new york in the morning!

Hello hello... Really quick post before I go to LAX!

Check out the omelette I made for myself this morning with the five eggs I had to get rid of before the winter break!



The outside was a bit burnt because I got impatient... haha... ^^;



Inside it, I put: corn, onions, olives, two types of cheese, mushrooms, and beef steak.



SO GOOD! ^____^

Anyway.

I'm all packed and waiting for my shuttle to the airport, which should be here in ten minutes... This is my last blogpost from my room in Los Angeles for the semester!

See you in the morning, New York!
michelle. xx

wrapping up the semester.

Today is Monday 13 December 2010, and I am at Cameron's apartment working on my psychology essay.

I just wanted to let you guys know that my weekend was amazing, and a great conclusion to the semester!

Like I said in an earlier entry, on Friday (10 December) I went to Alexa's apartment because she was throwing a surprise birthday party for her roommate, which was great fun! Everyone brought desserts, and we ended up having, I think, over 50 cupcakes, a cake, a pie, and over 40 cookies. Between less than 20 girls. Haha! It was truly fantastic. I ate a lot of sugar, felt vaguely revolted at myself, and then had a nice cup of delicious tea. ^^

On Saturday 11 December, I worked on my psychology paper during the day, and in the evening I went to a comedy club with a friend of mine called Waleed. It was very fun and funny, and the comedians were great! They were Sunda Croonquist, James Harris, Erik Rivera, Jim Tavare, and Tiffany Haddish. My favorite one of the lot [by far] has to have been Jim Tavare, who claims to have been in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. His website is here;
http://www.jimtavare.org/Jim_Tavare_Official_Website/Home.html

His act was really good, and I'm glad to have seen it. All of the acts were funny, but his was in the best taste and was by far the most classy act; that is, he retained the most dignity of the five comedians.

On Sunday 12 December, which was yesterday, I went to the beach with Cameron, and it was gorgeous! I was glad to have made one last trip to Santa Monica beach before the end of the semester and the winter holidays, wherein I shall have three weeks of tramping about in New York's half-meter of snow. Lovely, but at the same time, I will miss the sun while I'm away from it.

Here are some photos of the beach that day...


I took this, I'm quite pleased with it. The horizon is a tiny bit crooked, but ah well, what can you do. :P


Cameron and I about to leave... We had to disturb some random girl reading Twilight to ask if she could take a photo of us. Haha. I felt kind of bad, but it's just Twilight, so it didn't really matter... ^^;


And this was the rest of the beach. I love Santa Monica beach, even if it smells kind of strange and the water is dirty. Sitting on the sand and looking around is one of the best ways to spend time if you're in the mood to relax and destress after a long semester of hard work. ^_^

Today, I've just relaxed. Karlene, my roommate, left for home today, so I'll be sleeping alone in the room tonight! Awh. It's interesting how accustomed one can become to the sounds of another person sleeping nearby at night.

I'm meeting a friend for dinner tonight in an hour, who will be studying abroad in London next semester. Ah that would be so fun, I'd love to study in London for a semester, but that would probably take away from my four year course plan, so... Probably not. Haha.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'll blog again sometime soon!

Until then,
michelle. xx

egg drop soup and poopie face. ^^

Good afternoon! I look like real poopie, which is why I haven't put my face in this photograph. Haha.

In any event. I'm working on my Psychology essay right now, but just thought I'd share this briefly...

Today, for lunch I made myself an americanized version of egg drop soup! It was delicious. :D



... Haha, that is legitimately all I wanted to say in this entry.

On another note though, I'm going to be in New York in only five days! Yay, I can't wait! :D

Oh yes, and in the photo at the top of this entry, that cupcake is from a surprise birthday party Alexa threw for her roommate last night. I made about 35 cupcakes and bought 20 cookies... Cameron, Ivanna and I took 21 cupcakes and the cookies over to Alexa's place, and the fourteen leftover cupcakes... Are sitting in front of me on my kitchen table. They are very inviting, haha. I hope I don't suddenly put on five pounds in my last five days here! :)

Alright, bye for now!
michelle. xx

sore throat. :(

Hello again!

A few things to say...

Primarily, I'm sick! Noooooooo!
What happened was, ALL THREE of my apartments were deathly sick with some sort of severe cough, and I was perfectly fine until a few days ago, when it started getting really cold outside... At that point, they closed our apartment windows and turned on the heater, so there was no ventilation!

No fresh air + many nights sleeping and breathing the same air as them = I will get sick.

