Shimmy to the left if your having a good time....

Any average college student knows that listening to great music before going out is probably one of the most important things to do. (Even more important than what you’re wearing, honestly!) It sets the tone for the entire night. I will be honest and admit that my roommate and mines artists of choice are the Spice Girls and Hannah Montana.

Last week, Jessica and I were both getting ready for a night out on the town when one particular song, “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls came on my Ipod. It was done! We both began dancing, singing and basically going crazy, needless to say we looked absolutely ridiculous. We both began reminiscing about our adolescent, “tween” years when the Spice Girls movie, Spice World, had come out. Needless to say we wanted to see the movie so bad that on one of Jessica’s trips home to Colleyville the number one “to bring back” item on her list was the Spice World movie. Sad, I know.

The Spice Girls, to this day are still one of me and my roommates favorite bands, obviously. I am not ashamed to admit that I still do love this band, or group of girls. Today’s current “tween” generation has a similar international superstar in Disney star Hannah Montana, otherwise known as Miley Cyrus, whom both my roommate and I have a certain fondness for.
About three years ago, I was babysitting a young eleven year old when I was introduced to a particular Disney TV program called Hannah Montana. I will admittedly say that I began to have a certain fondness for this show, and would secretly watch it in my spare time. Luck would have it, that my roommate felt the exact same way I did, and this past week we dedicated an entire night to renting and the newest movie to come out based upon her TV show.

For those of you that may not know who “Hannah Montana” or Miley Cyrus is then I’m sorry you have been living under a rock for the past few years. She has become an international superstar for the current “tween” generation, as well as dare I say the current collegiate demographic. Well bloggers I am not ashamed to say it was surprisingly very good; it had an oh so attractive guy playing Hannah’s “male interest” as well as very catchy songs, if you haven't already heard it download 'Hoedown Throwdown'.

The next time your getting ready for a night out don’t be afraid to crank up the volume and blast the Spice Girls and Hannah Montana, your girlfriends and roommates will be certainly glad you did, and the boys well they will just have to get over it.

College Cooking 101: What NOT to do

Now that Jessica and I are living on our own and have a decent kitchen to use, we are becoming or trying to become chefs. Our moms are both great cooks so naturally we wanted to carry on the family tradition. During the first weeks in our kitchen, we literally looked like chickens running around with our heads cut off. Maybe it was a mother’s instinct but our moms always seemed to answer their cell phones when we needed them to help bail us out of our cooking disasters. Luckily for us they did answer because we may not have had an apartment if they hadn’t.

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I think I have become quite a good chef within the last couple of months. I make a mean guacamole and an utterly delightful pomodoro sauce. Out of all the food items in the world to mess up on my story involves trying to boil eggs. Boiling eggs seems easy enough, let the eggs boil for about five to ten minutes let them cool in the water for about another fifteen minutes. Well, I don’t know what was going on in my mind at the time, but for some reason the eggs didn’t boil quite the right way. I called my mom to see if there was any way to “re-boil” the eggs and she suggested putting them in the microwave for about twenty or so seconds. I take the eggs out of the microwave and I try to peak into the egg to see if the yolk had been cooked. As I peer into the egg all of a sudden there is this huge “pop” sound and the next thing I know there is half cooked yolk all over my face, my hair and on my counter-top. Needless to say, my face had been quite close to the egg when it exploded. Oh, and I had been on the phone with my mom during the whole debacle and the funny thing was she didn’t seem the least bit concerned when she heard me yelp through the other end of the phone.

Jessica’s infamous cooking moments involved her attempting to make pasta salad. Apparently she did not know to keep the lid off of the pot while the pasta was cooking, which ultimately led to the water boiling over. One of the main reasons this happened was because she did not realize that after the water began to boil she was supposed to turn the burner down to medium, and because there are no “medium” labels on our oven she was completely perplexed as to what number constituted as medium. Fortunately enough Jessica had been on the phone with her mom as well when this started happening. As Jessica was screaming “Oh my gosh what do I do!? What do I do?!” her mom calmly told her to “pour some of the water out of the pot” while Jess continued to freak out.

Needless to say, we overcame our cooking disasters with the help of our mothers, and today I can now proudly say that I can make mean guacamole, an utterly delightful pomodoro sauce and cook non exploding boiled eggs.

An in-depth look into the mind of a college student...

