president's day weekend!

HELLO!

In just a few hours, right after I finish my classes, I'm going to be heading up to SLO (San Luis Obispo) again for the weekend! I can't wait to see Tom and all the other friends I have there... Hurrah for long weekends!

Unfortunately, I have some homework for next week, so I'll be taking my computer up to SLO... perhaps I will blog on the train again, like I did last time!

HURRAH.
^____^

Happy President's Day weekend! (especially, to you, Albert!)

michelle. xx

yum yum yum yum

Just a quick note; right now I'm eating oatmeal with misoot garu and honey.

DELICIOUS!

All I did was make normal oatmeal with milk, then at the end of boiling, I stirred in one spoonful of misoot garu and a half of a spoonful of honey (about), and it turned out to be rather wonderful!

I am quite pleased.

I shall blog again soon enough, I promise, and I'm sorry about my inconsistency!

Harriedly yours,
michelle. xx

i love food.

I have so much to write about, but I can't do it right now, as I have a big midterm tomorrow that I must study for! Therefore, just a quick brief post for today...

I just wanted to say, man, one of the dining halls that I eat lunch at pretty often between classes has started to serve this AMAZING marbled pound cake...

It looks exactly like that, though I pulled that image off of the internet.

I HOPE I DON'T GET FAT EATING IT!
It's so irresistibly delicious!
Heh heh heh.

Also, the other day my apartmentmates went to some Valentine's Day party and brought back this adorable, GIGANTIC cookie for me! Haha. Only making it more difficult to not get too fat! But still, it was delicious and a wonderful gesture on their part, and so I was very grateful.



... look how gigantic that thing is! It was the size of my face! And so delicious! Haha. :)

Alright, well, off I go to study now! Wish me luck! ^_^

Until next time,
love.
michelle. xx

busybusybusy!

Hello, there. It's Tuesday in California! Happy Tuesday!

... Yes. Anyway. Like I said in my last blogpost, I'll start off by telling you about my weekend. Which was pretty busy...

On Friday morning, I taught my PHE workshop at a high school in downtown LA. It was really interesting, because the school was actually just two floors of an office building in the middle of the city! To get to the school you had to enter the building and take the elevator up to the third or fourth floor. I felt like I was being tricked into going for a job interview, or... Something. Thank goodness that wasn't the case! Haha. It turns out each graduating class was extremely small, at most 35 to 40 students... So I suppose the small size of the school was justified, in a way. Still though... School in an office building? I don't know if I would have liked that.

... I wonder how they do physical education.

Oh yes and, I taught with a girl from UCLA. The last time I taught with someone from UCLA, she was really obnoxious and imposing and aggressive. Thankfully, the girl from this week was lovely, she was kind and nonjudging, which was a huge relief. Apparently I'm teaching with her again this coming Friday, which I look forward to greatly! ^_^

Friday afternoon I had a three hour training course that ended with the result of me now being officially certified to do blood pressure readings! Yes. If you provide me with a stethoscope and a sphygomanometer and all of the extraneous materials one requires to conduct this test, then I can tell you what your blood pressure is, and what that means in terms of if you have high blood pressure or are at risk of having high blood pressure (which is also known as hypertension).



Yay!

On Saturday, I had two exam reviews, one from 13 to 15:00, and one from 16 to 18:00. I was really hungry in between the two but then decided I didn't have enough time to eat a legitimate meal, so I made myself oatmeal and brought it to the second exam review session in a flask. ^_^



I don't really know if anyone thought I was strange for it, all I know is that it was delicious and I enjoyed it very much. Oatmeal is a great food. :D

On Sunday, of course, it was the Superbowl! But I had a lot of work to do, and so did all of my friends, but at the same time they all really wanted to watch it. As a compromise, Ivanna, our friend Jordan, and I went to Cameron's apartment and watched the Superbowl there, WHILE working. It was great multitasking. Though honestly, as I don't really follow the NFL, I wasn't watching the game too closely anyway. As a result, I got a ton of work done, all while watching the Superbowl with some of my best friends at USC. Wonderful. ^_^

Yesterday, yesterday being Monday, I attended a training/orientation session for exploreUSC hosting, which is essentially a program where current USC students host prospective USC students (ie students who have already been accepted to universities and are now choosing which one they will attend) for an evening, night, and morning, showing them around campus, showing them what it's like to be a student at USC, and just generally letting them get to know the school. We take them to dinner and breakfast at a dining hall, escort them to an evening university-hosted activity and show, and... I believe that covers our duties. In any event, I'm signed up for one night of exploreUSC hosting, so I'm looking forward to getting to know a prospective Trojan and showing them why I love my school! :D

Today is Tuesday 8 February 2011, and this morning I picked up my assignment information from JEP (Joint Educational Project). Every Tuesday and Thursday from next week until mid April, I'm going to be mentoring a small group of second graders at 32nd Street School, which is right next to the USC campus. I'm so so so excited for my first day; I love second graders! ^____^ I'll let you know how it goes!

Also, today I had my first chemistry exam of this semester.


(studying for the exam...)

I can honestly say that I think this chemistry exam was the absolute, hands-down BEST exam of my entire university career so far!!! Granted, this is maybe my fourth time learning the same material over again, but still, I feel so accomplished right now. I'm super excited to get my grade back, I'm sure I did great, and given the curve, hopefully exceptionally well!

