My Review of The Big Bang Theory Singing Soft Kitty Plush

Originally submitted at CBS

Soft Kitty,Warm kitty, Little ball of fur. Happy kitty, Sleepy kitty, Purr purr purr. The Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty Plush From: The Big Bang Theory Labs Prescribing MD: Sheldons Mom RX: #355717 Contains: 1 Soft Kitty Plush Indications: For when you're sick Instruction: Press Big Bang Theory Soft K...

The Big Bang Theory Singing Soft Kitty Plush

warm kitty, soft kitty...

By Laura from Salt Lake City, UT on 12/21/2011

5out of 5

Pros: Great gift, Cute, Fun
Best Uses: Teens, Adults, Older Children, Young Children
Describe Yourself: Education Oriented, Single, Graduate student, Student
Was this a gift?: Yes

soft kitty...what can i say? the moment i saw it, i knew i had to have it. i got it for my birthday and i love it. even my friend who had never seen TBBT loved it (i'm happy to say that she is now hooked on the series). other reviewers have said that it's hard to operate but i had no problems figuring it out. it's a wonderful gift!

(legalese)

cats!

as i mentioned in my last post, we have 3 stray cats that live in our area. i started leaving food out a while ago and now they're pretty much regulars. we've named them and managed to take pictures of all of them as well. they're fun to watch and help me not miss my own little fluff ball back home. (note: we haven't managed to get close enough to determine if any of these are male or female so they all have gender neutral names)

this is spooky.  spooky was the first to come hang out at our house and now stops by just about every afternoon when we get out of class. spooky is also the bravest of the cats. the first time he came by, i had the back door open while i was in the kitchen filling up the bowl with water and he took a few steps inside! he'll also let us sit in front of the door and watch him eat. he probably thinks we're insane. spooky is my favorite because he reminds me of my old kitty, ebony. he also has a bite out of the top of his left ear, probably from a fight, so i just want to keep the little bugger so he can have a safe home.

this is our latest addition, teenie (alternatively called tiny). we first saw him near another house down the street from us and he looked like a little kitten. now that we've gotten a closer look at him, he's definitely not as tiny as we first thought. he's not as brave as spooky is. he'll let us get close but you have to be really sneaky about it. if he does get scared and run off, he'll come back a few minutes later. we also think he may be the offspring of the next cat.

 roly-poly is the largest and the most skittish of the 3 cats. that's why this picture is so bad. this is the closest we could manage to get to him. he also only shows up to eat later at night and will run off if you use flash. he will bolt if he so much as suspects that you might be looking at him. i think he may have been a  house cat at one point but was probably abused. he likes to sleep behind the house that's next to us so you can sometimes see him when you're coming back from class if you're quiet enough.

our last visitor is not a cat. robin hood is a fox who has been by twice. apparently foxes also like to eat cat food. we haven't managed to get a picture of him yet but i'll post it as soon as we do.

this one's for heather

i feel like i should write something but there hasn't been much going on to write about. life has basically been filled with tests, tests, cats, and, oh yes, more tests. i guess i can talk about the cats. BUT FIRST i need to talk about heather.

heather is a whiney little brat my bcff which, if you recall stands for "best chemistry friend forever." she kindly informed me that there is a severe lack of mentions of her in this blog. so here it is. AN ENTIRE POST DEDICATED TO YOU. congratulations. you are the first person to have one of my blog posts dedicated to her. you even beat out my mom to that privilege.

most of you are probably wondering "who the crap is this heather person?" i will tell you.

name: heather marie (last name omitted so that anyone who sees her awesomeness will have a harder time stalking her. although you can email me if you really, really want to stalk her and i'll give you her address)

date of birth: may 31

astrological sign: gemini

chinese zodiac sign: ox

origins: utah

religion: eh, no thanks

occupation: does stuff with xrays, MRIs and other imaging stuff from doctors.

major: double major, thank you very much. biology and anthropology

guilty pleasure: katy perry

likes: coffee, me, gourmandise, trashy celeb magazines

dislikes: chemistry, rhianna, our quant analysis TA, CHEMISTRY

significant other: well, me but she's filling the gaping whole i left with some guy named jesse. whatever.

