Butternut squash and bacon mac and cheese

I'm back to my old ways. Except not. I had a modicum of free time last semester, which has dwindled to an iota.

My job is amazing, though! I'm making some how-to guides and things online, so I'll share as soon as those are up. One of the things I'm working on will require me to make a Bitstrip. And get paid for it.

I also am creating a website for a class from scratch. This is what I've come up with so far. Stay tuned and hopefully it will start to get better. Or maybe it's already at its peak, who knows?

This is me dressed up. A couple of the girls threw a birthday party where we had to pretend to be classy. So I got to wear my Dressbarn dress that I thought I would have no occasion to wear.

Cute!

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for positive experiences with me! I think I made a typo in my email and said I would be writing 300 pages when I meant words. I hope that didn't make anyone put more effort into it than they meant to :-) Sounds like I'm doing a lot of soul searching for my Managing class. I'll let you know what I find.

Winter Picture Book

Somewhere, TX

Well, so much has happened, so here's a short pictorial version.

Sarah, Heather and I took a trip to Fredericksburg, TX and did small-town things. Like witness a cow auction, antiquing, and swimming in December.

Emilia and Sarah put on a lovely holiday party and got us December babies a pinata. Santa did not have a chance.

Four weeks at home was almost perfect.

Katie, Dad and I went to a Thunderbirds game, which is where I discovered my previously mentioned love of hockey.

I was able to go to Portland and Vancouver, where, apparently they use the same architect to design the entire city.

Katie and I watched the Canucks game.

I finished my cardigan that I started in about February, along with many other craftsy things. I like to think about when I first started this sweater as a naive young professional in the Northwest. So much has changed. So much.

After reading this article on Jezebel about a call to wear only 6 pieces of clothing for a month (not counting workout clothes, undergarments, outerwear, shoes and accessories, because come ON, we're not THAT minimalist). When I read it I thought "Man, I just did that and it SUCKED". But, apparently I didn't (5 skirts, 5 T-shirts, 4 sweaters, 3 cardigans, 1 blouse, 1 dress and 2 pairs of jeans is more than 6). There is no hope for me.

I ate a lot. No one does food like Seattle.

I lost my buddy, Buck, but he stuck around for the holidays. He also stuck around long enough for his last meal to be a pork chop. He was a smart one.

Semester One Done

I've made it back to Seattle for the break and was hoping to share a few end-of-the-semester photos but my borrowed memory card reader is agonizingly slow, so until I return to Austin, here is an abridged version of the end of the semester/beginning of winter break:

Got a GRA position with Library Instruction Services (woot!)

Got elected to be a Co-Director of the UT chapter of ALA (double woot!)

Two A's, one B (now the pressure to get straight A's is off, yessss)

The first half of my twenties ends soon

Hockey is my new favorite sport

Happy Holidays!

Austin Style Thanksgiving!

Katie escaped Snowpacalypse Seattle 2010 to visit for the weekend in Austin.

Thanksgiving in Austin is not different from Thanksgiving most other places, save for a few things:

Eating on the porch. Outside.
I'm trying to think if I've ever spent a Thanksgiving away from the family, and I'm pretty sure I haven't. Anyway, I put together a small potluck for the few people that stuck around. I made korean tacos and The Thanksgiving, which is simply cranberry simple syrup and sparkling white wine (if you've seen Wayne's World recently, you'll know what I didn't say champagne). We also had mac and cheese, apple pie, squash soup, corn pudding and some potato wedges that cause a small fire in the oven (it's all good).

Football! Ok, that's normal Thanksgiving stuff, but...

A cow on the field is NOT.

I was right about the bad signs at the hexing rally, UT failed! No bowl for the Longhorns. Still, it was a fun game. I was high-fived by The World's Hardest High Fiver after the first touchdown, so minus the minor injury, the fans were jovial rather than scary. Katie and I learned all the chants and sign language that go with the game and got into it as well as we could considering it was 40 degrees out.

Tacos! This has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but Katie loves her Torchy's.

This is the last week of classes and I'm hanging on by a thread! So, back to work!

I Put A Spell On You

Hex Rally 2010

Every so often I have one of those moments where I think "Am I really here?" One of those moments was today at Hex Rally 2010.

