Nutrition, Religion, and Music - Oh my (pounding headache)!

All gears are definitely switched into school and work mode. Just beginning the second week of classes I am feeling quite content, happy even, to be back in school. I honestly missed the demands of reading and writing as well as the pleasures of class lectures and discussions.

For those of you who are curious, I am taking Nutrition, Intro to Music, World Religions, and World Literature 1650 to present. These are just your regular old core classes, but it's so much fun to be introduced to all this new information. In Nutrition we are building our base for the semester by discussing the Daily Food Guides and nutritional recommendations set forth by the government and health experts.

This morning in World Lit we discussed A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift. My goodness! Who would want to eat babies?! The discussion was definitely rich and explored the reasons behind his writing this piece, which was originally a pamphlet. It definitely would have gotten my attention. Another thing to be happy about is that I know some of the other students in the class, in particular a friend of mine for many years. Sharing a class is a good excuse to get to see her more often.

And that pretty much measures my academic life to this point in the semester. Now I have to run to the bookstore and see if they have received a shipment of the books needed for said World Lit class lest I fall behind and post lots of frowny faces on here. For today, a happy face :)

New Rockin' Hair Colour

Okay, that is not an objective view on the current state of colouration on my crown, but it is temporarily not itself. Yes, in honor of the New Year, my sister and I both used a temporary hair dye on New Year's Eve. The picture is not a shot of either of our noggins, but it does somewhat illustrate the hue. The name of the colour was "Chill Plum," one of the shades in the L'Oreal Color Pulse line of temporary hair color mousse.


On their website, the color shows up as being more purple, which is what I was hoping for, but our hair came out more red. This was actually a nice result for both of us as our natural hair color has some red highlights, especially my sister. The color is also complimentary to our fair skin tones. It was fun and inexpensive, coming in at just under $5. Another nice thing about going the temporary route is that the dye shouldn't damage healthy hair as it has no ammonia or peroxide. My natural hair color is wonderful, but I just occassionally feel the need to have some fun with it.

In other news, I have finished my schedule for the upcoming Spring semester and revised my 5-year plan from becoming Registered Nurse to becoming a Doctor of Physical Therapy. I'm trying to still look around and see what my options are, while maintaining some grounding and not being blown by every new breeze of an idea that comes my way. (Thankfully I'm of a stout young woman and not easily moved.) The decision to change my course of study came with some degree of serious consideration. I had been planning on nursing mostly because that was the way I had been nudged for a while. Nursing would probably be challenging and fulfilling, but I think that I would enjoy and be more challenged and fulfilled by Physical Therapy. I will still keep my eyes and ears open. Thankfully I have a plethora (buzzword of 2000 anyone?) of advisors to gain insight, wisdom, and the understanding that I shouldn't try to do some things on my own.

Soon To No Longer Be a Student Without a School

That title sounds funny.

Yes, I found out that I will be able to attend school again in the Spring semester, with help from the local and federal government. I wonder if I will be able to pay that back someday. Hmm...

In the meantime, I have since decreased my daily working hours from 12 to 11. I think that four 11-hour days of work is easier than four 12-hour days of work. It has been nice getting home an hour earlier for sure. This allows for more rest and less coffee consumption.

I have also been enjoying my computer at home. No, we don't have the internet, which might explain why I never post on here anymore, but I have a wonderful computer thanks to my uncle. This computer has afforded me the ability to start keeping a real budget, which I actually try to stick to quite closely. Mix CD's and CD case cover art for work have also been some projects that I have undertaken. It is so much fun to just play and see what can be done. Technology can be so cool sometimes!

If you are interested in more weekly detail of my life, I would like to invite you to swing by my xanga site, at http://www.xanga.com/senoritazorro . I post approximately once a week on there, sometimes more. Once school starts I will hopefully be able to keep better track of both of these blogs.

Please remember that the turkey was originally in the running for America's national bird when you dig in this Thanksgiving, if turkey is part of your meal. I hope that you all have a blessed Thanksgiving Day spent with loved ones!

New Post Past Due

So I spent this past Saturday evening hearing the Good Word, eating good mexican food, and then allowing my parasympathetic nervous system to be sent through the wringer thanks to a bunch of giant Tripods and numerous close-up shots of very scared people. I really view Ms. Fanning as the next Jodie Foster. She is phenomenal on the big screen.

Did you know that there is a second Saw movie set to come out sometime within the next something, October 28th? Yes, I'm a bit excited about that because I am a sicko, as my sister has been unfortunate enough to be reminded of during the past few relatively lengthy drives to and from her dorm at school. She also aided me in diagnosing my olfactory malady: psychosomatic anosmia. She said that we needed to remember that.

