Thistle

Ain't this weather somethin' fierce. One day it was plum rainin' sideways, tearin' trees down to their roots, and the next it's hotter than a Texas summer out on the cattle ranch. I say! Some time it sho' is.
My apologies for the absence in literature. I have been taking to the hills of late, literally. I've put my skills and convictions to work in the form of cutting musk thistle, is what I do believe it is called:

"Oh hi Mr. Hand, would you kindly screw off?"

That is what the devil's work looks like, it's name is musk thistle. Gloves are a must, but even then, this thistle presents quite a "prickly" situation, if you know what I mean. It's quite a joy on the hands. 

In other news, Little Sweden is still boring! For all of you not familiar with my town, that is in no way breaking news, it's old hat in fact. However, in one foul swoop of an attempt to garner attention and attraction for the town, Midsummer's Festival is this weekend! You all should come, it'll be a gas! There's so much to do, I can't even describe it all on here. Basically, you walk around looking at all of the Swedish crap at the booths, whilst the people at the booths are hoping to the almighty that you buy something because it's the only time other than the Apocalypse that somebody would come to this town. I digress, it's quite a lovely place. The wind is nice. And prevalent. 

So on that note, it'll be a weekend filled with fun and jubilation, not unlike my night last night! Have you ever been to an authentic German dinner, hosted by an authentic German war bride (from WWII might I add) who came over to the great place known as America at the age of 22, knowing little to no English, and giving it all up in her homeland to stick it out in Kansas? No, I didn't think so, so shove off because I did. There was everything in and around and under the hills at that table: dumplings, which for those of you not in the know, are a bread-y mass of goodness, schnitzel, Rolaten*, peas and green beans, rolls, salad, and no less than four desserts! Apple cheesecake, cherry pie, plum cake, and strawberry shortcake. Talk about heaven! I up and died it was so delicious, and the only reason I'm typing this now is because I was sent back to this place to tell y'all about such a good time of vittles. It really was something spectacular. It was so good that even thinking about it has made tiny bags of thistle start to pull on my eyes. Guess it's time for a slumber. I'll update soon, as soon as I can make time in my hectic schedule.

     *(Om Nom)

Frontenac

     So I went to a Catholic wedding today, not to say that a Catholic wedding distinguishes it from any other wedding, aside from the fact that it's scientifically proven to be 3 times as long, and 3 times as boring. Just kidding. But really, it wasn't all Catholic weddings in general, it was just the priest in this one. He seemed to be so overcome with emotion for the bride and groom that he felt the need to pause every 3 seconds or so, only managing to pour out a meager 2 words or so between gasps of delight. It was difficult to sit/stand/kneel through, to say the least.
     The couple, however, was and is beautiful. They were some college friends of mine who decided to do the patriotic thing and get married, and now I realize just how much farther I am from even potentially landing a girlfriend. That's life for you. Those are the kind of things that you learn on the eve of the eve of your birthday.
     This past week has been a blur. I've applied for two jobs, which has taken most of my energy out of me. Yes, the applications only took about twenty minutes each (The hospital's had a few extra pages though, almost made me give up applying! This must be their weed-out strategy), and yes, I turned them in on Thursday, but it did indeed take time to work up the courage to fill out those applications, and go through the several calculations in my head about whether or not I should even venture into these establishments. That is the stuff that I was doing the other three days of the week. Tiring, I know.
     Friday was a fun day of driving. First through Wichita, then to Sedan, Kansas, where the mightiest blues     festival on the face of the earth is set to take place this weekend. Never heard of Sedan, Kansas? That's because it's so big, they didn't have room for it on the map, so they just left it off. Seriously, you should go. They even had a high school choir open up for the downtown block party. I told you this stuff was legendary.
     Now it's time to catch up with my college buddies through several trips to the hot tub, intertwined with several trips to the regular pool in an attempt to recreate hypothermia (just kidding). Have fun this weekend, my birthday is on Monday!

Oh Boy

Oh boy was it a gas out in paradise. So much unattainable tail, a regular ol' hootenanny thanks to some Iowans at a Luau, and some kayaking up a river with a tour guide named Candida. Hot sausage on a Sunday morning! Isn't that a sight? Didn't think so, I didn't show you anything.
     I realized that flourless cake is something indeed compared to the island's mystery on LOST. It is indeed, decadent and delicious, and should be included in all meals, including breakfast. I also learned something else on this trip. It seems that the "finer" fine dining gets, and the more expensive it is, it seems like you get less and the chefs don't do as much work. The steak is rare, the fish is uncooked. The portions are akin to something that you might feed to your teething toddler for a snack, not even close to attaining meal-hood.

Fine Dining

     

     How the hell am I supposed to survive on that? The answer is, you're not. You're supposed to support this "fine and exotic" dish with it's cohorts in compilation, the Appetizer and the Dessert, both masters of their trade. This is why even after all of this grand eating experience, I still want to stop down the street and pork down a basket of waffle fries and a double BBQ hickory bacon dee-lux burger.