favorite color: i actually don't know. if i had to guess, i'd say green.

favorite ice cream: i got her ben & jerry's one time...i think it was the coffee heath bar crunch. i could be wrong, though.

hobbies: visiting coffee shops with me and critiquing them (based on the quality of coffee/hot chocolate, quality of other patrons, supply of trashy celeb magazines, music playing)

obviously, this is not everything there is to know about heather. just the stuff i can think of right now. so there you go. i hope your day has been brightened.

the help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

i'm still not sure how i feel about this book. it was decent but it definitely was not as earth-shattering as some seem to think. it is definitely NOT on the level of "to kill a mockingbird." i feel like the author wanted to write a book about every controversial issue during the time period. what she managed to do was to touch on a lot of things but none of them very deeply. the ending felt abrupt and too convenient. i was honestly expecting this to be a tragedy that would have me crying but that definitely did not happen. i think my review of this book would have been better if i had not had such high expectations from the start. as just a work of fiction it is good enough but not as some great social commentary.

View all my reviews

one month later...

so much for keeping this updated while traveling. oops! i didn't realize just how tiring it is to drive across country in 3 days, especially through some of the more "different" areas of the country (ex. missouri). but now i'm here in georgia and i've been loving it! it's the weirdest feeling but i feel like i've known many of my classmates my whole life and not for just a few weeks. i feel like i just belong here. i haven't even really had a problem with being homesick except for the first day after my parents left. i've just been too busy to dwell on how much i miss home.
i feel like i should be complaining about how busy and hard school is but quite honestly, i'm not that stressed. i'm having the time of my life out here and i find the classes quite enjoyable. i'm glad that i got my bachelor's in chemistry before starting, though, and did more than the minimum requirements of prerequisite courses. it's made things a WHOLE lot easier, especially in biochem and anatomy/pathophysiology. the rest of my courses are pretty easy thanks to my experience in the field (thank you gibsons!). i'm just a little nervous that having things too easy right now will make me lazy for when things get harder in the future. but i'll deal with that when it comes.
besides school, i stay busy by getting used to the city and settling in with a new group of friends. i'm used to being fairly antisocial because i knew that i already had all my friends and i knew i could get together with them whenever i wanted. i don't have that luxury here so i have to force myself out of my comfort zone. otherwise, it will just be me dealing with myself all day every day and that is a good way to drive myself insane.
i miss and love everyone back home! i enjoy getting emails and letters, even if i don't reply with lengthy novels as my mother has come to find out. i know i don't keep in touch as much as she'd like but i figure that's a good sign because it means i'm establishing myself here and not having homesickness hold me back.
i'll try to write again later this week. no tests for the P1 students so we're partying all week! (not really, mom. don't worry. i'm not drinking or anything.) keep safe everyone!

KITTEHS!

so basically i'm completely emotionally drained after today. plus i have to be up in roughly 6 hours to drive 10-12 hours tomorrow. yaaaay. i leave you with this piece of adorableness (wow, spell check recognizes that as a word) to help ease the pain of my leaving.

i think i need a new town

one more day to go until i leave.
last night i went out to dinner with some of my close friends to say goodbye and then tonight i went to red mango with another who was in wyoming yesterday. i also said goodbye to everyone at work today.
i'm pretty proud that i managed to hold off the tears for as long as i did. but as soon as i heard natalie start sniffling when she was hugging me, i lost it. pretty much i've been crying on and off ever since. the one blessing in all of this is that i've been too busy to make myself too nervous or panicky.
i'm sure i'll have another post tomorrow night with more tears and then i'll try and take pictures and update while on the road.
one quick thing: if you look up at the top of this page, right under the banner, it has a couple links, "the posts" and "the muffin." i can add more pages to the blog but i don't know what to put there! if anyone has ideas, let me know. i know some people put lists of things they want to do during their life but honestly my list is pretty short and pathetic right now. maybe a list of books i own and need to read? or pictures of something? i don't know. i'll ponder it. maybe a calendar so my mom will know what i'm up to all the time. :p

the demon girl

Demon Girl by Penelope Fletcher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