You heard me right.

Every year, before the UT-A&M football game (which my lovely sister is taking me to on Thursday), there is a rally in West Campus that aims to curse the A&M team by lighting red candles and singing the UT anthem 3 times.

THESE ARE PEOPLE HEXING

And then this banner fell off the building. Bad sign.

Muahahahaha!


And then the World's Largest Texas Flag got caught in a balcony on its way down.
Did we curse the wrong team?

Here is football player Foswhitt Whittaker and some people I don't know. Pseudo-celebrity moment!

As cynical as I can be, I am actually very excited about the game! It is so crazy to think about where I was a year ago and where I am now. Being in a place with so many out-of-place occurrences, I often stop myself to reflect on this point in my life and where I'm going.

On another topic, look! My cabinet is full of FOOD!

Thanks, Mom and Dad! It feels good not going to bed hungry.

Sunday Reading

This article on hipsters made me laugh out loud:

"When we announced a public debate on hipsterism, I received e-mail messages both furious and plaintive. Normally inquisitive people protested that there could be no answer and no definition. Maybe hipsters didn’t exist! The responses were more impassioned than those we’d had in our discussions on health care, young conservatives and feminism. And perfectly blameless individuals began flagellating themselves: “Am I a hipster?”

So Many Things

Seeing how I've neglected this blog for over a month, let me give a brief update of my life during that month.

School

I have more projects due than weeks left. 8 hours of sleep is no longer an option.

I am running for Co-Director of the student chapter of the American Library Association. There are 8 nominees for 4 positions and the election is next week. I need to start on my smear campaigns once the nominees are announced.

Holiday breaks

Katie is coming in 11 days! Eep!

I will be back home on the 14th.

Halloween

There was Jack-O-Lantern carving

Rocky Horror
Lounging at the Spider House
Austin Film Festival
Feels like I just went to SIFF, but now it's Austin's turn. I made it obvious which ones I recommend so you don't have to indulge me in my film critic fantasies and read my amateur reviews:

Lunafest- short films "by, about and for women", which means they're hit or miss. Sadly, when some filmmakers "celebrate" women, they can't resist putting a vomit-inducing level of sentimentality in there. Shorts worth doing a YouTube search for: Getting A Grip about the first female cable car operator in San Francisco; Irene, about the director's grandmother's struggle with keeping her independence while suffering from Alzheimer's; Miracle Lady, a stop-animation about a widow and her immortal neighbor.

Blue Valentine- The first half was better than the second. It sort of just kept going. And going. Anyway, now I sort of understand why it got the NC-17 rating (not that I side with the FCC).

Under the Boardwalk- ADD THIS TO YOUR NETFLIX. This is a documentary about Monopoly. Yes, the game Mom calls Monotony. When the film started with the usual corporate product praise, I thought I had made a mistake. But after following the National and International Monopoly Championships, I got pulled in. I love freaks who own being freaks and the people who compete in Monopoly championships are so entertaining.

S&M Lawn Care- A low-budget film about a local lawn care company (that has nothing to do with S&M) that is faced with some stiff competition when a sexier lawn care company comes to town. I liked it, but I think it caters to a certain sense of humor, so I will not order you to add it to your Netflix.

Hello Lonesome- At first I didn't think I liked this film, but I keep thinking about it. It's about 6 pairs of lonely individuals who pair up in friendship, love and ambiguous-territory. I think what made me cold to it at first was that these people probably shouldn't have "normally" interacted in the ways that they did. That might have been the feeling the filmmakers were looking for.

Bloodworth- ADD THIS TO YOUR NETFLIX. Don't question me. And don't let the fact that Hilary Duff is in the film stop you.

Wasteland- ADD THIS TO YOUR NETFLIX. I missed this at SIFF last year and it got all kinds of praise. An artist visits the world's largest landfill to take portraits of the workers there and eventually collaborates with them on their own self-portraits.

Austin Beer Week
An unintentional complement to AFF was Austin Beer Week, happening during the same time. I sampled the home brews at Lovejoy's and there was unanimous agreement (between me, Emilia and Carin) that the Orange Wheat was the best. There was also a Pinot Gringo, which was a beer made with a wine grape. It wasn't bad. It was just weird.

Haircut

Bye!