got passed over. We think that maybe because she acted like she was already in the sorority, not because she was that confidant but simply because she already was close with so many of the members, the older girls wanted to teach her a lesson in confidence and humility, same as her other friends who were also voted out. Now she's thinking that maybe it was better, because she can still hang out with her friends in the sorority without the pressures and expectations of the whole system.

This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about the whole sorority/fraternity system. Katie knew the girls, most of them liked her and wanted her as a sister, but some older girls had an unknown beef with her so now she can never be a part of the real group. Apparently during the voting process, negative comments count for more than positive comments, and if you make any comments about a potential new members, you can't stay to vote. So basically someone who doesn't like you can gossip and talk shit about you to make the other members think badly about you, and then they can't vote about you. However, if anyone wants to try to defend you, it would require twice the amount of positive comments to counter whatever awful things the first people said, and then all of those girls who defended you wouldn't be able to vote in your favor. It has something to do with if you know someone well enough to say something about them, then you're obviously biased for or against them and shouldn't be able to vote. That make absolutely no sense to me - it leaves the voting for the people who have literally no opinion, who couldn't care less if you got in or not (unless someone kept their mouth shut so they can give you the vote that they want). Shouldn't it be those who do have strong opinions to vote for or against you? The people to whom it actually matters if you get into the sorority or not? I don't know, I mean obviously I have no say in how sororities work, and I don't know if I have this exactly right or if this is how all sororities work or anything, but it just doesn't seem right to me.

It all just further cements for me the fact that I probably will never attempt to join a sorority. I say probably because I can't see into the future, maybe this semester I'll meet a bunch of girls and decide that I want to be a sister and I'll rush in the spring and then everyone who read this will call me a hypocrite. I really don't know what's going to happen. But, I don't think I would want to be a part of a social sorority. It really does seem like too much pressure, too much work. I don't want to go through all of the rushing process and think that I'm in and that people want me and then find out that no, I can't actually be a part of this big family, I'm out. I don't want to set myself up to work under that pressure, that huge potential for failure. It's just not for me.

Friday Five

1. Tonight I was at a party in a friend's apartment, and I was talking to this guy, Kevin, who I met a few weeks ago. I could tell that he was kind of into me or whatever, but obviously as I have a boyfriend I wasn't going that way at all. We ended up actually talking about it and I told him that sorry, I don't mean to be a bitch or anything, but I'm really happy with my relationship right now and I'm not looking to change that any time soon. He seemed to understand, but at the same time, he would say things like "Is it bad for me to want Jim to get hit by a bus?" and "I'm obligated to hate the boyfriend of a pretty girl". It was very 'ha-ha, that's a joke, we're a little bit buzzed so you can say that I guess', but at the same time it made me feel uncomfortable. I guess I just don't really understand what would make someone think that it's ok to talk like that to someone, to tell a girl that yeah, I like you and I want to be with you and stuff, and I'm acknowledging your current relationship by hoping that it dies a fiery death so I can swoop in. I actually called him Prince Humperdink (from The Princess Bride) at one point, but I don't know if he really got the whole picture.

2. My roommates and I are having a party tomorrow night! I'm really excited, I really like stuff like this. I know it'll be work, and we'll have to keep an eye on ourselves so that we can keep an eye on everyone else, but I think it'll be worth it. A bunch of my friends here at school are invited, and my best friends Katie and Kyle might come down from UMBC and Towson, respectively. I don't really expect Katie and Kyle to show up, but it would just make the night so much better if they do.

3. We seem to be starting a new tradition here in 709, that of family dinners on Fridays. We'll take turns making something for everyone and then eating together. Last week Meghan made tacos, and tonight Wells made spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Both meals have been delicious so far, and I think I might volunteer for next week and make homemade pizza. I really like this kind of tradition, I think it's a lot of fun and I hope we continue to do it for the rest of the year.

4. I really want to do a 'fashion' project at some point this year, where I'll take pictures of what I'm wearing every day for a month or so and post them here. I think it would be fun, to show my own style and even see for myself the kind of things that really crop up in my wardrobe more often than others. I feel like it would also prompt me to dress a little bit better, knowing that I'll have to actually take pictures and post them online for people to see and potentially comment on. If I do this project though I think I would want to wait and see if I end up getting a better camera at some point, or even just a tripod or something so that I can take pictures with the camera that I have rather than trying to set up my computer and webcam somewhere. I guess I'll just keep this idea in the back of my mind for now, and see how feasible it is later this year.

5. This really isn't a number-worthy topic, because it really isn't a topic at all, but I am exhausted right now. I took a nap earlier this evening and now it's 3 am and I'm lying in bed forcing myself to post this before I brush my teeth and go to sleep. I think it's just a general college thing, not getting enough sleep and always being tired. I do attribute some of my sleep deprivation to my long-distance relationship, though. Jim tends to stay up late at night playing Guild Wars or Skyrim, and then I end up staying up late too, waiting for him to get on Skype so we can see each other and say goodnight. We really need to try to do something about this, because I love getting to see him as much as I can, even if it is just on a screen, but I need my sleep too (and so does he!). Maybe we can start trying to knock our clocks back, and both start getting to bed a little bit earlier every night. It would be nice, ideal, if I could get in eight or nine hours a night. I don't know that that'll happen, but a girl can dream!