i'm torn on what to give this book. for starters, the concept is AMAZING and for the most part the storyline and characters are intriguing. you start off thinking it's going to be the same old love triangle with the girl whining about how hard it is to have two boys love you and blah blah blah but rae is actually a really strong character and you can see her feelings for both boys, making her seem more sincere. one of the smaller details i thought was really interesting was how fletcher mentions in passing that since humans were almost wiped out, they've had to set religions and races aside and band together, leading to one "religion" and a community where everyone has a similar skin tone with small variations. thinking about it, it's true that this would likely happen. i've never read anything like this in any other apocalyptic/dystopian novels.
okay, now for the bad stuff. as amazing as the story is, it's really frustrating to be in the middle of a good part and have to go back and re-read a sentence several times due to a grammatical/spelling error. i don't think fletcher had anyone edit this and if she did, she needs to fire them and find someone else for her next books. here are a couple of examples that really bothered me:
"There were few people wandering around who were not emancipated looking, and it was usually a sure sign the person was a Priest or related to one. Only they could afford to eat enough to be anything other than thin."
the word she means to use is EMACIATED. emancipated means a sort of freedom, no longer being constrained by custom or tradition.
"The class divided up into little clicks and Ro came over."
clicks are noises. cliques are groups of people who share common interests or personalities.
i'm not quite ready to give up on her and i'm hoping the next novel shows drastic improvements in her spelling and grammar, although the preview chapter at the end of this book doesn't seem promising.



View all my reviews

ready, set, don't go

fair warning: i will probably start to cry halfway through this post.
there haven't been any new posts lately because 1) i got deathly ill last tuesday (pretty sure it was west nile virus) and then 2) we have been running around like crazy trying to get things packed for georgia.
we rented a pod to put the majority of my world possessions in and my shoes are now on the trek across the country. i will be seeing them again in a little over a week.
i leave on sunday morning so this week is filled with a lot of last minute plans with friends and sad goodbyes. the first was today when i said goodbye to cody. my last words to him: don't kill anyone and don't get killed. his last words to me: you suck. i say that this exchange pretty much sums up our relationship though he says it doesn't. i'm going to miss everyone at the pharmacy like mad. i really feel like i have been adopted into this really weird but awesome family. i don't think they'll ever understand how much i appreciate them.
the hardest goodbyes will be with my real family but luckily those will be put off for another 2 weeks. unfortunately, this means 2 weeks of anticipating saying goodbye which is almost as hard. especially when my mom will burst into tears at random moments. it would be funny how she pretends to be irritated with me only to breakdown crying if it wasn't so sad and heartbreaking. it will be hard for a little while not to have my mom hovering over me and protecting me like she's always done but it will be good for me, i know.
aaaaaand here come the tears. luckily i've just about said everything i've wanted to say. the title of this blog post comes from a billy ray cyrus song (yes, i do realize it's BILLY RAY but it actually is an amazing song that makes me cry every time i hear it). anyway, i'll share it so all of you can cry, too. then i won't feel so lame.

penguileon (with pictures!)

roads

once again, very late post, although i DID take the picture on time for photo theme thursday. the theme was "roads" so i took a picture of the street i grew up on and the view i have lived with my entire life. the same street and view i will be leaving in less than a month. it's crazy that now i'm counting down by weeks instead of months. i remember when i was counting the years until i turned 18 and went to college. i am trying to make the most of these last few weeks while trying to finish up getting everything ready so forgive me if my posts are short or even non-existent.
the other day at work, i was helping cody compound and we started talking about random things (like we always do). our topic was global warming. i think global warming is a terrible thing and we need to stop polluting our planet but the scientist in me is kind of excited to see what evolutionary changes the climate will bring about. penguins, for example, will either need to evolve and adapt or die out. i think they'll have to learn to fly. cody thinks they'll have to be better at camouflage to make it in a world with more predators. and so, the penguileon was born.

penguileon: [peng-gwil-lee-uh n] noun - 
1. a hybrid bird species that displays a combination of characteristics from both the penguin and chameleon families. 
2. a unit of measure that is more than "a bucket load" but less than "a crap ton": He spent a penguileon on that bling.

