The King

My husband and I were having a debate about cookies the other day. I'm not going to say anymore about the debate other than it was about cookies because I don't want to sway any of your answers, but I thought I'd open up the forum to more opinions than ours. The question to be answered is:

If you were to say that one cookie is The King of All Cookies, what would it be?

I'm interested to hear your responses.

OSU in the Springtime

My favorite thing about spring here is not that we finally get to see the sun. It also isn't that the rhododendrons, which are twice my height seem to be covered with fountains of pink, red, and white flowers. It also isn't that people around here are happier. My favorite thing about spring here is that they open the windows in the music building. I'm not sure if that's because the cooling system isn't very good or just that they like the fresh air, but I love it. As I walk or ride my bicycle past the building wonderful music is pouring out of it. You can hear it all around and even into the quad in front of the library. It's like a little piece of culture as I go about my business. Sometimes it's a jazz band, other times it's a choir, today it was some sort of xylophone music. I love everything I hear.

A plan? What plan?

I thought we had a plan for next year, but as it turns out that's just what my husband told me to get me to stop worrying about it or something like that. I found out a couple days ago that my father-in-law's PA called Loma Linda again, (which is what I wanted him to do in the first place, but my husband wasn't sure he wanted that) and when he called the guy there chuckled and said he was "working on it." I'm not sure what that means, but what is really important in this story is that hearing that seemed to perk up my husband. Like he would really want to go to LL if he were accepted. So net result, we have no plan. We wont have a plan until at the very soonest the end of the month. Oh well, at least I have tons of stuff to do until then!

Getting the Grade

Well I spent 11 hours on Saturday writing the "paper" for my Women's Study class. Actually it's writing on a web site. Well actually it's just adding the paper in a multiple page format onto my blog for the class. The part that took me the 11 hours on Saturday was just the writing though. Oh the agony! It made me want to bang my head against the wall, even though I really enjoyed the topic before writing about it. When it's done maybe I'll link to it for anyone to read, although I'm not sure how many of you are interested in knowing about vacuum impregnation of fruits and vegetables with nutrients, or edible food packaging, or women in China. (Yes all three are in the paper.) At any rate I spent so much time on Saturday writing the thing! I was really upset because it was moderately good weather and my husband got to go climbing and it was mom's weekend this weekend so there were mom's all over campus and mine wasn't there. So I spent some of that 11 hours pouting. Today I got on blackboard and found out that the prof used the stuff I have submitted so far as an example for the class! That's kind of exciting!

On the plus side I got my pilot plant midterm back today. I got a 90.5% on it! Then I was looking at my answer and how I got marked off on something and that I thought it wasn't fair. The question said, "Interpret your answer if you....." so I went up and asked the professor what he meant by interpret and he told me to find the final spore count of the can after the process. I did that. Then I was marked down for not writing that "the process would not be sufficient for legal standards." I did, however, write that the final spore count would be 2.2x10^-9 (which doesn't meet legal standards.) Since the prof had told me during the test only to find the final count I felt I shouldn't have gotten points taken off. He agreed and now my score is: 92%. Ok so that wasn't that big a deal, but I just like to be right. OK? Long story short, when I graduate in 7 weeks you can all trust me to process your canned food and not kill you. I know what I'm talking about.

I made it

Well, this week I had three midterms, two lab write-ups and one research paper to do. What a week! It's Saturday and I'm in the library writing my research paper. I'm a little behind, but as its for my online course and it's due date is "during week 5" I consider Saturday to be part of week five and I'm calling it good. My husband is out climbing and I'm pouting because I have to be inside writing a stupid paper. Well the paper isn't stupid, just the fact that I have to write it is stupid. I HATE writing. Oh well.

Yesterday we went looking at cars and it made me sort of upset. We have $8,000 from the insurance when the Jeep was totalled. I figured this is a lot of money and we wont have any problem finding a car. Here's what we want (and by we I mostly just mean Dan):

• Four doors (that one's my preference)
• Hatch-back or wagon style (Dan's preference)
• Toyota matrix or something vibe (but yesterday we looked at a VW wagon that was really pretty)

Other than that we're not that picky. Dan doesn't want automatic and I don't care either way on that one. I just want to look at it and think that I'm driving a pretty car. I gravitate towards the blue ones. There was this one yesterday that was a steele blue color and it was magnificent. Anyway whenever we go to look at cars enevitably a salesman comes out to talk and when he finds out the money we're planning on spending its almost like they want to walk away because they know their commission will be lousy. Kind of depressing. I know that Dan's totally given up on buying one at a dealership because we don't have enough money. Oh well.