Speaking of grades, that Psychology exam I had... The grades were put up last night, and I did above average, but at the same time not as great as I thought I had. I would have gotten a better grade if the class grades were curved, but unfortunately they are not for this class... It's okay though! I still did alright, and I'll just do extremely well for the rest of the semester to make up for it! I'm still confident that I can get at least a B+ for this course! ^_^

Well, now I have a lot of reading to finish for tomorrow, as well as studying to do for a biology exam I have on Thursday, so off I go to do that!

Blog again soon,
michelle. xx

getting better and getting busy!

Hello there! It is currently six days from my last blogpost, as I believe that was last Friday, yes?

Well since then, a few things have gone on; with regards to my illness, it's basically all gone now, except for a very slight cough, runny nose, and a tiny bit of a sore throat. My voice also has a bit of residual hoarseness in it, which is kind of annoying, but I can definitely just wait until it's back to normal. At least I'm not a singer! Hehe. ^_^

Over the weekend, though, was Jason's birthday celebration, and everyone went down to San Diego to celebrate it with him at his house; of course, I didn't go because I was too ill, but I heard they had a great time, for which I'm very glad! [:

On Sunday, a good friend of mine who goes to school with Tom came to visit me (he was in LA for the weekend because it was his dad's birthday), and we had lunch. That was nice, as I never get to see the friends I have who go to school up there, since it's so far away.

Anyway, for lunch we went to the Pantry, which is kind of a landmark in Los Angeles. It's a breakfast-all-day place which also has lunch and dinner menus, and has never been closed since 1924. By that I mean, for the past eighty seven years, this place has never taken a holiday or been closed to customers. In fact, the door doesn't even have a lock anymore! It's actually a very admirable achievement, to have had a business so successful that that's possible for such a long time.


THEY HAVE AMAZING PANCAKES!!!!!
I was so very excited before digging in. :D


My friend had french toast, and he was less excited before digging in. He said he'd had a big and late breakfast.

:(

Anyway, we also had a table at a great place; I could see all the cooking going on! It was so so so interesting!



They cooked everything on a teppanyaki style grill, which I thought was great, as they were super efficient, and their pancakes legitimately took 30 seconds to make. One chef finished an omelette in much less than a minute, and I must say, I was very genuinely impressed. All in all, a great lunch! ^_^

On Monday, back to classes, it wasn't too bad as I wasn't so sick anymore. I could actually focus without difficulty, hurrah! However, Cameron, with whom I have biology and chemistry, skipped class on Monday, which worried me, because he NEVER skips class. Therefore, I figured something must be really wrong, and then I found out that he's super sick! So, I went to the grocery store right after class, bought some fruit, chicken soup, and eggs, and went and taught him how to make chicken soup for himself. He was really thankful, which was nice. ^_^ It also seemed to me as if he hadn't really eaten all day, and had just lain in bed... So he must've been starving! I'm very glad I went over and made soup for him, when otherwise he would've gone hungry. :)

On Tuesday (the first of February, 2011!), I had an 8 page Psychology paper due, so I handed that in... I feel like I did really well on that, so I'm excited to see my grade when I get it back! Also, on Tuesday, I got a TB (tuberculosis) test done because I needed to for the volunteer program I'm doing with USC known as JEP, or Joint Educational Project. I guess I could have found the records from an old one, as I'm pretty sure I did one at some point within the last year and a half, but at the same time I was curious, and it was free, so I thought, why not? And just did it. Hehe. Of course, I tested negative for TB (I just got back from checking today). The site of vaccination bruised, lovely job on the part of the nurse who gave me the injection. Brava.



Here, you can see my arm with the vaccination bruise clearly visible. The yellow paper under my arm is the record of my test, and to the left of my arm is a cup of wonderfully nutritious cranberry-pomegranate juice that is keeping me full to the brim with vitamin C. ^____^ Above, you can see some bananas that I... ehem... 'borrowed'... from the dining hall. Bananas are definitely one of my favorite foods, they're so efficient! Compact, perfect for carrying around with their own sturdy packaging, chock full of vital nutrition, and filling too! So great. I love them.

Yep, that's my life for you. Enthusing over bananas. Lovely.

Today, today being Thursday, I had my first exam of the semester! It was exam 1 for my Introduction to Psychology class, and I must say, I found it relatively simple. Hopefully I get an A, that would be a great way to start off this semester!

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day... In the morning, I have Chemistry and Biology, then I'm teaching the PHE (Peer Health Exchange) workshop at a high school, and have to be there by 11:25, teach the workshop for an hour, and then I come back and have training with an organization I'm part of called CHIP (Community Health Involvement Project), wherein for four hours (from 14:00 to 18:00) myself and 19 other recruits will be trained in how to perform blood pressure and blood glucose level testing. Yay! I look forward to that a lot, it should be extremely interesting. Then, in the evening 1t 19:30 until 21:30, I have Wushu to finish off the day.

WHEW!

I better make sure I get some good rest tonight! :)

Well, that is all I have to say for now, I'll blog again soon! Thank you very much for your time, and I hope you are happy. Don't forget to smile!

^_^

love!
michelle. xx