Sunday, November 29, 2009

Why I should never be allowed in a kitchen at 5 am

Alternate title: Jesse can't cook.

I must start by reminding my like 4 readers that I am obviously home for Thanksgiving break because my dorm room does not require the necessary appliances for cooking. (After reading this, you will probably think this is a good thing.....) Thus the references to parents and tupperware and ovens and all other assorted vehicles of cooking mania that I do not normally have in my posession. (don't ask why I'm talking so formally - it's 7 am. Just... let's leave it at that.)


Meet my "fried rice." (the SECOND batch of it. Because cooking horrible abominations isn't good enough - I have to do it twice. o.O The second one is actually the worse of the two...)


First... I am the worst rice cooker on the planet. Every single time I attempt to cook rice, I fail. I always end up with like 3 inches of water with the rice, DESPITE my best efforts to follow the direction on the packaging. Thus, my rice always resembles mush. Sigh.


Second... this one is not my fault. My house consisted of NO vegetables WHATSOEVER... except, well, tomatoes... and this. So... I used both. XD I sauteed the tomatoes (and didn't realize that for some reason my oven's dials do not turn the way I thought they should... I assumed I had it on "medium low" heat... when in actuality I had it on "medium high" heat. When my tomatoes were frying to a crisp and splattering everywhere [hot grease, mind you - hot buttery tomato-y grease], I turned it to what I thought was "low" but turned out to be "high" ... AHG! Anyway)


Third isn't that bad... leftover ham from Thanksgiving... to substitute for the "pork" that would normally go in fried rice. Ham is pig. Pork is pig. Makes sense? (I'm waiting for someone who can actually cook to post and be like "OMG NO, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!")


This is the result of my first attempt. I actually ate a good portion of it (NOTE this entire thing occurred because I haven't done any homework over Thanksgiving like... at all... and am now attempting to smash it all into the last 24 hours of it. So it was like 5 am and I was starving and craving Chinese food.... so I [again avoiding homework] went online and found a fried rice recipe. Thankfully we didn't have the ingredients for the "Sweet and sour chicken" recipe I found, or else this would probably be a post about how my house just burned down)... Things were looking rather good at first... I discovered that I actually LIKE scrambled eggs when they are cooked in a tbsp of butter... it balances out that nasty sulfuric taste and replaces it with a sweet buttery goodness @_@

But in the end, utter disaster. It has taken up its permanent home in the tupperware in the fridge... with a sign begging someone to eat it (which means, depending on who finds it first, either dad will devour it and claim it's delicious and I won't be able to tell if he is just trying to make me feel better or if his tastebuds really are that far gone O_O... [my father is known to eat just about anything "edible" and like it... besides peas and those cereal snack bars that had the "milk" in them, I've never heard him say he doesn't like something]... OOOOR my mom will throw it out. Dad usually wakes up first, let's hope for that one.)

So... all in all... I should stick to cooking simple things like spaghetti, toast, and rice krispie treats, because frankly.... tomatoes? in fried rice? WTF.

-Jesse

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Conglomeration : You've reached Chris' voicemailbox, Iiii'm unable to answer the phone

(The original tradition of my conglomerations: These were spawned over Christmas break last year, when I was very, very, very alone. I needed to talk to people about what was going on in my heart and head [which was a LOT, that Christmas] and nobody was around. So I started writing Facebook notes where I would just dump all my thoughts out, some of them stupid, some of them funny, a lot of them kinda emo... most of their meaning was lost to anyone but me... there is often a lot of symbolism, a lot of rambling... I think there's a kind of art and poetry to it, and EVERY time, I come back months later and learn so much more about myself than I did even while writing it. They're more for me, than for you. And while I HATE people writing emo crap for the sake of writing emo crap... well, I guess that's not really what this is. This is more, like... I dunno what it's called. Where you just write everything that comes into your head. Mweh. Moving on. My point is that, these were "conglomerations" of thoughts - pieces that had no real connection to each other, they just were. Every time there's a line break, it means it's a different thought. Sometimes several line breaks will occur and all the thoughts be connected... sometimes I'll go from quoting a movie to talking about cookies to defining words... and it really has nothing to do with anything.)

If their music is to be believed, emo-ish rocker boys only date girls with awesome names (off the top of my head - Adelaide, Constantine, and Delilah).

I want to make up words.

I wish I could carry like a wagon of stuff with me at all times. I always want to hand someone a brightly coloured helium balloon, but never have one handy. Also in this wagon would be a large box of delicate, glass things for SMASHING against walls when I feel the need. >:(

Leftovers are cruel. In life, there are no clean cuts. Nothing ever breaks in a straight line. There's always that ragged, straggly mess that you have to deal with.

My literature teacher is obsessed with this idea that if everyone just read lots of books, they would know exactly how to live their life. Epic fail. Fiction either describes accurately, or paints life with a gilded sheen. Neither of which is really that helpful, I have found. One is depressing, and the other is more so.

I have a broken sword in my room and anytime I see it, I am torn between staring at it for hours, working up the courage to touch it... or throwing it out my window and screaming until security comes and yells at me.

I don't know how I feel about living in a world where some "indy" company tailoring to "organic" loving people can sell a chandelier made out of old spoons for $700. -.-' !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tension created in me when I'm trying to pick a side is greater than any of the passion I feel after I've picked my side. I like the tension. I love it when I can feel myself GROWING. I think I'm happier when I'm "depressed" if it means I'm learning, I'm stretching, I'm changing (even though it's painful)... it's most honestly depressing when days, weeks, go by and I'm the same. I'd rather be hurt and start moving on than to just be floating there... waiting.

