Willy Wonka, Chewbacca, the Penguin and the Skeleton Knight

Man, I was pretty pissed during my morning class (not the British 'pissed' = drunk, but the mad pissed). At the beginning of class, the prof came over to some of us with laptops and informed us that she decided to ban laptops for the rest of the semester. She said that they are too distracting and she was pretty sure that we were not JUST taking notes with them. In other words, she has caught on that most of us are surfing the web and some are chatting during her lectures. Now, I will not say that I am innocent of any of the above, however, I was giving the stink eye for the remainder of class her way. It is completely ridiculous in my point of view to do this now. All of my notes and downloaded readings thus far are on my comp and are now inaccessible. I could print them up but hate the idea of wasting all that paper when I have a perfectly good way to access them without all the waste. I save a ton of paper while taking notes in Word also. I really wanted to fight her on this but felt that it would be futile and had the sense that it would later reflect badly in my assignment grades. So, I will suffer in silence...at least regarding her. I fully plan to think pissed off thoughts and eyeball them her way for a while. I know, not very Christian. But I have to say this is a much better and more appropriately respectful plan of action than outright defiance and throwing a tantrum.

Being Halloween, I had the pleasure of riding the train today beside Mr. Willy Wonka himself. And after lunch, Mody took a pic of me and Chewbacca on the way to class. I have to say that he is as tall in person as he seems in the movies. I think he may have gone bald though as his fur had the appearance of extensions. Well, I guess age will get us all eventually. On the way into the library, I encountered what I mistook as a wombat and was actually Count Chocula. Thankfully, the mistake was not verbalized. Can you imagine the embarassment of mistaking a chocolate-loving vampire for a common flying weasel. The horror! Along my way through the day, I had the privilege of seeing many other characters, animals, and one poor girl that looked like a disco diva until I realized she wasn't actually wearing a costume...at least, not intentionally on her part. She looked cute though, she was working those go-go boots. :)

So, my day consisted of being pissed in my first class, lunch and watching the latest episode of "Heroes" with Liz online, second class cancelled (but am a little worried that they were elsewhere and I wasn't listening to an announcement about the alternative rendezvous), reading a mile long chapter for class, rushing home (as fast as is possible on public transport anyway), frantically sewing foam glow-in-the-dark bones to Mister's costume, a wonderful spree of trick-or-treating in two different neighborhoods (on opposite sides of town), a pit stop for hot chocolate (yummy), coming home to help kids with homework, and finally cuddling with both until they fell asleep. What a long,varied, and ultimately wonderful day. I mean, how can you top all that? It was really great! I love Halloween. I will be posting some costume pics on my myspace page for all to see (those on my friend list anyway). If you have a myspace, shoot me a friend request. I love to share pics and all our happenings.

I am now sitting in my somewhat chilly living room, waiting for the fireplace to do its job, and sort of putting off my homework. I have to say that as hard as it can be sometimes and as stressed as I may get with school and home, I really love my life.

Happy Halloween

We've survived the Halloween celebrations thus far. Kind of funny that Halloween hasn't even come yet. The kids had three parties this weekend...a friend one, a school one, and a church one. Due to two midterms last week, I gave in and bought the kids' costumes instead of making them. I am, however, making some adjustments to Mister's costume. He is a knight, but wanted to be a skeleton knight. So, we found a skeleton costume that I could use to make the adjustments. I also painted the bones so they glow in the dark. Tiny is a penguin and we found a cute, warm costume for her. I was suprised though that the largest size they had was up to 6x and, even as small as she is, it barely fit her. I felt like a real failure for a few moment about having to buy instead of create their costumes. But I got over it when I saw how the kids didn't mind and were pretty content with their costumes.

I remember Halloween being one of my fav holidays. I mean, when else can you knock on the doors of complete strangers (and as many as you want), say three words, and get a ton of candy completely free. And all you have to do is dress up. A lot of kids aren't even working very hard at that anymore. I've seen some older kids looking like they just put on the rattiest clothes in their closet and put some red paint on their faces (blood, I guess). It's a little disappointing. We used to dress up and hit the streets as soon as the street lights came on. We would then find it a personal challenge to see how many streets we could cover in a single night. My dad was a good sport about it until we were old enough to go it alone.

At the moment, I am watching a show on HGTV titled "Reel Houses, Reel Scary". It's about the houses that have been used in scary movies. Muy interesante. I always thought the house in "Scream" wasn't real, like a soundstage. But it is a beautiful house, next to a vineyard. Did you know that the houses in the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Halloween" are on the SAME street?!? And of course the house of the boyfriend on "Elm Street" is there too. These houses are really beautiful. Being the movie nut that I am, I'm loving it.

