I'm giggling with glee.

Ok, so yes, I'm still alive.

It's almost the end of the week so now the first week and half of the semester is almost done already. It still feels like just yesterday that I was arriving here, but then everyone says that.

I know that I haven't posted in like forever, but I was trying to wait until something funny or exciting happened to me, because I didn't want any old post saying I did this, I went to that class...I know you're not interested in that kind of thing

Anyway, the reason I posted today was to share my glee about my finally being accepted into the English major!

Everyone keeps saying, oh why are you even wondering if you'd make it, it's a given, you'd make it in without batting an eyelash.

But let me share my story of my horrible paper last semester.

Ok, we had a 8-12 page paper due at the end of the class last semester, and I had to pass that class with a 78% or above to make it into the major. That paper was also almost 50% of my grade, and hence I really had to do well on the paper to ensure that I'd get in.

So, I was really struggling with understanding just what the teacher wanted us to do with the paper. I typed it up, handed it in, and the teacher was like, "Oh, not quite, you need to organize it better." Um. Ok. So I overhauled my paper and changed the order of it and everything and basically turned in a completely different paper in. Again, "Oh, not quite. You're not really focusing on the theory and how it applies to the book." What?!?!?

Then the teacher'd send out general feedback, "Some of you have a problem with this, and some of you have problems with that." I'm like...does that apply to me? I don't think it does. But what if it does?...so you can see where I was stuck at.

So during our group discussion, someone asked a question and it was like a lightbulb suddenly shining above my head. Oh. OH. OH. I get it now.

So I overhauled my paper again and then handed it in, and the teacher was like, "Yes! That's it!" It took me everything to prevent myself from jumping up and dancing on top of her desk.

Soooo then that was my first (third) draft, and after her feedback, I went back and edited it some more, and then asked her for a final review before handing it in for the deadline. But no, she was too busy. So I basically had to hand in my first (third) draft without any more editing and improving.

See why I was nervous? Who hands in their first draft for the final grade? But it turns out, I undestimated my first draft writing abilities. I got a 85% on it, and then got 86% overall in my class. So.

Ready, let's all do it together.

*wheeewwwwwwwwww*

That was last semester. I just found out today that I have offically been accepted into the English major! :D

So if you see some random person jumping around, giggling manically, with a huge smile on her face, that might be me. Just maybe.

the felines in my life

Ok, so I was talking with a friend about my two pairs of cats, and I just thought I'd share here. (I mean, after all, isn't that what a blog is for?!?)

I know, totally random, but whatever, at least you'll enjoy reading it :)

OK, some background info...

The cats at my dad's house are named two girls (sisters) named Minnie and Mickie. They were named by College Sister when she was about 7 years old. Don't ask me why those names. We were obsessed with Disneyworld at the time (I think we had just gotten back or were about to go to Disneyworld at the time.) They'll be 14 years old this May.

The cats at my mom's house are two boys (yes, brothers as well :D) named Peaches and Cream. They were named by me and the Baby Sister (College Sister wasn't around or she would have named them as well, that little brat, but that's another blog for another time) and they'll be 3 this summer...we picked the names because we wanted a "pair" of names that went together, and since they're white (cream) and they had brown/orange patches on their head (peaches), so we named them that :)

ok, now for pictures and personalized stories!

"What do you want now?!?"

"I'm ready for my close-up!"

Minnie is a world-weary, I've-seen-it-all kind of gal. She likes to doze everyday up in the Baby Sister's room, and pretty much only comes down for food. And to walk around meowing, begging to be petted, and then snub us when we move back the chairs and make ourselves ready to pet her. And then run back upstairs to take her scheduled nap. Which is 90% of the day. And therefore, she's Baby Sister's cat. Well, really, she's the family cat, she and Mickie both, but it's obvious who her favorite is. Baby Sister. Stupid cat.

And now for her story.

