fire alarms and math nerds

Math nerds, unite!  By

The power of numbers,

We play... Settlers?  Hm.

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of attending a party of math nerds.  Those people can be lots of fun in large groups, especially when there are party games around that encourage it.  For instance, during the course of the evening, we played Apples to Apples, and one green card that came up was "edgy."  The winning card?  "Stop signs."  Maybe not math nerdy so much as... well... regularly, generally neardy, but fun nonetheless.  We also played a round of Settlers of Catan, which I whupped up in, thanks to the still-burning shame of losing last time I played with Evan.  :P

The board that we used for it was super-nice, though.  I borrowed it from a friend's roommate, and he had built a wooden briefcase to tote it around in and everything.  I'm pretty sure he had every expansion, but we elected to forgo the expansions in light of the fact that half the people who wanted to play had never played before.  Might have been too confusing.  But I'm thinking that I probably want to get a board of my own sometime; it's a good game to have around.

Also yesterday was Capoeira.  It's such fun!  We extended our respective repertoires of badassery by cartwheeling over barriers.  Have you ever tried it?  It's terrifying!  But you feel frickin awesome when you do it.  :D

Oh!  And I finally got my W-2 from Google and filed my taxes.  Thanks, Uncle Sam.

This morning I was awakened by an odd odor shortly followed by a piercing beeping noise.  Evidently Georgia had left a pot on the stove for a wee bit too long, and the stuff in it had turned the charcoal.  Our fire alarm was not happy.  Unfortunately, it was really unpleasant to throw open all the windows and doors downstairs, as it's approximately 28 degrees here (that's -2 for you metric folk ;).

Undaunted by previous kitchen incidents, I started making bread this morning.  It should be super tasty: cranberry cinnamon sugar.  Mmmmmm.

Anyway, I'm hoping to find some excitement for this weekend.  I'm thinking that I'll probably dye my hair back to brown so that it's mo' betta' for my Silk Spectre costume.  Watchmen releases on Friday!  I'm excited!  :D!

no facebook: day 2

Productivity

No longer punctuated

With random people.

Well, it's been about 37 hours since I swore off Facebook, and it's been beautiful.  :)  I guess I never spent that much time on there, but I did take microbreaks from whatever I was theoretically supposed to be doing in order to see if I had any messages/invites/pokes/whatever.  It's amazing what removing those 15 second diversions can do for focus.

I'm a little sad about the fact that I essentially lost a second email address.  I know a lot of people won't be contacting me at all for 38 more days.  :(

In other news, I'm starting to lean more and more towards Cognitive Science for graduate school.  I've had meetings with a couple of people in the department over the last day or so, and the idea of combining all these seemingly-random things that I've been studying up until now into a coherent sort of discipline is really appealing.  I signed up to take the GRE for Computer Science in early April.  I have to say I'm at least a little apprehensive; I can only assume that there are things I won't know on it that I'll learn in the next year, but from my score on the practice exam I think I'll do okay.  I'm hoping to get a book from a prof about graph theory, which is an entire topic that is entirely missing from IU's CS program.  Meh.

lent

I like to observe
Other folks' holidays. It's
Good for the soul.

Well, I'm not Catholic, but Lent starts tomorrow, and I've decided to give something up. I observed Ramadan a couple years ago, and that was a really rewarding experience. Why not, right? I decided to forgo Facebook for the next 40 days and 40 nights. We'll see how that works out, haha. :) Hopefully it will end in my being more productive.

Anyway, I will still be existing until Easter. If you need to contact me (and you can't use Facebook to do it!), my email address and phone number are still listed on my Facebook page. ;) Teehee.

Wish me luck!

exclamation points!!!

Did you ever notice

The sheer number of them?  My

Left pinky itches.

I didn't realize until I glanced at this blog's archive just now that I use exclamation points entirely too much.  Maybe it isn't a bad thing.  I think it's probably just a consequence of the person I am: living fully in EVERY SINGLE SECOND.  Maybe I just get bored reading dully-punctuated textbooks all day.  Maybe I like factorials, or I am trying to "not" everything.  Whatever it is, it is.

I guess the real point of this post is to express some more excitement, though.  I got an email from my host this week that my features should be launching sometime in the next month!  Who knows what that really means, but they've definitely been picked up by other engineers, and they should be ready and raring to go.  Soon!

pictures!

Everywhere I go,

Random people appear, and

They send me pictures!

Picture from the Canal de Rideau in Ottawa, taken by Ed, a random guy Evan and I ran into during our skating.  His are actually the only pictures that exist from the trip... haha, oops.

<3!!!