I'm the Goddamn Muffinman

Yesterday I finally went grocery shopping like I've been meaning to for days, and while I was there I picked up a few things to make muffins. The original inspiration to make them came from this post on Sherri Bemis's tumblr, with a recipe for pumpkin muffins using pumpkin pie filling and spice cake mix. I couldn't find the spice cake mix at the Shoppers that I went to, so I improvised, along with a few other ingredients!

muffins:
1 box of Golden Vanilla cake mix
1 15oz can of Pumpkin Pie Filling (we didn't have a can opener so I had to use a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer...that one ended up with pie filling on my face.)
the following ingredients were my own addition and were eyeballed as to my own tastes:
roughly 1 tbsp of Nutella
liberal shakings-of-the-canister of Cinnamon Sugar
less liberal shakings-of-the-canister of Nutmeg
This all mixed together and baked at 350 degrees for about 17 minutes made somewhere around 17 muffins (I think...we started eating before I thought to count, oops!) and it definitely could have made more, as I overfilled some of the cups. Be careful when you're scooping the cups, they definitely rise a lot!

I used cream cheese icing, and I made it myself, this time faithfully following a recipe that I found here.

icing:
2 8oz packages of cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup [1 full stick] of butter (softened)
2 cups of sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
"In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use."
This recipe made way more than I needed for the amount of muffins that I ended up with, so right now I have a big covered bowl full of icing sitting in my fridge (I think I may make red velvet cupcakes on Sunday, assuming that the muffins will be gone by then, to use up the rest of the icing!). Next time I make these muffins, if I make this icing too, I may half the recipe so that I only make as much as I need.

These muffins were definitely a hit! My roommates and I all love them, they've been great to grab as breakfast on my way out the door for class. Making pumpkin baked goods always puts me in the mood for Fall, my favorite season. These muffins are definitely making me itch for cooler weather, scarves, sweaters, and boots!

I hope this may inspire someone else to make muffins like this, because I know I'll definitely be making them again!

Friday Five

1. I don't care where you went, what you did, how awful or great a time you had. At the end, when everything is over and you're back home, it always feels great to wash off the night. To stand in the hot shower and scrub away the sweat, the parties, the outside, the other people (ew), it just feels amazing. It's honestly one of my favorite parts of the evening, everything drawing to a close and me being able to just take a shower and go to bed. Drunk, sober, whatever, it feels fantastic every time.

2. The second week of classes is officially over. We're starting to get into the actual work part of the year, it's not just syllabus week anymore. Things have been going pretty well so far, I haven't had any big assignments or anything yet. It'll probably all pick up a lot in October, and around the end of September. It's so weird to think that I'm even in my second year of college anyway. Sometimes I feel like I should still be in high school, when did I even get here?

3. Jim, my boyfriend, is coming to visit tomorrow. It makes me nervous, having him here staying the night with me, but I'm also excited to get to see him. It's been a few weeks and I'm definitely missing him. I think we're going to try to go in to Washington D.C. to go to the zoo, but I'm just looking forward to being with him. I wouldn't really care where we went or what we did, as long as I would be spending time with him. He's pretty great.

4. We're having somewhat better internet connection now. I think the View complex is going to completely update their system soon, so hopefully then it will be even better. I'll probably try to post pictures of my room soon, I just need to clean it up a little bit first. #collegeteenagelazymessygirlproblems because that's a thing now.

5. I painted my nails today and tried to do an 'ombre' fade effect, where you paint a base color and then sponge another color on top on the tip. I did light purple for my base and then light blue on top. It actually turned out pretty well, I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks. Unfortunately though, I put a top coat on over it to cover the rough sponge effect, and my top coat is old and crappy so now most of the color has cracked and doesn't look very good anymore. I'll have to re-do them tomorrow, and save the fading for another day when I have a better bottle of top coat.

Friday Five

Yes, the Friday Five late, on Sunday. Oops.

1. I've officially finished my first week of college! Well, sort of, anyway. This past week, classes began on Wednesday, so I haven't had a real full week yet. The first three days of classes are over though! They went pretty well, as first classes during syllabus week go. I'm looking forward to them, especially my English classes and my history class. I think that this semester will go pretty well, even my math and econ classes. I guess we'll see as the weeks pass.

2. I can't get very good internet access in my apartment. I can only get crappy wifi in the living room/kitchen area, and none at all in my bedroom. That's why this post is late, I just couldn't get the internet access to post it on Friday. Two of my roommates have said that they're going to get wireless routers for our room though, so hopefully we'll have real internet access soon!

3. Speaking of roommates, things have been going pretty well on that front so far, too. I like all three of my roommates, and we've been hanging out a bit. I went to DC with Meghan the other day, and to the first football game of the year with Wells and her Rugby friends today. It's all been a lot of fun, I hope we continue to get along for the rest of the semester.

4. I really like my apartment this year. I moved into the next building over in my two-building complex, so it's pretty similar to last year, but a bit smaller. The smaller size isn't bad though, I actually think it's kind of cozy. We've decorated more already this year than we did in my old apartment for all of last year, so it definitely feels a lot girlier and more homey. I'm still working on putting up posters in my room and making things exactly the way I want, but once I've done that (and when we finally get reliable wifi - please please please) I'll probably post some pictures here.

5. College textbooks are so ridiculously expensive...I may end up making a stand-alone post about this one, but seriously, WHY DO THESE BOOKS COST SO MUCH MONEY??? I spent more money on textbooks for this semester than I would spend on groceries in about two months, and let me tell you, I'm a girl who knows how to eat. I really don't get it...like I'm sorry, but why does my little five chapter paperback math textbook cost $100? Why do I have to spend so much of my time searching the internet for the cheapest prices on books that I'm only going to use for about four months? It doesn't make sense to me, it really doesn't.