:(

It's really unfortunate, because they've been sick in turns for the past seven weeks or so and I've been perfectly fine. Until they closed the windows. :(
Now I have a sore throat and a cough. Booooo.

Anyway, moving on... You know what else I realized? When classes ended, I created this beautiful piece of pure art that I for some reason NEVER showed you guys!



This is a creation of mine called the "cakeinamug", which is essentially exactly what it's called... A cake in a mug! With frosting on top, of course. :)
I ate it after the last day of classes was over, as sort of... celebration. Haha. Cameron helped me, because it was a lot of cake. It was so delicious, I felt so fat afterwards, but so gratified! :D

So yes. Next semester I shall create many of these beauties and indulge myself after large exams and the like. I hope I don't get too fat! Haha.

Well, today I did my presentation for my Latin American class, as well as handed in the corresponding essay, which were both about the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the group's interactions with the Colombian government. I talked about how the FARC is the cause of a LOT of unrest within the country, as well as a large part of the reason why the Colombian government is/was on bad terms with its Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, and Nicaraguan counterparts. Therefore, I talked about the fact that the FARC funds itself through drug exports and the taking of hostages, and the issues resulting from these actions.

... Well, that's all for now. At the moment I'm going to Cameron's apartment to watch The Apprentice with him, Ivanna, and a few other friends so...

Until next time!
michelle. xx

chem final.

Well, I got out of my Chemistry final exam an hour ago, hopefully I did well enough in it... We shall see.

Now I'm going to reread some notes about the FARC and the Colombian government for a presentation I have to do tomorrow. Woohoo! After the presentation, I'm going to sleep A LOT. Haha.

Then, I'm going to write my take home final exam for Psychology on Friday, after which I shall embark on one last weekend of fun before the winter holidays!

Yay, I can't wait to get back to New York, I have missed it. I've also gotten in touch with quite a few friends from Woodmere Middle School, and apparently I'm going to see them over the break... That should be good! I especially can't wait to see Cathy, I was really sad that I didn't get to see her this past summer, so I must see her this break! ^_^

Furthermore, apparently the family is going to Baltimore for Christmas. Yay! I look forward to that. I really really miss the family in Baltimore, I don't get to see them nearly enough.

Well, that's all I have to say for now, I'll blog about my presentation and my weekend later!

Until then,
michelle. xx

hi.

Hello hello. ^_^

First order of business; I forgot to upload the image of the cupcakes I made on my birthday!
So, here they are; you're going to have to click on the photo to see all of them, because it gets cropped out by the margins. :(


... That's after my friends had a few already. Yes. I made a lot lot lot of cupcakes and gave them to all of my friends, and I felt good. Sorry I forgot to show those to you!

I'll put the photos from Las Vegas at the end of the blogpost, just in case you were wondering. Yes, I did upload them finally! :D

Anyway, since the last time I blogged, which was on 1 December 2010, I've done a few things, but basically life has been rather relaxed and calm.

On 2 December I handed in the last term paper for my Holocaust General Education class. In that class, the Professor told us that every single person in that class had a current grade of A or A-... And then told us that he would cancel the final exam because none of us could do better anyway! Hurrah! So I definitely have at least one A or A-... Yay! That made me happy. ^_^

On 3 December I handed in a take-home final exam for my Latin American General Education class, woohoo! I'm really glad that class is over, it was pretty boring... Also, on that day I taught at a high school called Animo Locke. That class was by far the most rowdy and raucous of the classes I have taught so far. Whew! Those kids knew a lot more than they should at that age, and it was truly unfortunate. I hope they turn out alright. What made it even more sad was the fact that some of the kids, you could tell, were truly good kids who wanted to learn and be good people, but the other students weren't letting them, and forcing them to try to be 'cool'. It was really sad.

On 4 December, USC played their last American Football game of the season against UCLA at the Rose Bowl (the stadium) in Pasadena. OF COURSE, we won. Fight on! But I must say, that was maybe the worst performance of the season by USC. Shameful. I really hope the USC team pulls it together next season. Of course the NCAA sanctions hit us bad, but that doesn't mean we have to lose our dignity too! Come on, Lane Kiffin. You can do it!

... That's about all that has happened so far really. Today I went to a review session for Chemistry. I really hope I can do well on that final. I need it.

Tonight I got free food from a USC sponsored event... Free Chipotle burrito and Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets! Hurrah! I love free food. ^_^
... But of course, so do all other university students! So, the line for the free food was soooo long... I'd say at least 1500 people showed up for the free food! Thankfully, Cameron and I showed up an hour early and made sure we were at the front of the line. Haha.