Give me a finished midterm, a good movie and some candy

I've been getting by lately with semi-posts...all the videos and trailers. I just finished a take home midterm that is due in the morn and I had forgotten about until this morn. I feel pretty good about it though. Cross your fingers for me cause I didn't do so well on my last paper in there. I am also stressing out a little cause I just realized that I need to cram a whole lot of Spanish in the next couple of months if I have any hope of surviving in the Spanish class I am required to pass for graduation. If I don't pass it, I don't graduate and then I don't get into grad school this summer and I will have to wait another whole year to reapply. Totally sucks. I've got some serious work to do. Not to mention that I still need to take two entrance exams very soon and I have yet to study for them. I'm SO looking forward to our next break. Tomorrow I will unfortunately have to miss the kiddos next to last soccer game in order to join a study group for a test in grammar on Wednesday that I am very unprepared for. Anyone wanna trade for a bit?

Movie-wise (yeah, like I'm going to stop watching movies altogether in the midst of my stress breakdown), I watched "Casanova" the other night for the first time. It has Heath Ledger (mmm, sexy) in it and Oliver Platt (teehee, funny). I was somewhat surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It reminded me of the comedic banter of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "Oscar". Anyways, definite recommend for a laugh.

Story: We were leaving church yesterday and were saying goodbye to some folks. A woman came up to H and said "so, you're expecting a new one, huh?" H asked her "a new what?" and she indicated that she thought I was pregnant. He told her "not that I'm aware of". I felt bad mainly cause I know she felt bad about it. But I just laughed it off. We got home and were chatting about it. We came to the agreement that with my gained weight and the dress I was wearing, I did indeed look pregnant. If that's not a hint to lose a few pounds, I don't know what is. Looks like I'll be busy worrying about food and exercise as well. Some people lose weight when they are stressed...too bad I don't. I go straight for a soda and a bag of candy. It never made a difference when I was younger but definitely seems to nowadays. Older, slow metabolism, that sort of thing. Not sure yet if I like getting older.

A little blip

So, life is pretty good right now. School is getting a bit old, but that's normal halfway through the semester. It's still bearable though. The kids are doing well in school. I love helping them with their homework when we all get home. It's my one on one time with them and I know that I'm playing an important part in their learning. If they pass a spelling test on Friday (which they've been doing a lot lately), I know that I had something to do with that. It makes me feel essential in their growth and lives. I will also be helping the PTA (which I am not a member of) with the Halloween carnival decorations next week. Because of school, I'm often not able to volunteer regularly. So, it will be nice to contribute in a small way.

H just secured a house for some clients and will be closing in about a week. It's always nice to have regular business coming his way. Halloween is fast approaching and I have yet to begin costumes. It might be a good thing though, because the kids just changed their minds again about what they want to be. Tiny now wants to be a penguin and Mister, I can't remember. Will update that later. I'm still not sure if H and I will be dressing up. The thought crossed my mind of having a Halloween party...just a few close friends and some fam. Don't know if it will happen though cause the Saturday before Halloween will be full of carnivals for the kiddos at their school and at church. Will think on it some more. Have to head to class soon, so I will write more later.

My Latest Creation

This is my latest creation...a baby blanket for my new niece. She was born like a week and a half ago. She is my little brother's first child and I wanted to make something really special for her. It took about three days to make this and it was the most work I've done on a baby quilt so far. I hand-sewed the little flowers on the square corners and the ones on the corners of the blanket. The rest was machine stitched. Every other square is a purple square with tulle covering it and loose flowers in between. This is a design I came up with a couple of years ago and I try to make each blanket a little different. On the last ones, I just used loose flower petals and this time, I left the flower intact. I hope they like it and I just thought I would share this with you. I really love when I can do these and don't get to do them as much as I would like.

Another Weekend

Unlike many Saturdays, I actually accomplished something today. I started cleaning the living room and ended up rearranging the whole room. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but finally had the chance. It felt really good to sit in my "new", clean room afterwards. I like to rearrange regularly, it makes it feel like a whole new room, like I even have new furniture.

Other than that, my weekend has consisted of getting to go dancing and play pool with H last night followed by breakfast at Denny's, renting movies tonight, a trip to the grocery store, and gorging myself with Reese's Pieces. Sounds like a success so far. I still need to do a lot of homework tomorrow after church. I'm supposed to start trying to arrive to church early so that I can help set up the room for Sunday school and to greet the ladies as they come in. I haven't made it to church on time in quite a while. Hope I can pull it off.

