Happy Valentines Day

I’ve been on cloud nine sinces yesterday, but I just wanted to wish you a happy valentines day.  Be sure to take some time out of your day to tell special people in your life how much you love them.

 

Love,

Sondra

Brand New Semester Part II

This will be a short post, but my Bio class looks delightful.  The prof is hillariously funny although very few people laughed at his jokes… perhaps they are too subtle?

 Anyway, I giggled a bit when he wrote down why we should be interested in what he is teaching. 

• You have a body.
• Things go wrong with it.
• It would be helpful to know why.

Haa! Then he started talking about different types of muscle tissue, and when he got to ‘smooth tissue’ he asked the class whether any of us had tripe before because that is smooth muscle and when he got no response he just said “Naw, you guys stay away from that kind of stuff don’t you?”

I’m not sure how funny that reads but I found it plenty amusing at the time.  The guy seems like he’s incredibly interested in what he does and thats always a good sign.  He even dimmed the lights so he could show us how pretty neuronal tissue can be.  Good times.

Until Later,

Sondra

Brand New Semester

Hello All,

I haven’t given up quite yet, I’ve just been busy.  As anyone who knows me is aware, I spent my New Year’s in Calgary, Alberta.  It was wonderful, and I had lots of fun.  I got to eat at the revolving restaurant on top of Calgary Tower, Shop, check out the Devonian Gardens, walk through a christmas lights display at the zoo, welcome the New Year in my pajamas, drink brazillians and enjoy my time with generally fabulous people.

It was tough to say goodbye but I was so busy after my trip I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for myself.  Before I knew it, I was packing up and driving to Buffalo.

 And so, I’m back at school.  My classes seem like they’ll be interesting, and my American History prof looks a little like Dr. House (Hugh Laurie).  He even has a cane.  I even half expected him to berate me about Lupus.  Fortunately, he seems much nicer than Dr. House and just as funny (maybe).

So right now I’m just adjusting to life as a student again.  It’s nice to see my friends and hopefully I can stay relatively unstressed this week. (ha)

More classes tomorrow and I’ll be out braving the cold wintery weather.  I’ll try to post again by next week.

Until Later,

Sondra

Happy Holidays

Hi All!

 Haven’t given up on blogging yet.  Just a little thing called finals ate up all my free time.  Hoo boy were they stressful!  I used James’ stress relieving toy he got me for my birthday for the first time.  Here’s  me on my last two days of finals.  The giant American flag is courtesy of my roomie, not me.

If the toy looks familiar, take a closer look.

 

If you’re a fan of the show “Futurama”, you’ll recognize it from the episode “The Sting”.  It’s a personal favorite, right up there with “Bend Her” (smiles and nudges James).  It’s the gift that Leela finds in Fry’s locker.

 

Aww.  Well anyway, it came in handy!  I was stressing!

 Anyway, now I am home.  Yay.  I’ve been spending most of it playing “try to grab sondra’s gloves and run like hell” with my dog in the snow (it’s his weird version of ‘fetch’ except he doesn’t bring things back and i have to wrestle him to the ground to get my gloves back) or playing Zelda on the N64 or working.  I just came back from a 9 hour shift where my nicest and most polite customer all day was a 10 or 11 year old girl.  Most customers just toss me their plastic and grunt back to my questions.  This is a little off topic, but be sure to use your manners, people!  I know its crunch time and you have a million and one things to take care of but a simple thank you goes a long way!

I may add a few pics later, but I probably will not update until I’m back at school.  I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah!  For those who will be in Calgary for Christmas/New Years I look forward to seeing you again!  I feel very fortunate to not only have a wonderful boyfriend but to really like his friends too. 🙂

Best Wishes,

Sondra

like a tree… or a high class prostitute

This is going to be a short post, because it’s now end of the semester crunch time.  My time is not my own anymore.  However I just finished a lab and exam for bio today, so I’m enjoying a short lull.

I just *had* to post this video.  It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, and I’ve been playing it over and over again.  Just listen to the lyrics carefully and give it a few minutes. 

I anticipate a comment from James saying the video wasn’t funny at all, and that Austrailian accents sound like garbage (although they’re from New Zeland) 😉 .

Dangit now he’s gonna find it funny.

hehe.

Anyway, I think it’s hillarious.  I’d eat kababs with them all night long, baby.

Here they are on David Letterman.  I gotta check out their show on HBO when I have some more free time.

Until Later,

Sondra

The Wild World of Knitting

For a Blog with the word ‘Knitting’ in it, I don’t talk about knitting a whole lot. 

I chose the name partially because I intended and showing finished knitting projects and also because I felt it projected the right kind of feeling for my posts and described me well.  Knitting is old-fashioned but the “in public” part makes it seem risque and odd.

I do knit when I have the time, but most of the time I finish projects so infrequently it’s hardly worth posting about.  I don’t want to keep everyone in suspense for 6 months as a finish a hat.  It’s not that I couldn’t finish it in a week, it’s that my knitting is always the first thing to get put off in a world full of lectures, tests and papers.  Sometimes I wish I had the kind of stamina that other knitters do.

Although I don’t plan on devoting my blog to knitting projects, I thought it would be an entertaining post to give you a taste of my world.  Knitters have practically a whole underground society.  Theres knitting blogs, yarn festivals, knitting contests, books, magazines and pretty much anything you can think of.  Today I even discovered a knitting podcast called Stash and Burn.

