Thoughts on a Thursday morning

-How do professional bloggers write every single day? I'm lucky if I can scratch out one measly post a week. Hmmph.

-Finding unexpected apple cider in the bottom of your fruit crisper is not a good thing. Take note: eat your apples or get better at cleaning your fridge.

-The Feminine Mystique scares me. I have to read parts of it for a class and when I do, I'm reminded that I am, in fact not a woman, but a chicken. Imagine that!

-I would rather write a paper than take a test any day. Plus, while I'm writing a paper I can always have a stack of snacks on hand. Good or bad thing?

-I wish I could tell the guy who keeps racing up and down my street on his bullet bike to just relax.

-Nothing's worse than having exceedingly good news to tell and not being able to tell it, yet.

-Mistaking your hair for a bug is surely a sign that you're losing your mind.

-Three more months to go...

-Copy editing, is indeed, the devil. It's and its, that and which...can I just scribble a Chinese character and call it quits?

-I have to write a make-believe law brief with two guys named Mr. Goodguy and Mr. Mouthpiece. ??

-After I spend almost two hours scrubbing my shower to death with my mom's special cleaner, she calls me two days later to inform me that I need "a lot of ventilation" when I clean with it. Kind of hard when you live in an apartment with basically no windows. No wonder I felt like such a crab at my niece's birthday party.

-Confession: I have a picture-less frame hanging on my wall. And it's been there awhile.

-Anyone else excited for Halloween?

Cheap Vegan Meals--Harvest Pasta

So...I've only posted one "Cheap Vegan Meal."

I'm such a slacker.

But I have a new one for you today! I made it up for dinner. I don't have any photos or prices to list for you, because I got most of the veggies from my garden. So my dinner was pretty much free. If you have tons of tomatoes, zucchinis, or other garden veggies hanging around you should whip this up. Pretty fast, easy and tasty, too.

Harvest Pasta

3 tablespoons olive oil

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced (seriously!)

2-3 medium sized zucchinis, chopped in half then sliced

20-25 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half or 3-4 normal tomatoes, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 can of corn (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 lb. angel hair pasta

Heat large saute pan to medium-high heat. At the same time, add enough water to a large stock pot to boil. In the saucepan, add oil, then sliced zucchinis. Let saute for about 2-3 minutes, then add garlic. Be careful not to let it burn. Let saute for about 5 more minutes. Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. At this time, add angel hair pasta to boiling water and let cook until tender (angel hair cooks up pretty fast). Let saute for another 5 minutes, or until skin comes off tomatoes and they break down to form a thin sauce. Add drained can of corn (if you want to). Saute for another 3 minutes or until corn is heated through. Add drained, cooked pasta and toss to mix.

Without a Map

For Christmas one year, I asked for a pair of ice skates.

I had recently watched the Olympics and desperately wanted to be a figure skater. I wanted to be one so bad, that I would march down to a frozen patch of ice below my house and attempt to skate around on the layer of snow. So bad, that I would even skate up and down the road in front of my house when the snow would get packed down. I imagined myself doing double sow cows and triple lutzes with the likes of Kristi Yamaguchi.

Then there was the time, after watching a marathon of Cops with my family, that I wanted to be one myself. There seemed to be a bit of a discrepancy--there certainly wasn't a lot of female cops on Cops. Oh well, that didn't matter. I wanted to be a cop.

A few years later, I found myself drawn back to the Olympics, only this time I wanted to be a gymnast. I was green with envy over their back flips, their perfect splits and their sticky landings. I wanted to be one so bad that we even had a neighborhood Olympics with my best friends, complete with gold crayon-colored paper metals.

Then came the time when I actually had to decide what I wanted to do with myself. I remember clicking my way through the seemingly endless career tests. One said I needed to be a vet, another said that would do better in fields that involved the public. Yet, even after these "fortune telling" tests, I still didn't know.

I was always envious of the kids in school who knew exactly what they wanted to do with their college degree. I always seemed to get caught up in other things and so distracted. What was college, again?

I remember very clearly the night I decided that I wasn't going to USU anymore, but that I would try going to BYU-Idaho for a little while. I sat on the lone chair against the far wall in our living room, while my family hovered around giving advice. Cold, hard, reality-filled advice.

The simple truth was that I couldn't continue going to school at USU. I didn't have enough credits to be a resident of Utah and I couldn't pay their ridiculous asking price for out-of-state tuition.

"Just try BYU-Idaho for a little while. If you don't like it, you can always come back," my sister said.

So that was it. I was going to Rexburg.

After about 4 months, something kept pulling me back to Logan. For some reason or another, I just didn't feel like I should keep living in Rexburg. I got offered a transfer scholarship to come back to USU that I gladly accepted. Since I had gone to Rexburg and got decent grades, I guess that USU decided they would let me come back to their school for a reasonable price. Deciding to go to BYU-I helped me get back to Logan.