As far as school goes, I am now reading "The Jungle Book". I know, tough huh?! Things are going to start to get really hectic in the second half of the semester. So, I need to work to make sure that I stay on top of it all. Once I fall behind, it's really hard to get back into it. I will also be turning in my graduation application this week. It is odd to finally see the end in sight. However, this end is also the beginning of more school...grad school. So, I will also be talking to the academic advisor about all the fun grad school apps, letters of recommend, and entrance exams. Boy, I'm excited! ;]

Weekend Spent

I have been notified by McSomethingkins that I am very late in my posting. I find this somewhat amusing since her comments on here have been few and far between. But I understand why. I mean, we're all in school and that's is a full time job in itself and she also works. So, who has time to post. For example, I should be doing a paper that is due tomorrow morning instead of catching others up on my life. Oh well. I had planned on being more on top of things this weekend until I had a surprise trip sprung on me late Friday night. H came into the living room at about 10:30 pm Friday night with the idea of going one state over to see his family for the weekend. Saturday was the bday of one of his sisters and he wanted to surprise her. He rarely asks for such a big thing and we were headed out at about midnight with the kids and his brother in tow. It was a fun trip over and he really enjoyed it.

We, however, didn't get back home until about 2:30 this morning. After unloading kids, luggage, and settling down, I didn't get to sleep until almost 4 am. Needless to say, we could not manage to drag ourselves out of bed this morning and the kids and I played hooky. I didn't know that it was Columbus Day and didn't feel so bad when I realized this. Everyone else is getting a day off, why not us students too? We had a parent-teacher conference with Tiny's teacher today. She is doing well, especially in her reading. We have Mister's conference tomorrow. I've been pretty impressed with his reading improvements in the last year. It would be weird for the kids of a bookworm to not have a reading appreciation. I hope I can pass that onto them.

Heroes

I officially love the new show "Heroes". I think it has a great imaginative storyline. It has sucked me in. Let me introduce you to some of the characters:

Hiro Nakamura--He is from Japan and is figuring out that he can bend time, which includes going back and forth through time. I think he is my favorite character because he is funny and somewhat childlike. So far, he has teleported to NY, 5 weeks into the future with the power of his mind. Upon arriving in NY, he passes a newstand and sees a comic book about his story. He tracks down the author/artist (Isaac Mendez is the name of that character). He finds Isaac dead (keep in mind that this is 5 weeks in the future), killed by a serial killer. When he is being questioned by the police, he realizes that he's in the future and they see a huge explosion in downtown NY. He concentrates and teleports back to Japan to the present.

Isaac Mendez--He is an artist that lives in NY and has realized that some of the paintings he has done while on drugs are depictions of future events (eg. a suicide bomber in Israel on a bus, the giant explosion in NY, and even some that pertain to other 'heroes'). He is also doing the comic book that seems to depict all the 'heroes'.

Peter and Nathan Petrelli--Brothers. Both live in NY. Nathan is an aspiring politician, a bit self-serving, and a hardball. Peter is his younger brother. He is a nurse at a nursing home and keeps having dreams of flying. He begins to doubt his possible power until he sees Isaac's painting of a flying man that looks like him. He decides to put it to the test and invites his brother to meet him in an alley. He is on the roof of the building and jumps. Falling half way down, Nathan flies up to catch him. They are both surprised and Nathan loses his grip on Peter. We find out later that before Peter hit the ground, he also flew. He is alive.

Claire Bennet--She is a high school cheerleader in the midwest that cannot die and heals immediately. She has tried to kill herself 6 times while a friend records it. She does not want anyone to know about it. Her father (adoptive) found the tape and seems to have a thus unexplained interest in the heroes and their abilities. The dad has been shown to be following around another character, Mohinder.

Mohinder Suresh--He is a genetics professor from India whose father was the same. His father had some sort of research that had to do with a test subject. Apparently, the dad went to NY in order to track down the test subject, known as Syler. He appears to be the serial killer aforementioned. Mohinder's father died mysteriously and moved to NY, rented the same apartment, and became a taxi driver (like his dad) in order to find and continue his father's research. Claire's father entered his taxi and began to ask questions that scared Mohinder away.

Matt Parkman--He is a police officer that wants to become a detective but can't pass the exam. While directing traffic at a murder scene, he hears the voice of a little girl saying, "Please don't hurt me." He follows the voice into the crime scene and locates the missing daughter of the victims in a crawl space. He was hearing her thoughts. The detectives are not satisfied with his explanation of hearing her whispering and arrest him.

Niki Sanders--Lastly is Niki. She is a single mom struggling to make ends meet and raise her son who is a genius sort. She owes money to the mob and is cornered by a couple of henchmen. When she is told to do some "favors", she 'blacks out". When she awakes, both the men are dead and the place looks like a slaughterhouse. She locks up the garage (where the scene is) and goes to pick up her son. A camera had been running during the 'black out' and she stops the car to watch it. When the violence begins, the camera turns static. The next thing she knows, four hours have passed unaccounted for from when she turned on the camera playback. Apparently, her "alter personality" (the person she sees in the mirror) set things up for her to dispose of all the evidence. It ends showing her digging a hole for the bodies in the middle of nowhere. While digging, she sees old bodies already buried. Makes you wonder if her "alter" is responsible for those too.

It seems that all these characters are going to end up coming together and have to work together to stop this predicted explosion in NY and help each other along the way. It's like a book that I don't want and can't put down. I can't wait for the next chapter.