Finally, I am looking forward to October 31st even more than I am Saw2. You might wonder why that is. It is because I'm a blood-thirsty pagan who enjoys the revelries of such an evening? Is it the excitement of make-ups, masks, and costumes? Or could it be the expectation of enough sugar to make my dentist really, really mad at me? While those all may be likely reasons, though hopefully not the first one, they are not THE reason. As of this October 31st, I will have three years of driving experience under my wheels. This means that I might be able to purchase less expensive auto insurance coverage! How exciting! Yeah, it's not quite the same without dancing lizards, but we try our best to please.

Does anyone else find irony in the date of my driving test?

I like to think that I helped steel my instructor against any other frights she might face that day.

Sinus No Stopus Runningus

I have come down with some sinus something over the weekend and so decided not to go to my second job this evening. I do not wish to make my coworkers sick nor drip over all of the computer stuff.

Saturday was great. Sister and I got to go to Memphis for the first time, play lasertag, and eat some good food. Better than most of that was just the conversation in the cars on the way there and back. We had spiritual discussions on the way there with a young couple and one of the guys who resides at the ministry's building. Then on the way back, we drove with that guy, as well as the other guy who stays there, and an international student from Taiwan. We talked about Taiwanese political issues, movies, and the classic X-men cartoon series. It was a wondermous trip to be sure!

Sunday was a day of mild disappointment but greater enjoyment. The mildly disappointing part was being sick and not being able to go to church in the morning of the evening. The greater enjoyment part was being sick with my sister, watching movies, eating pizza, and endulging our love for peanut M&M's while simultaneously donating to the Susan G. Komen foundation. It would be great to be able to watch the entirety of Sense and Sensibility some time.

Not to Celebrate, but to Remember

It is the 60th Anniversary. There will not be cake, ice cream, presents, or dancing. While the views differed and differ on necessity and implication, this is not a time or an event to celebrate.

What were we thinking?

"An excerpt from their poem, Floating Lanterns, reads: 'On August 6 every year, the seven rivers of Hiroshima are filled with lanterns. Painted with the names of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers... they float on their way to the sea. Almost there, pushed back. Flames snuffed out. Darkly coming back in pieces. Tossed by ocean waves. Years ago, the rivers were filled... not with floating lanterns, but with the corpses of those mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers.'"

-from Art For a Change

Why I Still Follow Nancy's Advice

1. Money – I do feel a little weird putting this one first. But even if I didn't have my moral judgments about it, I just don't have enough dough to buy any dope.
2. Moral obligations – Heretofore I am a teetotaler as well. I feel that what God says about not letting wine or strong drink corrupt your judgment also covers other judgment corrupting substances. Besides, Jesus didn't turn a bunch of grass into weed, now did He? no.
3. My siblings – what kind of example would I be setting? Not to mention, I wouldn't have the sharpness needed to form my witty comebacks, even if they are 20 minutes after the fact.
4. Heroine Bob – Heroine Bob is my hero. Not the needles though, those don't bother me. Nor the mixing alcohol and narcotics. But I really liked the way that he used chemistry to explain just why acid is really bad news.
5. Devon Sawa – Did you ever see Night of the Twister or Now and Then? Not to gross anybody out, but back before I knew better, I thought boys were cute. Specifically, I thought Devon Sawa was quite a looker, even if he did have a broken chromosome and cooties. As good looking as he is, and as bad as his character looked on acid, granted an insane amount of acid, I, a plain Jane, would not stand a chance of looking an eighth decent.
6. Neuronal Jerks – Not like mean, bully neurons beating the other, smaller ones up, at least I don't think. No, as naturally nervous(hyper) as I am, caffeine can sometimes give me muscle spasms or jerks. Not to mention messing with my already sporadic sleep patterns. So, caffeine is bad enough.
7. Roommate – She's my roommate, best friend, and probably the most well armed person that I know. “Dead meat” is a threat taken seriously when it comes from her.
8. Family history – Addictions have run in my family before, pretty closely related family. Most have been able to clean up, but it takes your body a l-o-n-g time to straighten things up after messing with it like that.
9. Sports – I heart my bicycle. I want to learn to run without looking like one half of a T-rex three-legged relay. If I ever get in the right condition, have the expendable income (see #1), and am eligible for any of the venues, BMX sounds awesome. I can dream, and it might come to pass. It is highly unlikely, but a lot more likely clean than not. Not to mention the drug screening that is done in any kind of serious competitive activity.
10. Life – This is like my miscellaneous, catch all category, but appropriately titled. I love just about everything about life. No matter how well you can remember something or dream it, our dreams and memories are not even a tenth as lush, detailed, and vibrant as our current state of consciousness. I don't want to be so dulled or numbed that I am walking around like I'm lost in my memory or in a bad dream. And in the case of those drugs that have the opposite effect, I already know how many pores I have on my nose. No thank you.

(This is Fiona's sister swearing that she was not on something when she wrote this list about why she isn't on something. Hard to believe that she wasn't, but I swear!)

(This is the roommate, pointing out the fact that the Feebs wrote all of this at one-to-two in the morning. To know why this is ironic, see number six. Also, no, she wasn't joking in number seven.)