Is It Syllabuses Or Syllabi?

Today was the first day of winter quarter and I made it to my classes on time! Not that I didn't think I would, but it's always good to start out with a positive. Although really, there was no negative about today. My first class of the day was Principles of Learning or Learning Theory or Why We Don't Repeatedly Touch Hot Things...something along those lines. That one is the earliest class I have had since high school, starting at the crack of dawn: 9:30AM. [Laugh it up Dad] On second thought, I think I did have a photography class at like 8:30 but that is a fun class and I'd go to photography at any time. So I arrived at Hot Don't Touch class right on time, parking was a bit more challenging that I was expecting it to be, and we covered the syllabus, the general idea of chapter one and were free to go at 10:45. Sweet! Early release is always nice especially when you're getting out a full hour early. That gave me a nice five and a half hour lunch break. Later the long mid-day break will come in handy for homework but when you don't have any it just gives you a chance to go to the gym, shower, eat, and get sucked into your latest book. Thank goodness for my alarm clock on my phone! I've missed classes at AHC that way before.

My next class was Research Methods I (I get to take II next quarter) and that one is from 5:20PM to 7:35PM. Coincidentally both of my in person classes have the same instructor, hopefully this will be a good thing, so the drill was very similar to my morning class: syllabus, general idea of what the class will be all about (slightly different from what we learned from the syllabus) and free to go at 6:00PM. I think this was the easiest first day of quarter/semester I've ever had. Too bad these will be difficult classes, they may be my only early outs I get. But don't you worry, I enjoyed my "free" time and didn't put it toward practical use like going to the grocery store.

Well I'm officially off of free time now so I guess I have to go be productive and do laundry so I have a shirt for work (if they use my call-in) tomorrow.
Loves.

Playing Catch-Up Christmas Style

Happy New Year!! I hope that everyone enjoyed their wonderful holidays! I know I did. Winter break (since November 26th) has consisted of three drives over to B-town to visit my family and friends. Though none of them last nearly as long as I would like them to.

Christmas was wonderful. On Christmas Eve I went over to Jaslynn's house to help decorate cookies and deliver her gift. I love decorating cookies with her because she sends the 'ugly' ones home with me. My decorating skills really decline once I enter her house for some odd, unknown reason. For Christmas she gave me some really cute froggie slippers (to make friends with the toads that poop on my doorstep) along with an awesome photo frame that holds eight photos which she loaded up with beautiful photos she took of flowers and fruits. I have to get a good photo of it so I can post it up here because that little sentence doesn't do it justice. I have it on my wall to the right of my computer--it currently doesn't have to share this wall with anything else. It's funny that the best wall for hanging photos up on and I hadn't because I couldn't decide what I wanted to hang up. I have been going through my photos (and there's a lot of them) and changing out what's in some frames yet I still haven't gotten to the point that I needed a hammer or nails.

Christmas morning we had our traditional opening of our stockings (in our pajamas, of course) then having breakfast of scrambled eggs and homemade cinnamon rolls. Actually until just recently we'd have some sort of breakfast muffin or coffee cake but Mom has learned the magic of cinnamon rolls so we get to enjoy those instead. They are sooooooo good I'd eat them all the time if I didn't want to have to practically live on a treadmill as a result. After breakfast we open presents and either Becca or I (in our 20s) still play 'Santa' and pass out gifts to everyone from under the tree. This year it was Becca though she took the easy way out and passed out multiple gifts at once rather than make multiple trips to the tree. She's a sneaky one that Becca. I think we all gave and received some very nice gifts this year. I personally was very proud of my gifts to Dad. I gave him a glass from BJ's Brewhouse; he'd wanted to purchase one a few months ago but they didn't sell any then. I also got him a bar of C.O. Bigelow Mentha soap. Finally I gave him an awesome new hat that you can't get just anywhere. You have to go to a special store and ask specifically for it.

That's right, a paper In-n-Out hat! I thought he'd appreciate it, after all he told me not to buy him anything so I kind of did what he wanted. I think he must have known that I was getting him such an awesome gift because he gave me a perfect addition to my kitchen. A pineapple upside down cake pan! It's awesome and can be used for molds as well so I just may make little Jello pineapples for giggles. I can't wait to make some little cakes.