(-∞, 2601218943565795100204903227081043611191521875016945785727541837850835631156947382240678577958130457082619920575892247259536641565162052015873791984587740832529105244690388811884123764341191951045505346658616243271940197113909845536727278537099345629855586719369774070003700430783758997420676784016967207846280629229032107161669867260548988445514257193985499448939594496064045132362140265986193073249369770477606067680670176491669403034819961881455625195592566918830825514942947596537274845624628824234526597789737740896466553992435928786212515967483220976029505696699927284670563747137533019248313587076125412683415860129447566011455420749589952563543068288634631084965650682771552996256790845235702552186222358130016700834523443236821935793184701956510729781804354173890560727428048583995919729021726612291298420516067579036232337699453964191475175567557695392233803056825308599977441675784352815913461340394604901269542028838347101363733824484506660093348484440711931292537694657354337375724772230181534032647177531984537341478674327048457983786618703257405938924215709695994630557521063203263493209220738320923356309923267504401701760572026010829288042335606643089888710297380797578013056049576342838683057190662205291174822510536697756603029574043387983471518552602805333866357139101046336419769097397432285994219837046979109956303389604675889865795711176566670039156748153115943980043625399399731203066490601325311304719028898491856203766669164468791125249193754425845895000311561682974304641142538074897281723375955380661719801404677935614793635266265683339509760000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000)

who says math isn't romantic?

canadia parte deux

White lands of the North,
But full of warm things! And, of
Course, of injuries.

I get to see Evan this weekend! Super exciting! It was a pretty long flight to get here, though. Mostly because of a couple hours spent in O'Hare waiting for my other plane to board. I was bored, so I decided to explore. Did you know that O'Hare has a children's museum in it?? It was pretty crazy. I also spent upwards of an hour walking around, and I made it from end to end in that time, but I skipped, like, 4 terminals. They go from A to L or something, and each one is huge.

Irrespective of that, I'm here! Evan's little apartment is pretty nice, although it seems his roommate has made himself scarce for the weekend. :P When I got here, Evan took me out to try poutine, which is some crazy dish that is, both basically and exactly, French fries + gravy + cheese curds. Hmm.

This place is interesting; Ottawa is right on the border of two provinces, Quebec and Ontario. The drinking age is different in these two provinces, so students from the other side like to come over here to drink a year younger. There are a lot of signs at bars detailing that Ontario residents aren't permitted entry unless they are 19.

Let's see, what've we done so far, other than eat poutine... well, this weekend in Ottawa is Winterlude, an ice/snow/winter festival thing. The city sets up ice sculpting contests, ice slides (super fun), fire and ice shows... plus the Rideau canal is frozen over and skateable, so we did that. It's odd to see, like, vendors and stuff just parked out on a frozen canal. We got a beaver tail, too, which is more or less an elephant ear, but tastier and in more flavours! We got garlic and cheese. Mmmmmm. Oh, and I, of course, injured myself ice skating. The canal ice was weird. Its surface was really irregular, I guess due to the fact that there was an unseasonable warm spell this week. So my figure skates' little teeth thingies caught on one of the flaws, and down I went. Onto my knee. I'm reasonably certain that it fared better than Georgia's knee, haha, but it still kinda hurts and is a bit swollen. :( But, you know what? It was totally worth it. Oh, and some random guy visiting from Toronto took our picture. I gave him my email address, so maybe he'll have sent it to me by later today and I can put it up.

For dinner yesterday, we whipped up a dericious feast. I had brought some drunken goat cheese with me, so we had that, and we had also some fresh homemade bread, artichoke hearts, FECKING TASTY bean sprout salad, tuna salad, currants, and local brews. Yum! Every adventure with Evan seems to turn into a food adventure, inexplicably.

But that wasn't all, of course! Evan of all people would be the one to find a Valentine's Day rave for us to attend. The tickets for it were pretty sweet: Invader Zim-themed! Hahaha. So we got all dolled up and went out to the club. It was pretty sweet. :3

Well, maybe that's all. Probably not. There's still today, and we're still planning some adventuring for later. It's going to be sad to go back to Bloomington, especially since I have a midterm, like, 23 hours from now. Uck.

But it's a good weekend. :D

Oi What a week!

So this past week has been so jam packed with stuff but I've been on so many pain meds I don't really remember a lot of it. I had surgery on Monday- they put some screw, bone graft, and wire in my kneecap. The day got off to a really good start though, Jeff woke up early and suprised me with a longstem pink and white rose and a little stuffed animal tree frog that had "surgery frog" written on its stomach. My knee hurts a lot more now than when I broke it, and these pain meds are doing a number on me. I'm finally able to think somewhat coherently and so, I'm able to write this entry! I'm sad I had to miss class this morning though (I was throwing up), we were going to be learning different frog calls! I was really looking forward to it!

I'm excited because tomorrow Jeff and I are going to see Circ de Soleil, which his mom kindly got us tickets for. Saturday night we are going to a dance at Collins: the Vieneese Ball. Hopefully dancing with my knee won't be too bad, but I know that Jeff will make sure I have a good time no matter what. Sunday I have to do a 4 hour lab, ugh, BUT Kyle is also moving to Bloomington that day, which is very exciting! I need to start sending valentine's to people actually! Yay! Danielle is coming up this weekend to visit Dennis, so hopefully I'll be able to do something with them as well.