fourth, photo, fiction

first things first, let's start off this post with a catch up from last week's photo theme thursday. part of the reason i put it off is also because i didn't have a good picture but i got one that i like tonight!

curved

i think this is the turtle firework that ended up getting flipped on its back.

i hope everyone had a safe and happy fourth of july. i had fun with my parents and sistah. there are more pictures and videos on my facebook page and also on my new google+ page (though i'm still trying to figure that out. side note: if you want an invite, send me your gmail address).

there is a tertiary reason for this post. i finished reading a pretty interesting book last week and thought i'd give it a little review.

blame

by Michelle Huneven

"Patsy MacLemoore, a twenty-eight-year-old history professor with a brand-new Ph.D. and a wild streak, wakes up in jail—yet again—after another epic alcoholic blackout. This time, though, a mother and daughter are dead, run over in Patsy's driveway. Patsy will the next decades of her life atoning for this unpardonable act. She goes to prison, sobers up, marries a much older man she meets in AA, and makes ongoing amends to her victims' family. Then, another piece of news turns up, casting her crime, and her life, in a different and unexpected light. Brilliant, morally complex, and often funny, Blame is a breathtaking story of contrition and what it takes to rebuild a life from the bottom up."

i wasn't really sure to think about this book when i first marked it "to-read." occasionally i do like to read something a little heavier, a little tragic (last year it was The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty) but alcoholism is a tough subject for me to read about or discuss without getting emotionally involved. i saw it at borders during their "going out of business" sale and got it for a bargain.

the first couple of chapters confused the heck out of me. first, i didn't realize that the point of view had changed from the girl, Joey, to the woman who Joey had met briefly, Patsy. second, it takes a little while to get used to Huneven's writing style. she doesn't use quotes or really any conventional markers when her characters speak. at the same time, though, once i got into the groove of things, i found i liked this style better. it allowed the words to flow more smoothly; it made the dialogue feel more natural.

after the first few chapters, i kept waiting for a BIG DRAMATIC MOMENT. guess what? it doesn't ever really come. you can tell what the "big surprise" basically is from the first of the book and it presents itself slowly. it doesn't slam into your face.

it wasn't until after i had finished the second to the last chapter that i understood what Blame was really about. it's not about an alcoholic, a drunk driver, a murdered family torn apart, it's none of those things that it appears to be on the outside. instead, it's really just a book about handling whatever life throws at us and about taking responsibility for our own actions. i think that's why i really liked this book in the end. it's not that it has some big happy ending - it's that patsy always takes responsibility for what she has done and learns from her past mistakes. she doesn't spend her time feeling sorry for herself or blaming others, although it is hard for her not to do so at times. it's also about learning to forgive ourselves and accept our own imperfections. every past experience has brought us to where we are today and we have the ability to change where we are in the future by the choices we make now. pardon the cliche, but it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey that gets you there. this life is all about learning and living to our fullest extent and i think patsy shows us how to do just that marvelously.

photo theme thur.....oh forget it

sorry, you people will have to deal without a blog post for a couple days while i recuperate from my nightmarish week.
in the meantime, this can entertain you:

photo theme thursday: wooden

wooden

yep, you got it. this thursday's theme is wooden. the above are my first real pair of high heels. i got them for 9th grade promotion, at which i was the valedictorian.  they're still my favorite pair of shoes to this day and they've had to be repaired multiple times because i've worn them so often.  in case you're still wondering how this fits with the "wooden" theme, it's because the soles are wooden.  they make an awesome clacking sound when you walk in them - not the horse kind of clacking sound but a "there's a girl coming down the hall in some hot shoes" kind of clacking sound.