A few months later, I met Mark.

There have been so many times where I have been so lost, I would wish that someone would just tell me what to do. I would look at adults that I knew and think, "How did they get to where they are?" I'm so glad that my life doesn't have a map. All of my choices, seemingly small at the time, have slowly guided me to the direction where I am now. Now that I look back, my trail has been perfectly paved. I don't know where I'm going next or what decision I'm going to make tomorrow, but I can't wait to see where it's going to take me.

Life's Lessons: Learn to be an adult

When I was younger, adulthood seemed like a millennium away. Most adults scared me and I didn't understand them. They were serious, they were powerful. They told me not to do things that I wanted to do. I definitely didn't want to grow up and be one; well, maybe, so that I could drive a car. That's it.

Now I'm technically considered an adult. I really don't feel that much different than when I was younger, except that I actually make and owe money. For an introduction in a class this week, we had to get together with a partner and ask each other a survey. One question was, "When did you know you were an adult?"

I was dumbfounded. I had no idea, am I an adult? In my mind, there wasn't a defining moment for me, I just kept getting older. What is being an adult, anyway?

Today, as I logged on to check Twitter, I noticed a lady that I follow was being plagiarized. She is a well-known blogger and someone was copying bits and pieces of her work. This isn't the first time this has happened to her and it's definitely not new with famous bloggers. Back in April, it happened to cjane, who's blog I read quite frequently. (She talks about it here.) I, along with so many others, was outraged by the complete lack of honesty and the--how do I put it--nerviness of it all. Really, that's nervy.

But it gets worse. Last semester, I was talking the hardest class of my major. It was finals, and I had studied nonstop for this certain final for four days (over a weekend, mind you). Needless to say, I was on the edge. Literally. My grade was teeter-tottering between passing and not, and I knew that if I did well I could pass the class. Between questions, I looked up, trying to figure out the answer. The guy in front of me was looking at his neighbor's test.

I felt a surge of adrenaline. This guy was cheating. Okay, I thought. Maybe if he needs just one answer I'll let it go. So I answered a few more questions and looked up. He was still looking.

Have you ever had the feeling where you know you need to do something, but you don't want to? In the back of my mind voices began to whisper that if I told on him, I would sound like a tattletale. I felt like I was back in elementary school again. I didn't want to be the snitch and I didn't want to be put in this position. Would my professor be suspicious of me?

My thoughts raced, Wait a minute, this isn't fair! Everyone else in this class has studied so hard all semester, and here he was getting a free ride. I have to--do I? Do I? Should I tell the professor now? I waited until almost everyone was gone, walked up and handed my test in. Then I left.

Something stopped me in the hall. I couldn't keep going and let this guy get away with it. So I turned around and walked back into the classroom.

"Professor, I feel like I should tell you that someone was cheating on the test," I stammered. I was more nervous than ever. The look on her face made me squirm, almost like someone had died.

"Do you know for sure?"

"I think so. He kept looking on his neighbor's test." She asked if I knew who it was and I told her. She sincerely thanked me and promised to look into it. I never heard what happened with him.

Sometimes I wonder if there is ever such a thing as being an adult. The adults that I knew growing up certainly didn't cheat or plagiarize. Are we naïve to think that once someone is an adult, they'll act like one?

A common reaction to these stories has been, "What, are these people back in elementary school again?" I know that there are plenty of children who don't cheat. But there are a few who do and really learn their lesson. So why are people still doing it? Is our fear of failure that extreme? Probably.

Perhaps being an adult isn't something that comes with getting older, but rather with growing morals. Maybe the question on the survey should be, "When did you learn to be an adult?"

I'm afraid some people won't know the answer.

Updates!

I've got so many updates to share with you!

First things first, school starts on Monday. Am I sad? Yes. Well, kinda. I'm excited to go back and get it over with. Plus, part of me is just yearning to go back and be a good student. Of course, this ambition usually lasts a week, if I'm lucky. Last week I took a walk around campus at night by myself. It was such a good walk to just think about where I'm going with my life. As I walked around, I couldn't believe how pretty campus was and I know I'm going to miss it when I leave. Part of me regrets my college experience so far, that I've just been really passive about it all. I've really got to make the most of my last year and so I have no regrets.

Second update--I'm going to a concert tomorrow! Iron & Wine, one of my favorite musicians of all time, is coming to good ol' SLC for free. You'd better believe I'm excited. I'm sure there are going to be millions of people there, but it's going to be great. Here's one of my favorite songs by Sam Beam (the frontman and founder of Iron & Wine):

(Gotta love flamenco!)