     I have to look for a job tomorrow. I don't want to look for a job, I wish a job would look for me. But, if I want to keep fueling my ruthless cabbage patch doll addiction, I'll have to find some form of income. Take care now. 

This post was supposed to be on Sunday: Hawaii

     My father is a joy to travel with. He's almost as anxious as my mom, who requires us to "check in" at every stop. I almost feel like I should have brought along those extra strength maxi pads that I saw during a commercial break of LOST. Yes, Hulu, this ad is completely relevant to me. I swear, old people and their traveling... This is why we need to invent teleportation! But we need to also make sure we don't allow teleportation of your little chihuahua, Sparky. I heard their tails don't always make it through the flux intron voltrometer.
     Finals week took more out of me than an elephant giving birth. Now, I've never given birth to a baby elephant before, but I've rocked the heck out of a #2. I got my first B! In biology, no less; my intended major. Ironic? Or just destiny? Look people, I'm pretty sure I won't need to know what a trp operon does in order to diagnose someone's stools. "Hmm Jim, looks like you've got a little too much tryptophan in your stools, you might not want to code as many amino acids." Right. Completely essential.
     I'm mixed in my feeling pertaining to the first year of college more than an afternoon at a Dr. Dre recording session. The experiences were great, but looking back, I feel like I could have done so much more. I look at my peers and see all that they've done in merely two semesters and it's astounding. I had the great pleasure of catching up with one friend from a class from the previous semester at the end of this semester and learned of all the amazing stuff she did while I merely sat around. Compared to me, she practically built a homeless shelter in New Guinea. Not like they need it though, those pretentious Europeans (are they European?). I guess I'll just have to go out next semester and slap solar panels on everything in the name of "Going Green". I should call it going black though, since that's what color the panels are, and green implies money, which wouldn't fly for a philanthropic event of the magnitude I have planned.
     So what's the deal with this high fructose corn syrup crap these days? I'm pretty sure it's in everything, and it's the cause of my discomfort on this bajillion hour plane ride to paradise a.k.a. Hawaii. I was tricked into switching into an exit seat, which, big surprise, is smaller and more keen to my Asian math teacher than to my waistband-stretching mid line. Economy plus sucks. We're all turning into corn, end of story.
     I told the flight attendant I'd "do my best" when he asked if I was able to handle the responsibilities of the exit row. He told me I needed to say yes, and "my best" wasn't enough. Damn these are some strict standards.
     I heard an interesting theory on global warming the other day. It said the Earth has been and will be just fine, it's the human race we'll have to worry about. Quite perplexing. I wrote this on the plane and right now I 'm pretty sure my butt is flatter than western Kansas.

The Great Divide

There are mountains, valleys, and rivers. There are doors, locks, and levees. All serve their purpose, mostly boundaries. The boundary I reference is the cosmic divide that stands between myself, and the gorgeous inhabitants of this Earth we call women. Today, I took the first step on the rickety bridge to cross that divide, and it promptly broke and I fell through and now I have a broken ankle. I'll have to call maintenance to get that fixed (i.e. Ben and Jerry's).

Well, there's a girl in my History of African American Images in Film (Team Black) class that is a Hollandic Goddess. I shit you not. Well, she's very cute, and as one of my friends put it, she has the "ethnic flair". Here is the most abominable picturistic representation i could possibly give:

And the caption would read: "I'm from Holland! Isn't that hot?

Look people, my artistic skills aren't the greatest. So, this girl who I had never talked to, only got her name from the sign in sheet because it's the only one that's foreign, I was being coerced (or told to grow a pair) by my classmates/hallmates (we have about 7 of us together in the class from the hall) to ask her out to a rock concert tonight, cold turkey. Horrible idea, I know. You'll be relieved to know I didn't proceed with this course of diabolical destruction. Instead, I was on the verge of "wussing out" when my friend forced me up by the professor where she was sitting in the front row, right after class, positioning me to talk to her. I merely lingered behind him, feeling my genitalia shrink at an exponential rate. Thankfully, God hath rained down a ray of hope and for some ungodly reason, she also went to talk to the professor. This was my chance. I asked her if the name I had sheepishly stolen off of the sign-in sheet was correct, and then asked her about where she was from. Turns out it's Holland, big surprise there, I knew it was where all of the hot chicks resided. I asked her about study abroad and all that good stuff, and we went on our way. No way was I going to merely ask her to a concert upon the first time talking to her, even though I had indeed seen her many times, but she probably had indeed not seen me. It was a win for humanity, and fat people.

On the way out, my so-called "friends" asked me what went down, and I noticed her friend was at the back of the hall waiting for her, texting. Yes, hot chicks do not go without friends. I told them to be quiet because her friend heard everything, and as my luck would have it, her friend was also walking up the stairs right behind us. I have no idea how she could have galavanted so quickly to the stairs, as I was certain she was not trained in the ways of ninja. Anywho, I saw her, and things went deftly quiet in the staircase until I broke the seal with, "What's for dinner?". Smooth like butter. We'll see how that disaster plays out.