Yesterday we went to a little party that Dan's workmates/friends were throwing. As we would be eating their food I thought we should bring something. I whipped up a little cherry pie (I just used the cherry filling you buy at the store for the middle). When I brought it over everyone gushed over it and said how it's been so long since they've had a pie from scratch and how amazing it was. I just said thanks instead of giving up the secret that the only thing I did was make the crust. At least they liked it!

Something wonderful

Yesterday as I woke up the first thing that went through my head was, "Dum, du, dum, dum duuuuuuumm. This is the day I have two of the hardest midterms I've had since coming to OSU. All in one day. This can't be good." But then I went and took a shower. When I got out I had this thought go through my head, "Something wonderful is going to happen to me today." I just couldn't shake that feeling. Not even after handing in my first test feeling a little down trodden with a sore finger from writing as fast and furious as I could. I still felt something wonderful was going to happen. And you know what, it did! Was it that I did awesome on my two tests because I'm a genious? Well, no. I mean I probably did decent and I'll be satisfied with my grades, but awesome? I think not.

I got home after working for 2.5 hours on my second test of the day absolutely exhausted! I just crashed on the sofa. When my husband came home (keep in mind that he had a midterm that morning) he said, "If you'll make out a list I'll go grocery shopping for us." My heart was practically singing! Then he topped that off by saying, "I'll pick up a $3 pizza from the grocery store too so you don't have to cook." Right then and there I knew he loved me. What made the whole evening wonderful though was that he did all the laundry last night! He stayed up to do it while I went to bed! Now that my friends, is romance! He is my something wonderful.

On My Way

I just got my grade back from independent study for my physics class! I got a B! YEAH! I'm well on my way to graduation!

The Roses are Red and Other News

Let's start with the other news:
This weekend my husband recieved a letter from Loma Linda saying that he's been put on the unranked waitlist and we may or may not get an acceptance anytime between now and, get this, AUGUST 3rd. Surprisingly I took this news much worse than Daniel. I flipped my lid. This is merely because I've been holding off on my plans until we figure out what's happening with him. After calming down and discussing it at length for two full days and also a little prayer we came up with our plan of action. (We have a plan!) We're definitely going to plan on going to Logan in July. Dan wanted to take his name off the waitlist today, but his parents prudently pointed out that there's no reason to burn the bridge right now. The official deadline for applicants to declare where they're going is May 15th and the most movement off of the waitlist onto the acceptance list will be within that week so we'll wait to the end of that week and then Dan will strike the match and we wont look back. Here's the reasoning behind the plan:

• Dan can get research experience this year which will make him a much stronger applicant than last year.
• After going through the process once he sees where he may have not presented himself the strongest and can correct that next year.
• We'll have time to take off and just work and be together.
• In my mind, medical school is a big comittment. I didn't want my husband making that comittment just because it's the next step in his plan. He should be excited and anticipating doing this. He's not excited about Loma Linda. He didn't want his dad's PA to call to see if he can influence the comittee any. That seemed weird to me because I know that if it were for UW he would TOTALLY want him to do that.
• In 30 years from now taking one year off wont be that detrimental to us. In fact we may look back on this year as one of the best things for us.

That's just a few of the reasons and they're not explained very well, but it's what I could get out right now. I can't tell you how excited I am to have a plan!

In other, other news:
I was in class (full of seniors majoring in Food Science) when the topic of discussion was on Ash content in food. Keep in mind that we had already discussed the processing of ashing the previous lecture. The process goes like this. Burn the food product so that no organic matter is left in it. Then determine the difference in weight from beginning to end and that's your ash component. (Sorry for the explination, but it's important to the story.) The conversation this particular day went a little like this:

Prof: "We are always talking about ash this and ash that, but what is Ash? Does anyone know?"
Girl #1: "Carbon."
Prof: "No. Carbon is burned out as part of all the organic matter."
Girl #2: "Carbohydrates."

To which everyone laughed. These girls are SENIORS in food science and they don't know that organic matter by definition is composed of carbon. Also they don't know that CARBohydrates are made up of carbon! I couldn't believe it!

I have to go to class now so I guess I'm not going to post on the flowers on campus.

Ball of Bugs

I love that my husband does the dishes! He doesn't do them all the time, but he pulls his weight in that category. I'm so fortunate! The only drawback is that when he's done doing the dishes he takes the washcloth rings it out and leaves in on the side of the sink in a tight ball. I inevitably find it hours later or the next morning smelling of bacterial growth. Why doesn't he hang it up to dry? I don't want to criticize him because he just did the dishes. I want to encourage that sort of activity. It drives me nuts that he does this though. He's taken microbiology, he knows what can grow in a warm, moist environment. It's really gross. Do I just be quiet and learn to live with the fact that everytime he does the dishes I will just need to take that washcloth and put it in the laundry? Should I bring this up to him? I know it's really not that big a deal. It just grosses me out.