Once, when she was a kitten, both she and her sisters were spayed. So they had had their operations and all that. So she was playing on my mom's sewing table (Baby Sister and I used to be roommates, so her bedroom used to be mom's sewing shop. It got moved down to the basement when we out-grew each other and out-grew sharing rooms.) So she spotted some thread. And it is Law #1 in the cat world that any visible thread/string must be batted at. So she started playing with it. And swallowed it. With a needle attached to the end of the string. Mom came in just when she was trying to swallow the needle. Of course, Mom panicked and tried to grab her and grab the needle, but she just jerked her head away from Mom and that sent the needle tumbling down into her gullet. So it was off to the Vet she went (I'm sorry, Minnie, I know you hate the vet, but it's not our fault, and it's not yours either. We all know that you would've gone to kitty jail if you hadn't batted at that string. We love you anyway.) And she had a X-Ray and it showed that, luckily, the needle was simply resting against her stomach wall. So there was a second operation to get the needle out. Her stomach hasn't been the same ever since. It hangs down (She isn't fat, really!) because the skin has stretched out. So it's quite funny to see the flap of skin wobbling whenever she runs up the stairs for her scheduled nap.

Don't you just want to snatch her up and say cootchie-cootchie-coo?

So FREAKING cute

Mickie is a runt. Hence the ginormous eyes and the small head. She's quite photogenic because of that. I swear, if she was a human, she would SO totally be that super cute blonde cheerleader bopping around, except for her shyness. She's scared of everything. She'd jump up on Dad's lap, and Dad would just look at her and she'd freak out and run away and hide under the Baby Sister's bed. Dad's her scariest thing in the house, because he's so big, and she's so small. Anyhoo, she still looks like a kitten, like she's about 2 years old. But no. She's going to be 14. She's a senior citizen in cat years. (How DO you figure cat years?) She's a total slave to the College Sister. I mean, she'd hold her weirdly, make her stand up and do dances, turn her ears inside-out or into rabbit ears (that still cracks me up even now), and still, even when I'm calling her and makes kissy sounds, all College Sister has to do is just look at her and Mickie's off to her lap. The little brat.

Personalized story. Her favorite hiding place lately is behind the curtain in the dining room. So once, I was chasing her (when she doesn't want to be picked up or when she gets scared of the big pink human chasing her, she's nearly impossible to catch) so she ran into the kitchen. When she realized I was still chasing her, she ran into the hallway. Then the top of the stairs. Then the College Sister's room, and under the bed. When I went in, she ran out and back downstairs (clever thing) and I didn't see where she went. SO of course, the first place I checked was the dining room curtain. I mean as soon as I entered the room, I knew she was there. How? She forgot to tuck her tail in. She was hiding behind the curtain with her tail hanging out. It was SO cute, and funny! So I finally caught her, amid loud meows (That cat is a LOUD meow-er. She'll meow at least 10 times in the 3 minutes you're holding her. But she isn't complaining. She likes being held, and especially by the College Sister)

you can see from this picture just how lazy Peaches is :)

(peaches)

(Cream)

and from this one just how playful/hyperactive Cream is
(yes, he's in the christmas tree)

(Cream)

Since most of my stories involve both cats, I'll put them together. But I'll share two stories instead of one for, you know, cat equality and all.

Peaches: He's the super fluffy lazy cat who wants to sleep all day and snuggle up with you and be petted. He was fluffy even when he was a kitten, and this has escalated to being a huge furball now. He sheds everywhere. But I love him to pieces

Cream: He's the skinny cat who wants to playplayplayplayplay everyday all the time. Even when everyone's asleep. He'd jump on the bed and play while I'm sleeping on it. Quite annoying when I was still in high school. He's also the cat that gets in EVERYTHING. I find him in the weirdest places all the time, and he'd have this deer-in-the-headlights look and dash away before I can react.

Ok, so the first story is...way back when they were just kittens, maybe just a month or two after we got them. This was at Mom's apartment at the time. I would leave the bathroom door open just a crack whenever I was in the bathtub, because the kittens would come in and explore the bathroom and keep me company and at the same time, I'd bust my gut laughing at them. So, Cream liked to jump on the side of the tub and walk down to the end where there's like a "tapering off" to become flat against the wall. He'd always try to walk on that tiny piece of the tub to try to get to the other side (what he didn't realize was that there was no other side!) So anyway, I had the shower curtain closed (I do have some decency!) so Cream was on the inside of the curtain with me on the edge of the tub. He was walking up and down the side, trying to touch my leg but touching the water instead. He'd do this paw shaking thing everytime he touched the water that just cracked me up every time. What he didn't realize was that Peaches was on the other side of the curtain on the floor, watching his shadow through the curtain. So Peaches finally made his move. He jumped up, batted at Cream, but instead hit him so hard that Cream slipped off the side of the tub and into the water. He was outta there like a bat out of hell and streaked out of the bathroom, Peaches close at his heels. I swear, I must've laughed for a good 30 minutes after that.