anyway, i've been busy working all week.  it's been kind of crazy at the pharmacy with all the boys gone for a week but it's been fun to just have the girls again!  we get to have conversations that we could never have when the boys are around.  today, for instance, we talked about cervixes.  cervices?  whatever.  (not as weird as it sounds when you know that two of the girls are pregnant)

tonight i used my $14 for $7 groupon to gourmandise with my bcff (best chemistry friend forever; she's probably dying that i called her that considering that she's a biologist and really didn't like chemistry all that much), heather.  she and i took quant analysis together in the summer and were lab partners.  our project was about the amount of estrogens found in effluent waste water and tap water throughout the salt lake valley.  good news: no measurable amounts of estrogen found in tap water.  bad news: high levels of estrogen in waste water.  why does that matter?  i'll tell you why.  we're turning our male fish into girls!  and when there are only girl fish, there are no baby fish being made.  when there are no baby fish, soon there are no adult fish.  no adult fish, no birds that eat the adult fish, and so on.  second bit of good news: this CAN be reversible with proper water treatment.  anyway, you can read the entire report (references included) if you want.  i think it's pretty awesome.  that project is also what solidified my decision to go into research.  it made me realize that 1) i'm not completely incompetent when it comes to working in a lab and 2) there are other types of chemistry besides organic (le gasp!).

finally, i thought i would mention that the U of U Pharmacy Cup and Champagne Brunch is coming up, in case anyone has a spare $150 sitting around that they'd like to put to (semi) good use.

photo theme thursday: liquid

liquid

it's time for another round of photo theme thursday! this time our photo is about "liquid." the above picture was taken at huntington beach in long beach, california. some of my best friends and i went there in 2007 on spring break. it was one of the best times of my life and i am so glad that i went, even if it could get a little scary at times. i would go on another trip with my ACCESS girls in a heartbeat. the five of us that went on this trip are still really close.

this week has been quiet. i had a phone advisory session this morning with the associate dean of student affairs for UGA college of pharmacy. i'm all registered for my fall classes! i'm getting pretty excited now.

other than that, not much has happened. i got my grade back on my anthropology midterm and it was decent, 10 points above average. i have another assignment due monday morning and then my next midterm in a couple of weeks.

i should probably stop procrastinating now and actually clean up my room. it's kind of scary looking. plus i have presents to wrap! i've had 4 friends that have had birthdays recently, plus father's day is coming up! i'll tell you what i got my pops after sunday. fyi, it's pretty awesome. maybe i'll make some cookies tonight, too, like i've been trying to do for the past 4 months.

phd: the movie

two posts in one day?
please don't die of shock.
i just had to share this.  my favorite comic EVER (that i have actually linked to a few times on here) is being made into a movie.  fingers crossed that a screening will come to UGA!

PHD Movie Trailer from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

photo theme thursday: music

music

i know today's not thursday but i had a busy day yesterday so i'm posting it now.  yesterday's thursday challenge theme was "music" and so i started looking around my desk to see what i had that was music related.  that's when i realized how many headphones i have.  why do i have so many?  i'm not sure.  but somehow i can never manage to find a pair when i really want them.  do you also notice the recurring color theme?  guess what my favorite color is.  i'll give you a hint: it's not white.  i'm fairly certain a couple pairs of these headphones don't work anymore.  i searched my house and these are the ones i managed to find, but i think there may be another pair or two floating somewhere out there.

here's where i found these:

• purse
• backpack
• nightstand
• gym bag
• desk (2 pairs)
• car (2 of these are hands-free microphones/headphones, 1 came free with my new bb torch)

this makes me wonder why it's so hard to for me to ever find a pair of headphones.  i obviously keep them EVERYWHERE.  oh well.  at least i have plenty of spares.

as for why i didn't put this up yesterday, my excuse is that i had my first anthropology test right after work and then i passed out immediately after dinner.  the test wasn't too bad.  i will admit that i read some of the material about 5 minutes before it started while sitting in my car in the parking lot.  but a good chunk of it was just review of very, very basic genetics.  the kind of genetics you learn in the 8th grade.  we'll see how i did in a week or so.  if i got a good grade, i'm sure i'll post it up here.  if i don't post...well...then you know i'm too busy studying for the next exam to make up for this first one.  now, since it's my friday off, i'm going to do some fun and exciting things. like wash and vacuum my car.  oh yes, i'm a wild one.

buried alive

you may be wondering what i'm still doing up at almost 2:00 a.m. (of course, if you know me REALLY well, this should not surprise you). i can tell you what i'm not doing. i am not taking a huge stack of papers and folders from the pharmacy and working on turning them into a nifty little manual that anyone could follow when i leave. i am also not studying for anthropology as i just can't take anymore tonight. so i'm putting this all off until tomorrow....um, later today. because it is

TACKLE IT TUESDAY

really, though, i'll just be lucky if i get done sometime before august. in keeping with the theme of things, here's the before picture. please note that this is not everything i do at the pharmacy. oh no. it's just a small portion of it. don't ask me how i became in charge of any of this. i quite honestly don't know.

