first year is done...

so, i have officially completed my first year of optometry school. while i'm not a straight A student, i somehow managed to end the year with a 3.16 (on 4.00 scale). kind of surprising considering how hard this past quarter was. nevertheless, i am officially a 2nd year student. next year at this time, i will be starting in clinic, working on actual patients. are you scared yet????

New Verb - Shiver

Thursday
Carol, Michele and I try to leave for Chicago to visit Melly Mel. Due to some interesting weather in the Greater Chicagoland Area, we were canceled. Oh joy - We were cool - we had a place to stay and apparently we were the only nice people in line at the United Counter. I think our jocularity and good spirits helped our United Shiney Headed Guy work harder to help us, which we higly approved of. "Screw them" we giggled of the mean folks. =)
As follows, a wee pictorial of our adventure

Friday =)
are we there yet? Mind you at this point we've been trying to get to Chicago for 24 hours and there was NOTHING to eat and the 15 minute cab ride was an hour. Poor Michele, Me and Carol

Can we eat yet? - Poor Michele

From 2707

Interesting Illumination


Saturday =)
Preparing to go outside - This was not the weather of my people

Hey, a robot, he's being all flurty

Hey, a robot makers fanny, now I'm being flurty

The ZarnChiCago chapter of MENSA meeting will now begin. President Girl Next Door, VP Surly and Secretary Queen of the EYE Ball
The Water Tower - a ghost lives there, right in front of a mall, so that's good realestate for him

Cab ride home


Sunday =)
Viewing of the bean - Carol and Michele

We're in the bean - Carol, Michelle and Me

Ah... Hey Carol, look at the skaters..

Yeah Michele, they're ass cold like we are

skaters in the bean - you can just make us out in the bean too, 3 little spots

waiting..... Carol & Michelle

Amazing Grace

From the L


The sign is so right


Home from 8F

i haven't QUITE fallen off the face of the earth

so, school is hard. i'm kind of in hiding right now. i will surface soon. i promise. until then, here's a lovely pic of my and my buddies from school.

anne is in the back; stacy and jeff are on the right.

happy (ugh) new year...

so, thrilling start to the new year. back at school. two tests down. fire in the church across the street...http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060106fire,1,5281826.story?coll=chi-news-hed
terrible stuff. luckily no one was in the church, so the only injuries were some firefighters who had heat exhaustion or inhalation injuries (i think). the church is directly across the street from the residence hall for my school. luckily only 18 of the ~150 residents got displaced.
in other news...um, well i really don't have any other news.

Uber Yummy Pumpkin Cookies from Cookiefest 2005

Shout out to Lauren H - New Addition to Cookiefest 2005 - this was sooo yummy!!

Pumpkin cookies with icing

Cookies:
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup reg pumkin pack (like Libby's)
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup golden raisins
Cream together shortening, sugar and pumpkin. Add egg and mix well. Mix together dry ingredients and blend with the wet ingredients. Stir in raisins with a spoon. Batter should be fluffy and WILL NOT TASTE GOOD. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees. Bake 9-12 minutes. Use about 1 TBSP of batter per cookie. Cook until the edges turn brown. Cookies must be fully cooked.

Icing:
3/4 tsp vanilla
3 TBSP real butter
4 tsp milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
Dissolve butter, milk and brown sugar in a saucepan on fairly low heat.Stir in vanilla and powdered sugar and keep warm on lowest heat. Drizzleon cookies while they are still hot on the cookie sheet.

Ah to be a super hero...

You scored as Lara Croft. A thrill-seeking, slightly unscrupulous, tough-as-nails archaeologist, Lara Croft travels the world in search of ancient relics perhaps better left hidden. She packs two Colt .45s and has no fear of jumping off buildings, exploring creepy tombs, or taking on evil meglomaniacs bent on world domination. Lara Croft 83% William Wallace 83% Captain Jack Sparrow 79% Indiana Jones 75% Neo, the "One" 75% James Bond, Agent 007 71% The Amazing Spider-Man 71% Maximus 67% The Terminator 67% Batman, the Dark Knight 63% El Zorro 50% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

breakity break break break

so, today is the last day of my thanksgiving break. it was a good one. i got some things accomplished which made me happy and gave the illusion of productivity. i spent some time with my buddy stacy who is cool. i got to work at a vision screening which was cool. dad and bonnie came through on wednesday with big news. they are getting hitched on 8 april. thursday i got to volunteer at the church for the dinner for seniors and clients of the food pantry. it was cool. there were some really nice people that i got to meet. it was big for the church because the governer came (along with news and security and entourage). so my church (http://www.stjamesonwabash.com/) got some great publicity thanks to the chicago food depository. i had dinner with a few classmates at one of our professor's home. we got to play with her 2 1/2 year old daughter. kids crack me up! friday i (gasp) organized my apartment. i'm almost done. really, i swear. then dad and bonnie came back on saturday and we hung out & went to dinner with some of my school friends. it was pretty fun. i'm waiting for the photographic evidence.

ok...so, i know that may have been kind of boring writing, but i'm tired and hungry, so that's all you get.