That evening we drove down to Santa Barbara and had dinner at my aunt's house. Julia made so much good food: pork roast, vegetable shepherd's pie, a yummy salad, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Luckily her recipe for shepherd's pie makes a lot of food so I was able to take some leftovers home with me. :) I really need to get a copy of that recipe. After dinner we all played charades, which was very funny and sometimes hard. We were using pre-created topics to act out and some of them were words of wisdom, such as 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. But the phrases weren't always correct--or at least we didn't think so. Some of them were just a little off, like one about crossing your bridges when you get to them. Maybe it was a translation issue or just poor grammar but for the most part we didn't force the guess of the 'wrong' answer but took the phrase wording that we were familiar with.

Stay tuned for details of how I rang in the new year. I'll give you a hint: it involves being very tired the next day.
Loves.

Hot Chocolate and Cookies, Yum

I am done with aiding Christmas shoppers in their frantic state of manic "holy moly I haven't even bought a single gift and only have TWO shopping days left!" gift grabbing. I luckily am not on the work schedule until 6pm on the 26th so I have relocated myself to B-town for Merry Ho-Ho festivities. In fact, I've been here for about an hour and am half way watching White Christmas with Dad. It's great, I walked in the door and had hot chocolate waiting for me! I should totally come home more often.

My drive down was a breeze, though without any breeze as far as I could tell. I took my newly found short-cut to the 166 (saves me about 8 miles by not driving east to the 99) and I barely saw anyone until I got to 101. But even on the 101 there wasn't as much traffic as I expected. Maybe everyone was over at the mall and Best Buy shopping center stressing out and driving store employees batty with their silly questions. "Do you have more of the big gift baskets with all the cool Bath & Body Works stuff in it?" "Why yes we do have more of the really cool gift baskets but decided to hide them in the back since empty displays look so nice and we thought it'd be fun to see you stress out..." I understand why they ask but when half the tables of the special items and gift baskets in the store are very bare, you gotta assume that it's for a reason. We have at least ten people working and only five registers so whoever isn't working the registers is filling displays as quickly as possible, if we have the product left. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind answering customer's questions and helping them find something that suits their needs but there are only so many times that I can say "yes, all the items on the table that says 50% Off are in fact, 50% off."

Yesterday when I was working the sales floor (I've mainly been at the register) I had a lady asking me if we had any gift bags for sale. I pointed out our large selection of bags and boxes which were 50% off and she turned to me, winked, and said "you can give these to me for free?" Uh, sorry miss fancy designer (non-knock-off) purse, you can't afford a bag that is not on sale for 50 cents!? Even I can spring for a fifty cent bag! Then she asks if we have tissue paper and I told her that we did (we use it to wrap breakables) and could give her a few sheets if she needed it. I ended up helping at the register when she came up to pay and she proceeded to ask again if I would give her the gift boxes for free, the equivalent of three packs of tissue for free, a roll or our ribbon (we use it when we gift wrap items in cellophane) for free, and the expensive item that's barcode isn't scanning for free. Each time she winks at me (not like a kidding wink, but a I won't tell if you hook me up wink) when asking and leans in a little bit in anticipation of my answer. Which of course, was a (very forced) polite 'no' each time. I mean, if she'd just joked once that the item that won't scan is free I'd have laughed and joked back, but the persistent attempting to score free merchandise really irked me.

I'm glad that I finished my Christmas shopping early. Though I still had to give myself an extra 15-20 minutes just to find a parking space when going to work. It took me 10 minutes one day to get from the road the mall is on into the parking lot. I was at the point where I'd be yelling out my window to people asking them if they were leaving and slowing following people as they walk down the parking lanes. I just got so tired of circling and getting the spot I was driving towards or waiting for poached by soccer moms. And there's a limited area in which employees park, especially when working evenings, so those rare spaces were like gold. We all try to park in a certain range so that we can all walk out together at night and aren't too far from the hallway we exit from.

Ok, I have to end this especially derailed train of thought entry because Rascal keeps scolding me. He is ready to go to sleep now and I need to get into bed so he can sleep on me.
Loves.

Making Spirits Even Brighter!

You must must must watch this elf video. Mom made this one and it's totally how we spend each Christmas after we've finished building and wrapping all the gifts.
Loves.

Survey Says...

I found this and thought it'd be kind of fun to do seeing as it's totally that holly jolly time of year. Is my Christmas excitement annoying yet? Think so? Just you wait. I think I'm making up for the fact that it doesn't really feel like Christmas time to me. Snippets of my day do but I don't feel like it's only 6 days away. So, here's a holiday themed survey.

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. Really, it has CHOCOLATE.

Does Santa wrap presents or set them under the tree? Sets them under the tree. The elves wrap the presents, Santa wouldn't be able to do much with all those (potential) paper cuts on his hands.

Colored lights on tree or white? Colored lights. White lights should only be used in moderation, or for lawn deer.

