Colder Days and Turkey Time

I saw my first glimpse of snow today since last April, tiny fragile flakes darting aimlessly among the freezing rain. They melted, of course, as soon as they hit the ground, still warm from the 80-degree weather the last several days. I hope it didn't snow a lot in Topeka or KC; I was giving Kristin a hard time at breakfast on Tuesday, telling her she was crazy, that there was no way it would snow after so many 80-degree days. I told her I "had a friend" who was a meteorologist...she asked if I had also written a 10-page research paper on the subject. Of course not. That's ridiculous. :-) She did say she'd laugh at me if it snowed six inches, which it most definitely did not (four inches in Des Moines, I believe) but just trace amounts in KS. So, here's hoping she doesn't give me too much grief about this icy precipitation. :-D

My morning was somewhat productive: I finished my the 60% take-home section of my biochemistry final, my biochemistry lab write up, mailed off one of my sister's used textbooks to a girl in New York City, and took a shower. This afternoon was a little less-so, in between flipping through channels on TV (I don't have a TV at college) I tried finishing a reading assignment. The power went out seven times, usually for only 15 or 30 seconds at a time, but I took it as my cue to turn off the tube and finish the few pages I had left. Mom came home from work early; writing articles on a desktop computer is pointless when your computer restarts every five minutes. Fortunately the battery in my laptop kept me up and running throughout the whole ordeal.

I told my mom about the idea we had for a Christmas gift for her: a digital picture frame. We got one for my dad last year, and he loves it, but they are pretty expensive still and Erica wanted to put it off until at least next year so she wouldn't be handing over her Christmas money to pay her portion. Well, when I told my mom about the idea, turns out she said she wouldn't want one at all anyway. She'd rather have her pictures playing as a slideshow on her computer screen. I'm not going to lie, I felt somewhat deflated because I had been confident that my idea was a good one. Good thing we didn't end up springing for it. She said she'd rather have sweaters or something. What we'll get my dad is still up in the air; I'm not sure why I feel like the responsibility is on me to find something for the parents every Christmas, birthday, Mother's/Father's Day, etc., but I think if I didn't, it just wouldn't get done. Unfortunately, this makes me stress out about finding the right thing. Buying gifts for parents is hard. Personally, I think they have it easy. I'm a college kid - get me a gift certificate for Target and I'll be happy.

Mom built a fire in the fireplace. Yesterday when I got home I helped her haul wood to the porch from the pile on the edge of the yard. We figured we'd get a good stock on the deck while it was still in the 70s. A couple hours later, the front went through, bringing cold, harsh air from the north. I had two cups of apple cider today, finishing off the half gallon of it in the fridge. Mom was mad. Fortunately, I was on the phone with Keira when she asked where it was. I pointed to my tummy.

I kind of miss being at college. It's lonely here. Most of my friends are only home for a little while or are busy so I don't think I'll get to hang out with them at all. I hope Christmas break isn't so bad. It'll be nice not having homework to worry about then; I can sell my textbooks online and go to the Rec and build snowmen or something and finally get a book read! I've read one book this semester (tons of short stories, poems, plays, etc. for classes) and I'm working on a book now, but I'm not sure I'll finish it before it's due back at the library. I turned in my finals schedule and spring semester schedule for the Derb next year. I'm working Tuesday/Thursday breakfast, and Monday/Tuesday/Friday dinner. By working every Friday dinner, I won't have to work Saturdays or Sundays because Friday dinner counts as a weekend shift (we're required to work two per two-week rotation). And even then, we'll be done by 7:30 so if I wanted to do something fun, I'd still be able to. I don't have classes next semester until 11:30, but I wanted to reserve my MWF mornings for some Rec time. I hope I can get motivated to go!

Tomorrow's the big Turkey Day. I hope everyone enjoys time with the fam. My mom keeps reading off these statistics about Thanksgiving like how the average American will consume 5,000 calories during their one special meal. Sheesh. I think I have a little more self control than that. My mom did find real sweet potatoes at the store, so I'm a happy camper. She put me in charge of cooking them properly. Deliciousness.

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Yay for productive days! It feels pretty good. I sat down to compare housing rates between off-campus apartments, residence halls, and Jardine apartments so I could talk to my dad about where I'll live next year. Right now, I'm (well, my dad's) paying like $700/mo. to live in the halls but that includes incredibly cheap laundry, I can take long hot showers, I don't have to clean or cook, and I don't have to drive to work. When you consider utilities and meals and everything if I lived in Jardine, it would be close to $1000/mo. and off-campus housing doesn't look very nice and it's probably a lot less safe. So, after much debate, I'll probably live in the halls again. I might move over to the Strong complex so I don't feel so out-of-place with all the freshmen in Moore. Who knows; Haymaker seems pretty nice but I'm sure Putnam or something like that wouldn't be too bad either. We'll see.

I'm so excited to watch the KU game on Saturday. I haven't really been watching any games so far, but I know this'll be a good one. I watched the KU men's basketball team today because Tyrel got to play a lot and it's fun to watch him. Mom made peanut brittle. Yum.