And... what else... Ah yes. On Wednesday I have my Chemistry final, and on Thursday I have an essay and a presentation for my Latin American General Education class. After that, I have until Wednesday 15 December to write my take home final exam essay for my Psychology class. Then, it's home sweet home!

... I suppose that's all I have to write in terms of blogging for now.

With respect to the photos from Las Vegas, I realized that it would be a huge endeavour to put photos of everything here, so I uploaded them all here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=251841&id=504703030&l=04c0ba22d8
copy and paste the URL into the address bar, and you'll be able to see all of the photos I took in Las Vegas!

I hope you enjoy!

michelle.

Thanksgiving weekend adventures! :)

Well, it's been a bit busy with schoolwork since I got back from Las Vegas, but I'm going to just post anyway because I feel like I should. ^^

I took so many pictures in Las Vegas, but I haven't uploaded them onto my computer yet! I'll do that as soon as possible and put them here when I do.

The last time I blogged was a week and a day ago, which was my birthday. Now I'm nineteen. :P

So far, my nineteenth year has been amazing at times, and terrible at others. But I shall spare you the sordid details of my friends' foolishness and just talk about the great times!

So as you are well aware, on 24 November 2010 I went to Vegas. It was a 45 minute flight... We took off at 19:30 and arrived just in time to have dinner at the Hooters across the street!

It would probably take a very long time and be very tedious if I went through everything I did day by day in detail, so I'll just say what I did en bref, as the French would say. :)

24 November 2010 (Wednesday)
- arrived at and looked around MGM Grand
- ate dinner at Hooters across the street from MGM Grand

25 November 2010 (Thursday)
Saw the following hotels...
- Bally's
- Flamingo
- Imperial Palace
- Mandalay Bay
- Luxor
- Excalibur
and...
- had lunch at 'Hash House A go-go' at Imperial Palace
- saw the Lion King musical at Mandalay Bay! ^_^

26 November 2010 (Friday)
Saw the following hotels...
- Harrah's
- Venetian
- Wynn
- Circus Circus
- Bellagio
- Planet Hollywood
and...
- went to Adventuredome
- had lunch at Flavors Buffet in Harrah's
- had dinner at Spice Market Buffet in Planet Hollywood
- watched the Fountain show at the Bellagio

27 November 2010 (Saturday)
Saw the following hotels...
- Paris, Las Vegas
- New York, New York
- Rio
and...
- had lunch at Carnival World Buffet in the Rio
- watched the Volcano fountain at the Mirage
- saw the lion exhibit at the MGM Grand

28 November 2010 (Sunday)
Saw the following hotels...
- Caesar's Palace
and...
- ate breakfast at Lago Buffet at Caesar's Palace
- saw the animals in the Secret Garden at the Mirage
- ate lunch/dinner at the buffet in the Wynn

So... That's what I did in Vegas!

I suppose that list was rather ambiguous, I should really elaborate... I'll do that in the next post, when I put up photos from Vegas too! That way you don't have to imagine everything when I describe it. :)

But for now, let me just put this here for you; the music to the fountain show at Bellagio was the song "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas". It turns out people take videos of the fountain displays and put them on youtube... So here's a video that someone put up of the same fountain show I watched! Except, of course, taken on a different date. :)
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDZA2s6njw8&feature=related ]

Oh by the way... on Saturday (27 November 2010), USC played Notre Dame in American football, which I just barely managed to follow by looking at television screens as we walked through the casinos... USC was doing well, we were winning 16-13, when OF COURSE, at the last moment (with about 2.5 minutes left), we conceded a touchdown... There have been so many games where we were winning and then lost in the last minute or so, it's terrible. Silly USC. Heh.

... So as you can imagine, it was a truly hectic weekend. Having gotten back to school, I was immediately set upon by loads of work that I hadn't had that much time to work on while in Vegas!

On Tuesday (yesterday), there was a laboratory exam for Chemistry which I had studied for a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. Honestly though, I feel so demotivated for Chemistry based on the rest of this semester... I don't know what I'm going to do with that class. Eh.

Tonight I'm going to work on a 5-page essay due tomorrow for my Holocaust class. There is a PHE group dinner on tonight as well, which should be fun... Free dinner with all of the members of Peer Health Exchange! Yay! ^_^

Tomorrow, I am going to write a final exam essay for my Latin American General Education class that is due on Friday.

On Friday, I'm teaching a PHE workshop at 14:00. It's my last workshop of the semester, awh. I will miss it over the winter holidays.

...And those are my plans for this week! I do believe that is all I have to say for now. I do have an interesting weekend planned, so I'll blog about that next week as well!