Val- I hope you have fun in Canada this weekend! Find a penpal for me! And I just got your Valentine's day card you left for me! THANK YOU!

happy birthday, Georgia!

You made it, at last!

Too bad the drugs make you odd,

But we like you still.

:D

spring???

Wait, what?  Spring has sprung?

How come no one told me this news?

I CAN WEAR SHORTS NOW???

So apparently nobody bothered to inform our lady Gaia that it's the middle of February.  Today was a balmy 60 degrees in the middle of the day.  Seriously.  It's awful.  All my beautiful snow, gone!  But whatever.  I guess that's how it goes sometimes.

Georgia's surgery was today.  I haven't seen her yet... but I'm sure it went fine.  :)

This semester is making me horrifically lazy.  I haven't got a lot of work to do, so I always put it off.  But the thing is that the work is pretty complicated, so.... it's just generally a bad idea.  Merp.

cookies!

Baking, delicious!

And ingredients can be

Faked, if need be.  *grin*

So Georgia and I met our neighbors, finally.  We noticed their wireless network a few days ago; ours is "Next to 666," and theirs is "Yes_it's_666."  :)  Anyway, we whipped up a batch of orange chocolate chunk cookies for them.

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

zest of one orange

juice of same orange

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup of crushed chocolate anything (we used M&Ms and Hershey bars)

some salt

some vanilla

some baking soda

These cookies go through the standard cookie-mixing steps: creaming the shortening and sugars, adding flour in stages, blah blah blah.  They bake for a really long time, though.  The recipe calls for the oven to be at 300, and it took a good 25 minutes for them to come out.  Maybe we just make bigger cookies than most folks, though.  ;)

Anyway, we took these to our neighbour.  He is evidently from Russia.  He opened the door, beer in hand.

"We're your neighbors!  We made cookies for you!"

"Is this for real?"

It was pretty funny.  I hope his daughter is around sometime, or that she at least likes the cookies.

Thursday Cooking Night: Georgia and Val make Potato Blintzes

So tonight Val and I had our weekly cooking night as usual, but this night we decided to do a blog about it! So we made Potato Blintzes, which is basically a potato/ spinach/ onion mixture wrapped in crepes. I had the difficult task of making the crepes, but they turned out only half way retarded! Yay! So here's the recipe, they tasted great! We put soy sauce on ours, or you can add in cheese.

Ingredients:

crepe filling:
about 2 medium potatoes
2 onions
1 lb spinach
salt (some) and pepper (lots)

crepes:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 milk or soy milk

Directions:
Mix all the crepe ingredients together and let sit in the fridge for several hours, or if you're a hurried improvising college student, stick it in the freezer for a while and then in the fridge!

Mash up the potatoes, heat up the spinach (if frozen) or mix it in with the potatoes or something. Saute the onions and add salt and pepper to taste, and voila! You have your crepe filling.

Make your crepes, stack them up on a plate, put some filling in each one and wrap it up. Cook them in a frying pan for a bit. Guess what?! You're done!

IMPORTANT NOTE: In writing this I assumed that you would use your common sense when making these. For example, spray the crepe pan with cooking oil before you start making them.

Also pictured is the batter for the cookies we made afterward, Orange chocolate chunk! Delish! But I believe Val is posting about those...

In other news, I have surgery Monday on my knee. Hmmm. Time to get all my homework for next week done before the painkillers make my brain all foggy.


-Georgia

age

Damnit, I'm so old,

You may say I'm in the prime of

Life, but I know.  Eff.

I was watching "Memento" at Carlo and Jaimie's last night, and two of its stars are Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano, better known as Trinity and Cypher from "The Matrix" trilogy.  We had a depressing realization: the first Matrix movie came out 10 years ago this year.  That's half my life.

;_______;

First Georgia Post!

Well, Valkyrie has been mentioning it off and on for a while about it now, and the time has finally come for my first blog post! Val has wonderfully described the adventure of breaking my knee, but the aftermath is far less amusing slash annoying. We'll leave it at that for now.

Today one of my classes was canceled (YAY!) and Kyle came to visit (double YAY!). We went to Mother Bear's, and we're about to start watching a movie projected onto my living room wall. And that, is the end to a short and sweet blog post.

event

Can it be?  Really?

People in my office now?

How did that happen?

Haha, it's an event!  I was just sitting in my office hours today, unsuspecting, and, suddenly, 3 PEOPLE CAME IN.  Crazy, I know.

And I am a fan of Punxutawney Phil's predilection for predicting 6 more weeks of winter weather.  <3!!

Additionally, Georgia is now an author on this blog, so hopefully there will be some differently-opined content on here shortly.  :D