BEFORE:

DURING:

oh yes, and here's the anthropology i need to study as well.

maybe if i'm lucky i'll have another post next tuesday that will show everything completed. (yeah, right)

the daily post topic #148

the daily post put up the following question for bloggers to answer today:

Do you think people should have the right to commit suicide? What about euthanasia?

i took a bioethics class last fall and we spent a good deal of time talking about physician-assisted suicide (PAS), informed consent, euthanasia, and removing life-sustaining support.  the hardest part, and the most divisive part, of the issue was how to determine whether or not someone was competent enough to make the decision for removal of treatment/PAS.  i would err on the side of keeping the person alive if there was any doubt in my mind regarding whether or not they meant what they were saying, or if it was just being said in the heat of the moment.  others in my class said that they would remove treatment whether or not they knew the patient seriously meant it.  my reasoning is that i would rather have someone alive and mad at me then dead and wondering forever if i did the right thing.  but at the same time i believe people have the right to make that decision.  in my religion, we always stress the importance of free will and how the whole reason we are on this earth is to make our own decisions.  i don't believe in impeding anyone's right to any decision, as long as that decision is not harmful to someone else, just as i wouldn't want someone of another religion restricting my decisions to their own moral viewpoint.  i would let my patients make the decision for or against PAS but i would never be the one to administer it.  it is also my right to choose whether or not i would do it.  but they should have access to a physician who will do it.  i am just too attached to many of my patients.  it would be like euthanizing one of my family members.  i can't even imagine being in the place of a doctor who sees them every day and is that much closer to them.
anyway, i have included the paper i wrote on the topic as it goes into greater detail and includes references.  i would love to hear others' opinions, whether you agree or disagree.  i love to hear other viewpoints as it helps me see things a different way and i believe it helps me make better, more informed decisions.

photo theme thursday: home

home

thursday challenge is a fun blog idea site where every thursday they post a theme and you have to either find a picture you already have or take a new picture that goes along with it and post it on your blog.  this week's theme was "home."  this picture was taken a couple of winters ago around christmas.  i love this picture because our house looks exactly like those you see in christmas movies or martha stewart catalogs.  i also love when snow covers the lights by the sidewalk so it looks like the snow is glowing.

there's a secondary reason for this post.  today i went to see my urologist and he declared me normal!  blood work, x-rays, everything looked fine.  i'll see him again when i'm home in december and then a couple times after that every six months and then hopefully i'll be down to once a year visits.  becoming healthy is sort of bittersweet, however.  as sad as it is, i know everyone in that office and they know me, just like the girls at st. mark's registration.  i feel like i'm on "cheers" but instead of everyone yelling "norm!" when i walk into the bar, they all yell "laura!" when i walk into the office.  (ok, so there's no actual yelling going on but you get the point.)  i may have to stop by every once in a while just for the heck of it.  oh, also, the blood work my general physician took on tuesday for my physical all came back normal.  this means i still do NOT have diabetes (for those who don't know, a doctor misdiagnosed me as pre-diabetic about 3 years ago and i didn't realize it until after taking four 500mg metformin XR tablets a day for 8 months).  mom gave me the seal of approval to go to georgia....though i was going to go anyway.  it's an odd feeling to listen to my body and hear nothing.  it's peaceful and quiet for once.  i just feel whole.  i hope it lasts.

catching up & more

i believe i promised a blog entry and so here i am to deliver.
a lot has changed in the year since i last wrote.