This past week bloggers I am sorry to inform you was not the most exciting in apartment 328. The reason for this is because it was the beginning of “h-e-double hockey stick” week, also known as testing week, when literally every single one of your classes has a test scheduled for that same week. (I don’t know if I am actually allowed to curse in this blog due to the fact that it is for a class, so I will just refer to this week as h-e-l-l from now on).

It comes without saying that this particular week at the start of the school year can be a real slap in the face for students, especially freshman, who seem to remain in “summer mode” four weeks after school begins. Classic symptoms students will normally endure during these said “h-e-l-l” weeks include; sleepless nights, countless hours in the library (with little to no human contact), stress zits, baggy eyes and random states of delirium. These states of delirium are actually the end of result from all these symptoms combined. These particular moments can include outbursts of singing/humming random songs, giddiness, uncontrollable laughter and long periods of staring off into space.

I was witness to one such moment of loopy-ness this past Wednesday night when my roommate fell victim to it. After spending all afternoon in the library and then another hour and a half in a group project meeting, I returned back to my apartment assuming I would find no relief because I still had to finish studying for my test the next day. O contray bloggers, I found quite the bit. I don’t know why I had not seen this coming prior to my return home. It so happened that during my group meeting Jessica had actually sent me a text message that stated, and I quote:
“Whatcha gonna do with all that junk…all that junk inside your trunk…”
Now for those of you that may not know, those are the infamous lines to “Baby Got Back”, a classic hit of the 90’s that seems to have defined our generation. This was only the beginning of Jessica’s state of delirium.

It seems that my arrival back into the apartment was such a relief for her because she was actually in contact with another human being. As I was sitting at my desk trying to study, I was caught off guard by a particular someone who was sitting on the floor in my doorway. She had made it to the point where as much and as hard as she tried to study nothing seemed to sink in, which was probably one of the worst feelings a student can get because it only adds to their stress level. It comes without saying that the next fifteen minutes were filled with uncontrollable laughter as Jessica attempted to study at the foot of my doorway saying the most random things and even more importantly in different accents. It seems that laying on the floor studying seemed like a logical decision for Jessica to make since she didn’t feel like she was getting anything done by sitting in a chair. Go figure, the floor is the new desk. It seems that Jessica’s exhaustion got the better of her delirium, and in a state similarly reminiscent to a zombie she sat up from my doorway and went straight to bed.

I could continue writing about other states of delirium I have seen my friends and prior roommates in, but since I am currently in the midst of my “h-e-l-l” week, I have to go finish studying for two tests I have this week. Below I have included a link that might be useful to students managing stress and time management issues. It just so happens that TCU offers Academic Workshops to deal with these particular issues and below lists the various topics and dates in which these seminars are held. Enjoy and Good luck with testing!

http://www.acs.tcu.edu/Workshops.htm

The Art of Falling Gracefully

Every one of us has at least one single moment in their life that constitutes as the most embarrassing. Now, obviously since there is a “Door of Blunders” in my apartment, it is natural to assume that there has been many of these particular moments in my life. Well, bloggers, you’re in for a treat because I am going to share with you a particular moment that happened this week that shot to the top of my most embarrassing moments list.

Some of you may not know that I love to work-out, my family is very active and I like to stay fit, because who really wants to be shown up by their mom and dad. This particular afternoon I went to the TCU Campus Rec during what we students call “rush hour”, when every single cardio machine on the second floor is taken and there is lines to use the weight machines. I tend to usually warm-up around the indoor track, which for some of you they may not go to TCU, circles around the indoor basketball courts as well as the weight room. My warm-up was great, feeling good, rocking out to music, I was ready to go. As I round the last corner, the unthinkable happens, I trip and fall face forward onto the track. In literally nanoseconds, I leap up and fortunately enough for me there was another girl running behind me. I wish there was a picture of the shock and disbelief that ran across her face when I looked up at her. I popped as fast as lightning, secretly hoping that no one besides the girl behind me saw my graceful fall. As soon as I got up, I said to her, “Please just run with me,” as we ran the last corner of the track.

Now bloggers, this moment might not seem as mortifying if you have never been to our universities recreational facilities. Half of the cardio machines on the second floor face forward toward the entrance of the rec. My trip, or gracefully falling to the floor as I like to call it, occurred exactly in the spot that was directly in front of every single person on the cardio machine. (I have enclosed a picture in my post to help provide a better visual). I don’t know about you during your workouts, but come on who actually watches the itty-bitty TV screen in front of the machine, admit it your eyes will and do wander. Imagine now bloggers that you’re getting your heart-rate up on a stationary machine and FLASH in the corner of your eye you see a bright blue shirt stumble onto the track. You’re going to look!!