When do you put your decorations up? In the past, when Dad got around to it. hehe. This year about two weeks in advance.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Ham. I love a good ham. Or our traditional scrambled egg breakfast.

Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Becca and I in our bunk beds listening for Santa when we went to bed on Christmas Eve.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? What truth about Santa? Oh, you mean that the mall Santa isn't the real Santa just a helper? Yeah, I learned that a long time ago, the parents and I discussed it.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not normally. Would if it was cute PJ's to wear that night.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Very slowly. We now each put up about 5 ornaments then get bored and give up. At some point somebody gets tired of the nearly naked tree and the billions of boxes with all our ornaments sitting around and finishes the job.

Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. Probably because I don't know any better. Though I am dreading it a little bit because most the highways out of here were closed a few days ago because of snow. I want to be able to get home for Christmas easily.

Can you ice skate? No. But I can rollerblade. I've never tried to ice skate.

Do you remember your favorite gift? I don't remember a lot of my gifts from when I was little. More the excitement or the waiting for assembly.

What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being with my family and friends.

What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pie. It makes a wonderful breakfast.

What is your favorite tradition? Stockings, scrambled eggs, presents.

Which do you prefer, Giving or Receiving? Definitely giving. I love finding unique things that I think people will love. I don't like having to shop off of wish lists.

What is your favorite Christmas Song? I really like Baby It's Cold Outside.

Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum in hot chocolate.

Ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes, but it was a White Elephant gift.

I Get It From Dad

Seeing as we're getting closer to Christmas I thought I'd throw another festive post up here really quickly. Last week (when I had four days of nothing going on) I dedicated a day to wrap all my Christmas gifts, watch Disney movies (my traditional viewing when wrapping), and decorate my apartment a little bit. I think my need for putting up some Christmas lights comes from dad's need to compete with (and totally beat) the mad skills of Clark Griswold. Dad wins because he uses color lights and more decorations than Clark. Really, anyone can cover the entire surface area of their home with boring white lights and throw Santa and his reindeer on the front lawn. It takes a special type of skill and many evenings and weekends to strategically place all the different elements and make sure minimal fuses are blown when the lights are lit up. That and our Santa never gets launched into orbit by toxic fumes released by a crazy in-law... On that note, here is my festive decoration for the apartment.

I tried to put the lights up outside but there was no outlet available. Then I was thinking about plugging them in through my porch light on my patio but I didn't have an adapter to do so and Longs didn't have one when I bought my lights. So then I was going to hang them on the outside of these blinds so that it'd look festive inside and outside but I couldn't close my blinds then... But that's ok, this way I can be a little Grinch-like and not share my holiday light spirit. Muhahaha. Next, Max and I will go sledding.

I'm also including photos from Dad's decorating skills from last Christmas. Ah the fond memories of using more than two power-reliant items in my room at once only to blow the fuse then walking to the backside of the garage in the cold and dark to restore power... Apparently this year he is trying to eliminate such a threat of half-house blackout and is plugging some of the lights in through the back yard.

Six days until Christmas!
Loves.

I Want A Charlie Brown Tree This Year

I am totally in the mood for Christmas. In fact, I'm really into the whole winter season this year. Normally I just get into a holiday mood, not so much a seasonal mood, but I think I'm embracing my cold fingers this year. Last night I dug through my closet to find my gloves because my fingers were freezing! I figured that wearing my gloves would be more comfortable than sitting on my hands all evening. Plus it's difficult to read when sitting on your book which is in your hand. Difficult and uncomfortable.

I love iTunes because they give me two free Christmas songs a week every week after Thanksgiving. They've been doing this for a few years so I am getting a pretty good collection of holiday songs. I have a great range of artists from The Killers and Jimmy Eat World to Tony Bennett and Harry Connick, Jr. Right now I have about 30 songs on my computer (good mix of free and bought) and two more CDs somewhere in my stack of music. Once I transfer the songs from my computer to a CD I'll have non-stop music for my drive to and from B-town for the holidays.

I'm off of work all week (I'm not on the schedule until Friday) and tomorrow I am going to Longs to buy myself some Christmas lights so that I can have a festive patio like many of my neighbors. I also have to get some sort of adapter so that I can plug my lights in through the porch light out there. Maybe I'll even get myself a Christmas tree like Monk's. It's nice, no worrying about cleaning up fallen needles or remembering to water it. Cardboard cut-outs are great. But really, you can't beat the classic Christmas tree.

That's about it for now, I'm going to go find the rest of my Christmas music.
Loves.