There are myths that come with knitting.  One of the most popular idea is the ‘Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater’.  The idea is that if you start a sweater for your boyfriend, you’ll break up before you’re done.  Of course, it takes a long time to finish a sweater, so its somewhat likely that you’ll break up sometime in that six months that you’re knitting away.  Also, unless the sweater was *his* idea, it’s a possibility you’re smothering the poor guy.  Especially if the sweaters are matching.  I never understood the attraction to the matching couples thing.

Knitters have even developed their own language.  To start a project you cast on.  If you are unhappy with what you have just knitted you frog it (because you rip-it).  My wonderful boyfriend has mastered both words, and can get by in a short conversation about what I’m knitting.

There are entire books dedicated to knitting terms, and even after knitting for 3 or 4 years I still find myself looking up terms. 

A large part of the joy of knitting (or with any sort of craft) is looking forward to which project you’re going to start next.  There are many beautiful sweaters, scarves, hats, cardigans and more to knit out there.  The trick is finding them.  The problem is, there are so many hideous patterns out there.  Part of the problem is that knitting has been going on forever, so of course there are going to be sweaters that are a little dated.  However, some of it is just absolutely unexplainable.

Like this.

Or this.

Or this.

“the fuzzy fun fur says i have a playful personality. the ribbon that looks like my own hair says i’m a crazy bitch and i’ll cut you.”

There is a word for these types of things.  It’s fugly.

I think part of the problem is that yarn companies want to appeal to a newer crowd of knitters.  As any knitting knows, theres always the sweater that never turns out very flattering, or the hat thats just the wrong color.  However, some of the time you just end up slapping your forehead and wonder if the editor is on crack. 

Until Later,

Sondra

Drinking In Public

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Every once and a while I’ve been wanting to start posting again. A milestone like your 21st birthday gives the perfect excuse to start up again.

I was lucky enough to celebrate two birthdays.  One with James and my friends from Rochester,  the second with my friends from Buffalo on my real birth date.

Both were absolutely wonderful.

Early Birthday consisted of James and me waking up around 10 (no early black friday shopping for us!). We ended up shopping a little, and I finished my chirstmas shopping for my family. That night we went to a Japanese place, Arigato Restaurant. It was lots of fun. They cooked on a hibachi grill in front of us, made a little ‘volcano’ from onion rings stacked up on each other. We were also tossed little ‘rice balls’ (little clumps of the rice that was being cooked) that we had to catch in our mouths. The first one tossed to me (I was so close!) bounced off my teeth. The second rice ball fell down my shirt. Eeek!

After a delicious dinner, I was given a geshia wig and a shawl made from some oriental-looking fabric and I got my picture taken with my friends. The wig was pretty itchy, but everyone seemed to get a kick out of it.

We headed back to my house and we opened presents and all the rest of the traditional birthday things. I got some really beautiful gifts, like lots of girly bath things, a beautiful hand-knit (and blue ribbon winning) shawl, and a mix CD (mix CD doesn’t have the same ring to it as mix tape does). I also got a very beautiful blue topaz necklace from James that looks like this-

Isn’t it pretty? James picked it out himself too, which makes it extra special. I apologize for the lack of detail in the picture, I snapped that with my webcam. Maybe some day I’ll get a digital camera to take beautiful pictures with. Anyway, I promise it’s even more beautiful in person.

It was really wonderful to see my friends from Rochester again, and it really reminded me how lucky of a girl I am. Having James there was wonderful as well, and he did everything to make my birthday the best yet. He succeeded with flying colors.

My next birthday (my real birthday) was a little less eventful, but still lots of fun. After getting comment-bombed on my facebook account (thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone!) I went out to Applebees with some friends. My first legal drink? A Perfect Margarita! A big part of the appeal was that it came with the drink mixer, so I ended up having essentially three drinks. It was delicious! Next time I’m at applebees and I have the financial funds, I’m certainly ordering it again.

About 20 minutes into my drink, my friend Keith made a joke which made me start to giggle. In turn, he yelled out- “It looks like we have a giggler!”, which in turn only made me giggle more.

After dinner, we decided to stop by Wegmans (a wonderful grocery store for those who are not familiar with the new york-pennsylvania area) to pick up some more booze (specifically baileys). While driving there, I called James for the last few minutes of my 21st birthday. You can of course read all about that conversation here.  Of course, keep in mind he just brought up my phone call to distract from the fact he wore out his car battery. 😉

We got to Wegmans, and wandered around the store (I was very giddy, and spent most of the time bouncing around and giggling). We got to the beer section only to realize- Wegmans doesn’t have a liquor license. We decided to call it a night and save going to a liquor store for another day.

We came back to the suite, and my friend/suitemate Becky had made me a cake. It was devils food cake with strawberry frosting. She even had me pick out my own candles, I picked out some candles shaped like stars. It was wonderful, and tasted delicious! Here is a quite blurry picture of the beautiful cake.

No amount of sharpening is going to make the picture clearer, but you get the idea. While eating the cake, I broke the plastic fork I was using. That only brought on more giggles. However breaking the fork was in no way connected to my inebriated state because the very next day when helping myself to the very slice you see here, my plastic fork broke again.

I had a wonderful night, and I quickly fell asleep.

Here are some pictures from my early birthday.

 

 

Until Later,

Sondra