Crash

I realized yesterday that I've felt more stress than I thought I did. This is because yesterday I finished everything that really would keep me from graduating. After class I got home and crashed. I fell asleep at about 4 and didn't wake up until about 7, and I still had no trouble going to sleep at my regular time. I feel so liberated.

Refresh

Last weekend was AMAZING! And it gave me enough energy to catch this blog up with my life. So here goes:

• I realized this weekend that I was more excited to see my family than getting out of Corvallis or anything we were doing. The amazing part is that I was thinking of them as my family, not my husband's. I was excited to see everyone and just listen to their stories and hang out.
• The wedding was so much fun! Definitely not traditional, but when thinking of the bride and the groom, nobody would expect traditional. The weather was great and we just sat around on the river bed with a camp fire and ate amazing food. The downside is now I have to clean everything I brought because the smell of camp fire smoke filled my entire bag. The upside is that they had a side dish that was DIVINE! Pastry crust on the bottom with a cream cheese mixture above that and topped with broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. It was so good I made myself sick on it. Thinking back I should have asked for the recipe, but as I didn't know anyone there or who fixed it I wasn't inclined to ask.
• I have finally come to grips with not knowing about Loma Linda. The Logan plan is a good back-up and I like it because it's safe. Loma Linda could be fun though. The only downside is that I have no idea how to look for a food science job in California. On the other hand, I don't really HAVE to get a food science job. Maybe it would be nice to take some time off like genius, that way I could get my footings under me before I decide my next move.
• I was watching the food network yesterday (I only get to do this when my husband is busy with something else. For some reason his love of food only goes so far as eating it--not preparing it or knowing anything else about it. Maybe that's why he's so forgiving when I get thinking about other things while making dinner and mess it up.) Anyway, I was watching the food network yesterday and I decided that a new knife would be great! We got our knives that we have now for our wedding and they're nice, it's just that they're serrated which means that it doesn't cut just up and down. It's a hassle and I wish I had a really sharp knife for chopping veggies and the like.
• Today the weather was is so nice that I wore a dress to school. This is great! I love it. All except for the part that I burnt my chest just walking from my apartment to class. I guess it's time for SPF 50!
• I was thinking about money the other day and how I don't like to spend any of it now that I'm married and sometimes I blame it on me being married. I realized this weekend, that's not true. I wouldn't be blowing money on fun stuff right now even if I weren't married. Granted when I was single it was easier to just blow $40 on a really REALLY cute shirt, but I only did that if I had the money. I knew if I did that how long it would be to the next paycheck and if I could make it on the money left over. If I didn't know all that stuff I wouldn't buy it. That's just how I was raised. You only spend money if you are really sure where its coming from and that you have it already. That's how my whole family is (well, not my dad, as much).
  
• Speaking of how I was raised, I think my sister is right about my need to do everything for this class because it's a list. I love lists. I love checking things off lists. The best thing is to put everything you do in a day on a list and then checking them off. The worst feeling is not getting to check something off. It gives me just as much satisfaction to check of, say, "eat breakfast", as much as "write 10 page research report."
• Now that the sun is out I'm bringing my houseplants out to see the sun (I have a cactus, a spiky plant that I don't know the name of, a primrose, and ranuculs). They all looked cute on the front steps of our apartment. One of the best feelings in the world is to discover some new growth on plants that you've been taking care of. My mom sticks with flowering plants, but I like my cactus just as much as my primrose, maybe a little more since it has been with me longer.
  

That's about it for now I guess.

Leaving

This weekend I'm leaving Corvallis!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This has made me so overcome with joy that I'm going nutty. I have about three things to do on campus and I'm going to blow them off to go home and pack. Also I'm going to clean. Here is my opinion on the condition to leave a house/apartment in. I hate coming back from a trip to a messy house. Usually I don't even want to be coming home at all so coming back to a mess that I have to clean up is the pits. That is why the day I leave for a trip (big or small) I run around like a mad person cleaning everything. My husband is not of this same frame of mind. What are your opinions?