Now back to the story, as the girl run besides me I literally run past the cardio machines with my head hung as low as I possibly could. Not only had my ego been badly badly bruised, but I had a rug burn from the track on the top of my right knee. Yes, I had a boo-boo on my knee that stung for the entire rest of my workout. What’s that? Oh yes, I did not shy away from finishing my work-out, one little fall could never keep me from pumping iron.

The best part of it all was the girl who so generously ran beside me praised me for how quickly I got back up from the fall. Well, I told her, if I had stayed on the floor for any longer people would have thought there had been something seriously wrong with me. In hindsight, maybe I should have, said I twisted an ankle or something, but it is my philosophy to always laugh over the embarrassing things in life. No one is perfect and it is these types of moments in life that just make you sit back and smile.

Above I have enclosed a picture of the TCU Rec from the floor of the weight room. I hope this helps give a better visual of the horrific ordeal I endoured. That’s all for now bloggers! Have a good week!

Blackened "Smoked" Salmon

Hello Bloggers! I have spent countless hours these last two days trying to figure out what on earth I could possibly blog about for an entire semester, and suddenly it struck me as fast as a bug hits a car windshield. My roommate Jessica and I have a door in our apartment where we stick post-it notes with little excerpts of, in lameness terms, ‘idiotic’ things we do. It suddenly occurred to me that I could write my blog about all the nonsense that my roommate and I have gotten into in the past week as well as the future mishaps that will most definitely occur in the coming months.
Let me preface this blog by saying that by no means am I nor my roommate ‘stupid’ girls, we are actually quite brilliant if I do say so myself. I mean we did get into college, wooh Go Frogs! Our brilliantness aside, I am notorious for being clumsy; whether it comes to running into stationary objects or accidentally smoking out our apartment (more details to come). My roommate is an angel for putting up with me, but she is infamous for locking herself out of our room and even better getting lost in the crazy maze of an apartment complex we live in called the GrandMarc. The lives of my roommate and I are by no means mundane and average, we keep ourselves pretty entertained, and I hope that our stories will keep you entertained as well.
Our adventure this week began on Monday when I had the brilliant idea of cooking blackened salmon for dinner. This past summer I lived on my own and became quite a decent chef, I am by no means saying I am the best but I do love to cook. Cooking requires a variety of skills, most important of all is patience. Well to be completely honest, I haven’t yet quite fully developed this particular skill.

Blackened salmon seems easy enough to cook right? Just defrost the salmon, sprinkle some different spices on the fish, plop it into the cooking pan and wop bam boom in two to three minutes your salmon is done!

Just my luck it took me probably about 20 minutes to cook this piece of fish.

The problem began with of course my impatience at waiting for the fish to defrost. (I was starving can you honestly blame a person for being impatient). After about five to seven minutes the fish “felt” seemingly defrosted except that the two pieces of fish were still frozen together. You’d think that would have been a sure fire sign that they had not been defrosted enough. Ingeniously, I decided to use a knife to split apart the two pieces of fish. Future cooks out there, note to self, when working with frozen meat do not do this. In the process of separating the fish, the knife somehow got stuck in the fish and woops it sliced my right handed pinky finger (which currently is swollen and looks like the Michelin tire mascot.) When I say ‘sliced’ bloggers, I don’t mean that my finger was sliced off just cut pretty badly with profuse bleeding that took about five minutes to stop.

Once my pinky finger was properly attended to, I set back to working on cooking my dinner.
During the small crisis of finger cutting, the fish still had not defrosted quite so well, but with my impatience I decided what the heck I might as well just cook it as is. What should have taken me minutes to cook took ten times the amount of time. The prolonged cooking process led to me ultimately smoking out me and my roommate’s apartment. I should have realized this when my roommate and I both started coughing hysterically, but I assumed it was just the mass amount of spices I had used to marinate the fish. Long story short, the entire apartment filled up with smoke and I had to prop open the apartment door, open all the windows, turn on all the fans and gradually the smoke started to ease out of our apartment.

On the positive side, my roommate and I both had quite a laugh, in between coughing, and had another story to put on the ‘Door of Blunders.’