I made no-bakes after dinner because the dinner cooks didn't make their dessert. It's fine, I didn't really feel/like mediocre cherry cheesecake made by half-ass cooks anyway. No-bakes are a round, oaty ball of chocolate and peanut butter sex.

I went to the gym today with my black friend Tosin. I say black friend not to accentuate the fact that he's black and badass, but because the acronym can be shortened to BFT, which can mean a lot of things. Big f-ing ta-ta's is one. Busy Freaks in Transit is another. When we were approaching the building, we saw the strangest thing. There was a guy who was peering over toward the parking lot and staring at every car, which were like 40 feet away from him. If he was trying to examine the paint scratches on each car, he was doing a terrible job of it. Anyway, he also looked like he was trying to double as a spy that was trying to evade someone. He was terrible for a number of reasons.

1. He almost walked in to a shrub. It specifically states in the spy notebook that if you are going to be an effective spy, you cannot go careening into shrubs. That will most surely destroy the universe.

2. He was walking towards a gym. This is obviously an utterly stupid place to try and be avoiding someone. With all of the great and succulent tail that exits and enters that building, it'd be stupid to think that everyone's eyes aren't on red alert.

3. He looked like Indiana Jones. Stupid, I know. I just wish I could have delivered that message to him.

So anyway, he took a path that looked something like this:

Stupid, right?

My roommate is so badass, but I'll save that for another post. I'll leave you with this bit of glory: What would you say to a person that bought a desk chair 2 weeks before finals? You'd say he's a God and possibly the holy trinity for having such foresight and not waiting till the next semester? Ha, stop, you're being too kind.

Cooking is food for your belly, not for the soul.

So this semester my grandiose dreams of ascending to the food-like throne of Emeril have been reduced to Lunch Cook, or as I call it: The art of heating things up. It really is painstaking work, especially with the ovens that Pearson Hall possesses. Those monsters take more coaxing than it takes me to coax myself to exercise (Be it known, this is a number so vast and so large, the scientific community has yet to quantify it). Once the two WWII relics of heat begin their ascent to a paltry 100 degrees below the temperature you set them at, and never quite attaining that temperature, lunch making is all but over. Simply insert some form of frozen chicken, coupled with some form of frozen potatoes, and Voila, lunch for 50 college students. No more will lunch take on these simple ways, for I tasked myself to whip up specialty items so rare and delightful for lunch, that even I sometimes haven't heard of them.
This leads to some interesting and stressful times in the PK (Pearson Kitchen) for me. My cooking partner, bless his heart, has yet to take any of the responsibility, but I digress. He is faithful nonetheless in helping me attempt to create the most scrumptious and taste-gasm inducing Lunches anyone this side of the SYSCO delivery line has seen.

Today, for example, was an interesting attempt at Turkey Tetrazzini and Green Bean Casserole. Tetrazzini might sound fancy, but it isn't, except for when you're trying to cook it for 50 people and it becomes a CF of ingredients in quantities even obese people couldn't handle. That's when you just throw all attempts of gourmet-ness not out the window, but into a pan that could double as a baby's crib. Shove that big nasty into the clutches of the inferno, and hope to god it's ready by 11:45. Talk about stressful.

It's really disappointing the day after a good workout when the stairs leading up to my classes seem even harder than the day I had been doing nothing but sitting on my trusty cheeks shoving my face full of dessert pizza and attempting to grasp the concepts of "Chemistry". Ridiculous, I know. It almost makes me want to plow through the two 5-gallon cartons of ice cream that so surreptitiously display the slogan "Made just for you" proudly on the outside. I call bullshit. If it was all made "Just for me", then what am I going to tell all of the other 47 guys in my hall? "Sorry guys, you can't have any of this horrendous amount of ice cream, I've got strict orders straight from the top that this is only to be consumed by yours truly". I'm sure that'll go off without a moonlight assassination attempt. In our hall, ice cream is like gold, and fruit gushers are silver coins. This is exactly why I have taken the liberty of stashing them all behind a geometric defense system of graham cracker and pudding boxes. Their future is in my hands.

Enough about food, isn't it beautiful outside? That's actually where I'm writing this post. It puts me in prime position to gawk at all the lovely women I'll never have a chance with, along with forming my very first swass of the year (connect the dots, you'll get it). I came to the realization sometime during this first year of higher learning that it is like a utopia of beautiful women, and nowhere else can this amount of good looks be found (besides strip joints). It almost makes me want to stick around for a few more years. Too bad I have to stick to that tight pre-med schedule, ouch! Maybe I'll just switch over to business, that should free up quite a bit of time.

Well I figure that's enough banter for now, the chick I had just set my sights of infatuation upon just caught on to the game I've been playing. Draw Cubes!