Wine Pairing

So in sensory evaluation class today we have a guest lecturer talking about wine pairing (that means what wine goes with what food). I informed my prof that I don't drink and she said, "That's ok, just go and enjoy the session." This means that I don't have to drink. That wasn't really my concern though as I knew I would be drinking whatever she said. My question is who would think that someone that doesn't drink and is never around alcohol would "enjoy" a lecture about wine pairing? I have no idea what it means to have a wine tannin be over-powering. How does a "nutty" wine taste? Or a buttery wine? I know what grapes taste like and I know what butter tastes like, but I assume that's not really what the wine tastes like. If it were, that would be gross. Now we're going in for an activity, which I assume is drinking wine, describing it and eventually matching it with food. At least I can eat the food so I guess all is not lost.

Mediocre

I'm taking this class pass/fail because I need the bacc. core requirement to graduate, but I don't need any more credits than I already have. You'd think this would make me relax about the class. It's a 100 point class so I only need to get 70 of the points. I thought this would be great because I wouldn't have to work as hard. Now I am finding out that I have this insane drive to do the checklist of things the professor posts each week. This would mean that I'm getting a 100% so far. I sometimes have to stop myself from doing the work and tell myself I'll get the same grade if I get a 70% as if I got a 100% so I should just slack off. It surprises me that I'm having trouble slacking off. I would never have predicted this outcome.

Is it really that odd?

So I was waiting for my lab to start today in the student lounge in our department with a group of about six of my classmates. A friend there that likes to bring up my religion brought it up again. This wasn't a big deal. Today though somebody started talking about how one of their Mormon friends got married and she couldn't go to the ceremony. Then someone said, "I heard that once you get married you wear special Mormon underwear." To that I replied, "It has nothing to do with getting married, but yes we do have special underwear." After that comment complete silence filled the room. I then said, "It's not that wierd, I'm wearing it now and you wouldn't even know unless I told you." Complete silence again and then a girl said, "Awkward moment." Then we just changed the subject. Man that made me feel really weird and then frustrated at my inability to explain myself. I knew they all thought I was some sort of sketchy person that wore weird undies. After thinking about it though I still think they shouldn't have thought it was so weird. Like Heather, my friend said, nuns wear special clothing to show their devotion to God and their covenants with him. I also though about the Jewish religion that wears special clothing to show respect for and devotion to God. The Sikh religion has five different articles of clothing that they wear as part of their religion. I'm sure that none of the kids in the room are bothered by any of those items. They understand them because they've encountered them before and they can see them. The only thing that makes them think its weird for me is that they've never seen it. So my devotion is on the inside not the outside. Is that really all that odd? I don't think so. Do you?

Because I don't.

Drivin' Me Nuts!

So just about every major life decision has been dropped in my lap in the last year. I got married last summer. Also now we need to decide what we're going to do about moving, going to medical school, taking a year off, having a family, and on top of that I need to take 19 credits successfully, and finish my extra work in order to graduate.

None of this would really be all that bad if I could just make the decision and live with it. The problem comes in the indecision. We found out yesterday that we probably wont hear anything from Loma Linda until the middle of May! The national deadline to declare what school you're going to attend is May 15th and we wont even hear from Loma Linda until the middle of May. Plus, we're deciding if we want to take the year off and spend it in Logan so Dan can get some research experience. That would look good on his application next year. One minute I want to go to Loma Linda and he wants to stay in Logan. Just when I decide that it may be a good thing to go to Logan, he's really wanting to get accepted to Loma Linda and head there! And I'm supposed to go to school like this? I don't think so.

Anyway I don't have time to think about all that today because I have tons of schoolwork to do. Maybe the school work is keeping me sane. I can't think about how I have no concrete plans for my life after June because getting to June will be hard enough.

The Goal

I just read my sister's post about goals and it made me think. I may not necessairly know what my sister's goals are right now, but I am always inspired by her drive for them. My goals right now are pretty concrete, I know what they are and I know why I made them that way. My frustration is that I'm not as driven. I have these great goals, but right before I get to the finish line I'm ready to give up and scrap the whole thing. I feel like since I got back from Spring Break I've worked as hard as I possibly can both academically, and emotionally, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I can't float up for a breather because if I do something wont get done and not doing just ONE of those things could be the difference between achieving my goals and failure. I hate this situation. I like my work, I like my goals, I like where I am, I just don't like the pressure to be so driven. It feels like I might miss something pretty important on my way to success. I'm not sure what that it, or even if it exists, but I'm still upset about it. Oh well, at least it's semi-sunny today and I'm wearing a cute outfit.

Who wants that anyway?

Well yesterday my husband got a rejection from Creighton. Who wants to go there anyway? We're down to the last straw and I'm starting to get nervous.