Another story. Well it's really two stories about one topic. (freebies!) When they were just kittens, they were OBSESSED with food. They were worse than dogs. They'd dig through the trash, they'd lick the sink drain after we were done washing the dishes, Mom'd wake up in the morning to find a whole loaf of bread in her bedroom where they had dragged it. They'd even steal the food from our plates at dinner time.

So, about that, once, we were having giant shell pasta stuffed with chicken and peas and whatnot. It's delish! So the two kittens had their own stragety. Peaches'd jump up on your lap and slowly charm you while you pet him and squeal over how cute he was, and then he'd sneakily make his move, slowly inching his head towards the plate, only to be deferred by our hand/arm. Then he'd move on to the next person and try again.

Cream, on the other hand, was more straightforward about it. He'd sit on the little side table thingy next to the table, and watch. Plotting his move. When he saw that I wasn't paying attention, he struck! He jumped on the table, grabbed a stuffed shell, and jumped off the table and into the other room before I saw anything. Unfortunately for him, pasta is not a very strong container, so he ended up making off with only a piece of pasta, while leaving all the good chicken and pea bits on the floor next to my plate. At least he got something to eat, which is more than Peaches could say.

And for the second food story, once, I saw Cream slinking from the kitchen to the bedroom with a long, maybe 1 1/2 feet of thick white string trailing from his mouth to the floor between his legs. I stared for a bit, thinking, "What the heck is that?" Then I realized it was a long piece of string cheese! So I jumped a bit, and said hey! He immediately ran for the bedroom and hid under the bed, swallowing as much of the cheese as he could. I managed to grab the cheese from him, and went and found my mom. Apparently, she was eating the string cheese, and she needed to use the bathroom, so she left it on the counter. Then Cream stole it. Sneaky brat.


And that concludes my cat tales for tonight, er, morning.

Hope you enjoyed it!

P.S. And seriously, post comments here! Stop paging me your reply to my posts. There's a comment box here for a REASON!

P.P.S. ohmigosh I'm such a BAD sister. I TOTALLY CREDIT ALL ABOVE PICTURES AND GENERAL ALL-AROUND EXCELLENT PHOTOTAKING TO BABY SISTER!

P.P.P.S. except for my profile picture. It was taken by the Ex. Whom I haven't credited 'til now. Oops. Not that he'll care now, being my ex and all. Drats, now I'll have to add the Ex to my labels.

drool-worthy items

One of the best ways I have to kill my time is...surf online shops.

It's also one of the worst ways I have because I end up spending too much money :)

For those of you who like handmade items, check out etsy.com ... It's like the "Ebay" for handmade items...I love so many things but have only bought like three things--so expensive :(

I also love fredflare.com for those whimsical items you may sometimes see me wear--such as the school bus bag. (I'm not sure if that's still on the website though)

So. My wallet's shrinking as we speak. Though I haven't spent anything in the last three hours or so that I've been surfing etsy.com ... something to be proud of, if you know me. :)

Miss me?

Who missed me? ;)

No, really. Who missed me?

Anyway, so I'm now in Michigan! Visiting the Ex and his family. His brother lives here as well so we've been having a blast at his house playing drinking games and such.

It's a winter wonderland here as compared to back home. Back home, it was brown. And more brown. And icy. Did I mention brown?

Here, instead, it's white and icy. Sounds like a much better combination, doesn't it?

So anyhoo, I just wanted to share this story.

We were at the brother's home, playing Spoons. Do you know the game? If you don't, google it.

Anyway, so we were down from like 9 players to five. So there was four spoons on the table. The game was pretty intense at that time, and we were all screaming at each other and slamming the discard cards down on the tables. And then the spoons were grabbed. One of the guys and I were fighting over the last spoon. The spoon shot off in the other direction, so we both dove onto the table.

Of course, what happens? The table breaks. It shuffled sideways on the carpet, then finally the two side legs snapped and the table fell.

You had to be there--(for those of you who are my friend on Facebook, you can see the actual video of it there), but it was SO funny. The other guy ended up with a gash on his hand and he told me that now it's swollen up pretty bad...the table fell on his hand.

So, like I said, a blast :)