Third update--I'm going to another concert in September! Another one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, is coming. I figured since I've pretty much loved them my whole life (started listening to their music when I was about 11) then I'd better go see them. They never swing by Salt Lake, so this is going to be their first concert there in 10 years. Luckily, I snagged tickets but they definitely aren't for free. But that's okay, because I'd pay to see Eddie Vedder any day!

Yet another update--I'm going back to Europe!! Things aren't set in stone yet, but we're planning on going back in March or May. My brother and my parents have always wanted to go over, so last weekend we sat down and talked about it and decided that we should make it happen. We've been talking about it for awhile now, but I always figured that since we were going to school then we wouldn't have enough money. Hopefully, if we get a good deal on tickets, then we would be able to save up. I can't tell you how excited I am! Not only because I'm going to Europe, but we're going to be going to Germany, where Mark served his mission. I can't wait to go with him and see all the places where he was. It'll be so much fun to see him get excited about seeing those places again.

Here's a rough itinerary of some places we want to go: Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich in Germany, Simrishamn in Sweden (where my great grandfather is from), and Bern in Switzerland (where another set of great grandparents came from). That's what we have so far. There's been talk of possibly visiting Prague.

Here's Simrishamn

Image from here

Man, this is going to be a good year.

Hel-lo!

Ladies, I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite blogs, Hel-looks.

Hel-looks is a street fashion blog. Liisa Jokinen and Sampo Karjalainen search the streets of Helsinki looking for some amazing fasion. And although I'm really not one to be obsessed with that stuff, I adore this blog. I could spend hours and hours pouring through the pictures, getting style ideas. What's amazing about the people on this blog is that their sense of style--albeit rather strange looking sometimes, fits them perfectly and doesn't look too overdone. At least I don't think so. Here's a few of my favorite people:

Leyla

I love the combination of her jacket and scarf. Love the shorts with the suspenders, too.

Milla

I'm a fan of the jacket paired with the brown tunic. That with the tights makes it such a cute getup!

Emma

I love the color combos. This girl is only 15, can you imagine having this style at that age? My wardrobe at that age was tees and sweatshirts. Still is, mostly. Haha.

Lilli

I think I love everything about this. The red tights, gray jacket and the scarf. How pretty.

Kaisa

This lady has some awesome pants. I love them, especially coupled with that hair and those sandals. Superb.

Jonna

Again, another top not that looks amazing! Love the blouse, too.

Replacement

Well, we lost a member of our family on Tuesday.

That's right. Beloved Cleo, our Mercury Sable, found her way to the inevitable--the car graveyard. Here's what happened.

About a year and a half ago, Mark's old car broke down. So being the poor college kids that we are, we took a car that Mark's dad repossessed at his credit union. It was cheap and old, but it worked.

Pretty soon, we had to start pouring in money to get it to function properly. The speed sensor went out then it needed a costly tune-up. Then on Tuesday, we discovered that the heater was going out. (Good thing we discovered this during the summer instead of the winter!)

We were bummed. A friend of ours has a similar car and had the same thing happen. He said his was going to be around 800 bones to fix. Booo.

So at lunch on Tuesday, we were driving along talking about how we were going to fix the car and actually afford it. We were driving just west of the temple. We stopped at the four-way stop, then proceeded. As we drove down another block and were still chatting, I noticed a car coming up on the left on the street. It drove past the stop line on the road.

I yelled, "Mark, WATCH OUT!" Then bam, we were sent spinning and we came to a rest in the road. After we checked that each other was okay, we got out of the car and assessed the damage. It was bad. A lady came out of her apartment to ask if we were okay, and we were. So was the other driver. I asked her to call the police and she did, thankfully. (Where was my cell phone that day?)

We asked the driver if he was okay, and he said that he was. He mentioned something about hitting our car, in slurred speech. I don't think he was 100% there. Soon the cops came and asked him what happened.

"Well," he said in a slur, "I was drivin' up the street lookin' for the dentists office over thar and before I knew it this here car was in front of me."

After a few more questions, the policeman asked him if he was on prescription medications.

"NO! No, no," he said, as if it were the most offensive question he'd ever been asked. Yeah right, I thought. No one keeps driving through a stop sign and doesn't "see the car in front of you."

Soon after, they cleaned up the glass from the road and towed our poor cars away. I actually felt bad for the man, who had a 1978 Mercury Cougar. I think he had the car for awhile and was quite attached. Plus, it's kind of a cool car. It looked almost like this:

Look at that beastly thing! You'd better believe it took a toll on Cleo. Here's what she looks like:

Now the next step is to see how much the insurance will give us for our totaled car. We have our eyes on a 2003 Toyota Corolla. I hope that it'll still be available by the time everything goes through.

Man, car wrecks are a pain in the neck. Literally and figuratively.