The Computer

So I'm taking a women's study course. I have to if I want to graduate. At first I wasn't really happy about this for many reasons. I will list them below:

• It's only a bacc core class and I don't feel this particualr category should be mandatory. That or I feel that they should have taken something from my BYU credits and said I didn't have to fulfill this requirement.
  
• I know that my personal views on what I want to do with my life and what is the best course of action as far as the family/carrer decision is concerned are drastically different than the major population of the women's study program, if not OSU in general.
• I would really rather NOT debate these views with agressive people. I have learned, especially in the last few years in college, it is better to steer clear of the agressive "debators" when talking about subjects they are passionate about. Perhaps also it is best to steer clear of the debate when its something I am passionate about.
• I have to post comments on the disscussion board for EVERY CHAPTER. This means I have to write personal insights, which leads me to believe that there will be no avioding a debate about my views.

So these are all negatives to this class, but I am keeping an open mind about it too. There are several things that have caught my attention and I am looking forward to. They are as follows:

• Our textbook is all about questioning whether being technologically advanced really means having an advanced society. This is a question that has been presented to me before, but never really vocalized so clearly and precisely. I'd like to hear more about these theories.
• Also we have six projects to complete that use technology in different ways. At first I was unhappy about this, but then I realized that these will be easy projects and they're just designed to get us into the technology and explore. That's easy enough. Plus, they're things I either already know how to do or have always wanted to know how to do.
• The text has a whole section focusing on technology in the home. In the introduction it talked about how there has been great advances in home technology ( something as basic as the washing machiene) to help with housework, and yet women still spend as much time cleaning the home now as they did 50 years ago. Why is that? I'd really like to know that answer.

So anyway, the jury's out on this whole class. I'll tell you what I think later. I probably shouldn't have used bullets for this, but oh well.

The Pope, The Love, The Let Down

Well, I haven't posted this past week because I was up in Puyallup looking after my two nieces while my family was in England. I will have to say that it was TONS of fun! I enjoyed myself immensely. I realized that you don't have to have things planned to have fun with kids/pre-teens, you just need to be creative. One day we went to the park and found a little stream. We decided it needed boats to float down it so we went home and made boats a couple of days later out of cardboard, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, popsicle sticks (yes we had to eat two popsicles each and that's why it took a couple of days to make the boat), glue, and wax paper. They were great fun!

Also I learned the real reason that Santa lives in the North Pole is to escape from the hammer head sharks. They can attack people and hurt them a lot/kill them, but they can't live in cold water. Naturally it follows that Santa is one smart cookie for living in the North Pole.

I also forgot to post earlier that I found out my friend Holly is getting married to her highschool sweetheart in September! YEAH! I hope I can attend!

Just a little tidbit, I found a lovely photo of the pope on my brother's fridge. Kind of confusing, but whatever.

Lastly, my husband heard back the final decision from UW the other day. He's an excellent candidate, but the competition was tough this year so they can't accept him or put him on an alternate list. What a let down! My initial, and childish reaction was, "UW is stupid! Who wants to go there anyway!" I almost cried on my train ride home, but I was surrounded by very chatty women so I didn't really get a chance to worry too much. Today, after digesting the news, my Sweetie said to me, "I didn't really feel like I was going to get in there. When I went to Loma Linda I really felt good about everything." So obviously we've moved our sights to California. (Not my favorite, but I'm pretty sure it's better than living in Nebraska. Although I've never lived in either place.) It would have been better to know about his thoughts and feelings earlier so I didn't invest so much energy in UW! I had already made plans in my head and I had to put them aside. Still I know that we're doing the right thing with our life and it will work out for the best no matter where we go. The worst part of the whole thing was that my family was out of the country so I couldn't call any of them!

Speaking of the train I was supposed to get from Tacoma to Albany at 7 pm last night. Guess what time I got in. 10pm! Yes, I was on the train from 2:30 to 10 yesterday. This is because we got stopped by all conceivable traffic. We stopped 5 times for freight trains to pass! Also we had to stop because a bridge had been lifted to let a tug boat through. For about an hour we had to go around 10 mph because we were following another stupid train. And to top it all off we had to stop because there was a woman laying on the tracks! Well, I'm glad we were able to stop on that last one, but all the others I could have skipped. At least I was sitting by some fun and interesting people! Plus there was a lounge car where I bought some cranberry juice.

To end on a good note, I realized when I got home how much I love my husband. Last night he was pretty much as down as he could be, and yet he was still the greatest person ever in my eyes. He is so great! I love him so much and I'm so glad to know I made the right decision when I married him!