• i haven't had a kidney stone surgery in over a year
  
• i graduated from the u with a b.s. in chemistry
• i got accepted to UGA pharmacy school and leave in august
• i'm planning on helping UGA start up a pharmD/phD program so i'll get 2 doctorates while there
• i'm actually feeling pretty healthy lately :)

probably the biggest downer was when i had a colonoscopy a couple of weeks ago. they found and removed 2 polyps and took a sample of some inflamed tissue. the polyps were not cancerous but they are the type that most often turns into cancer so i now have to go back every 2 years. oh joy.



enough of that for now. ages ago, my friend sarah gave me the "irresistably sweet" award. in exchange for receiving the award, i'm supposed to list 5 guilty pleasures. oh boy. here we go.



1. shoes. you can ask my mom about this one as she's usually the one picking up all the shoes i leave lying around. recently i saw a nate birkus tv show where they said one of the signs of being a shopaholic is that you own more than one of the same thing - ex. the same shoe, just different colors. i argue that that is *not* shopaholicism, just good sense. if you find a shoe you like, buy it in a couple different colors so you can wear it more often! i'm trying to convince lisa that she really doesn't *need* the raise she'll get this year and therefore she should donate that extra money to a shoe fund for me. :)



2. books. i am never happy reading just one book at a time. right now i'm on 5 books with another 20 waiting on my bookshelf to be read and well over 100 more that i want to read at some point in my life. i blame my mom for starting my addiction to books. she used to make me read 30 minutes every day during summer breaks from school. at some point, i realized i could spend those 30 minutes reading things i actually *liked* and it all went downhill from there. i practically inhale books although i do try to read something serious that takes a while every now and then. to see the list of books i've read, am reading, or want to read, go check out my goodreads page.



3. disney channel/disney movies/anything cinderella. i know i'm supposed to be too old to enjoy any of that stuff but there is nothing better to me than watching the disney channel while doing homework to help you unwind or putting on a favorite disney movie to help you fall to sleep. i think i watched wall-e almost every night last summer and i regret none of it.

4. the big bang theory. not a thursday goes by that i'm not either watching this show or recording it to watch later...sometimes both. i think it's partly that this show has made me feel cool to be the nerd that i am. my favorite times are when they make some random science joke and not only do i laugh, i understand it and go "hey! we just talked about that in lecture this week!" i freaking love sheldon. and i love watching the new penny/bernadette/amyfarahfowler trio. especially when amy tries to fit into the normal "girly girl" role. and, yes, i own all of the seasons that have so far been released on dvd.



5. doctor who. yes, another geekish show but i dare anyone to watch an episode with david tennant and NOT love it. i'm still coming around to the new doctor but i think he'll do just fine. still, david tennant will literally have me laughing out loud every episode...which is why i usually watch it later at night in my basement room with the door shut. otherwise, my parents would probably think i'm even more insane than i usually am. okay, and i don't want to be interrupted while watching david tennant, either.

now i guess is the part where i'm supposed to nominate 3 other people for this award.

1. kelly at highly caffeinated and sometimes funny. though, really, i think she's always funny. plus she's adorable. i really don't think i've ever seen her angry. upset maybe but never actually angry. she's the other half of team #kelra.

2. kelsey at the adventures of an eclectic scientist. we went to the u together for a little while and also worked in the housing department for a year when i was a host and she was an ra. we didn't talk too often but i always admired her. she was one of those female science majors that i would look at and think "why can't we all be like that?" she's funny, smart, kind, and never seems afraid to stick up for her beliefs.

3. dan & amanda at team damanda. formally known as just dan and amanda, these two incredible individuals have become one seriously awesome couple. i was in access with amanda and i always love to be around her. she has the best ability for making me laugh. i remember sitting at the access lunch table in the union and she told two jokes: "what's green and goes through walls? a frog if you throw it hard enough." and "why did the monkey fall out of the tree? because it died." while the rest of the girls went "ohhh! that's so sad!" i was laughing my head off. i'm pretty sure i was laughing so hard i cried. dan is a pretty awesome guy, too. he did come to my 22nd birthday party, after all. and he and amanda gave me a ben franklin action figure. oh yes. i still have it. now if only we lived in the same state again.

i think that's good enough for you people for tonight. right now, i'm going to go eat my dinner then go off to the gym. oh yeah, i'm doing that again now that i actually feel well enough to do it :)