That sword again. It made me slam my fridge door a little too hard.

The sword is the leftovers. Obligations to people I want to shove off a cliff and forget about. But no. I have to return this grrdamn effing SWORD.

Grrdamn. I've decided I like this word. Decided it earlier. It's like ... g... damn but without using the Lord's name in vain... which, despite how far from my Christian moral center I deviate... this is the ONE thing I CANNOT do. I think besides murder, it's the only commandment I have never broken.... that is, if you consider emotional infidelity to be adultery, or lust, for that matter... and if you think you can commit adultery against a boyfriend. :P

I think I like listening to loud rock-ish music because seriously, anything sounds cooler if you're yelling it with a powerful guitar and drums behind you... this guy is singing "Does anybody care at all" and it almost sounds like a battlecry the way he's singing it. I dunno how he pulls it off. But it makes me want to say EVERYTHING with guitar and drums behind me...

Imagine this entire entry written with guitar and drums behind it. And I'm yelling. :P

Sword sword sword sword.... what do you think would happen if I set it in the hall... OH!

I hid the sword mess in my closet. Under my sheets and up on a shelf. No more shocking me with the sight of it and its stupid memory and its stupid handholding and its kisses and its faces and the way it makes noises when it wants you to pay attention to it and the way it keeps texting me and stupid coke and stupid trying to be my friend and I will never say "keetty!" like that and I will never ever ever ever as long as I live say "Meow?" as a question!

Skank.

If he read this, he'd hate me. And I care. I effing care.

Emo emo emo emo emo emo asdfomsadf...

Asimov is awesome.

"There's more to living than being alive."

I think there's got to be some sort of method for counseling YOURSELF. It's really not that hard, once you take the class and read the book and realize basically they're conning you into seeing stuff you WOULD see if you just calmed down long enough to view your world objectively... and they're charging you inordinate amounts of money for this. Unless you're one of those people who just needs someone to "care" and to "hear you" .... counselling oneself is easy. Story - Goal - Restory.

What's my story?

I have lots of goals... and lots of failed attempts at restory. Hmm.

Death has a daughter and her name is Katarina. When she was five, she hoped to be a ballerina. But now she's sixteen. Oh, poor, poor, Proserpina.

The name I was given means "Gift from God." The name I chose means "God exists." His name means "Christ-Bearer."

Katarina means "Pure," apparently. Death's daugher is purity? If that's not warped, I dunno what is. How can death even have a child anyway? Blerg.

If he is the Christ-bearer... who is his Christ? Metaphorically, of course. Somehow I think this is me, unsure of how it got that way, but there it stands? If.... He must BEAR me. The Christ... omagwsh. aslkfdjasldfkjsadlfjasdlkfjsadlkfj!!!!!! Revelation! Shock shock horror horror ... I used to call him Chris. I was the only one who ever did. Everyone else called him Chuck -.-' Well they still do but anyway. Now I'm the only one who calls him Christopher. He is his full name to me now... I dunno when that happened but he commented on it the other day, that he is Christopher instead of Chris now ... and I don't know when that happened. But if the Christ-half is "Chris" and I used to call him that, used to view him as my salvation, my hope, the thing that would make me whole, blah blah... all those unhealthy "romantic" things you grow up and realize are why you hate your life... what has he become now, recently? If I am the Christ-figure in his life, if I am the one who is always saving him. If I am constantly complaining that I'm holding him, that I'm the leader, that I solve his problems.... I sent a very angry email a few hours ago to this exact effect... But... His name. I need to remember my own name sometimes. It's true, no one who was truly deep in the trenches of God's soul stops following God because they have an honest intellectual disagreement with him, but because they get busy, they get distracted, and they fade away. Once you've tasted, once you've touched, you can't recant your own experience. You can't argue with you. It's not that. You just give up. >.< I've given up, at least, if there is no universality in the statement. It's true in my universe.

I hate how I've gone on this giant intellectual journey tonight and the damnable boy is SLEEPING. Bullocks. :P I like this word.

There's still the issue of the sword.

Apparently sometime in July I thought I didn't know what arduous meant and found it necessary to put on a notecard. -.-'

I want to write him, but I figure I'd publish it in like 30 years and then he would think of me ... that thing I'm always mocking some singers for... "You know, I bet all these songs are about like the SAME chick, and everytime one comes on the radio she screams at the speakers 'IT WAS FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, GET OVER IT!!!' " or as someone used to say, at the end of this rant, "Dude, it was ONE DATE!!!"

I ran from the joust to Burgess without stopping because of that boy (didn't need to - was too happy). I had the one and only panic attack I've ever had because of that boy (didn't need to ... and I still think about it almost weekly). All HE has ever done is cause me to stare at the ceiling, lying awake, not moving to the point where I can't tell where my arms are anymore and my lips glue together..... I guess I did say God's name in vain once when yelling at him. That's something? Why am I valuing relationships based on what horrible things they could make me do when they piss me off.

Emo emo emo emo emo...

I have a rosary (I'm not Catholic) and a... hindu version of the Rosary (I'm not Hindu either) hanging above my bed, several inches from each other... they seem to be quite happy together, next to Hello Kitty and someone's jacket tag.

I would not like to meet ANY of my favourite literary characters. They're all a little too much to handle, honestly.

My music is too much like me. Sometimes I wish I could just like whatever's on the radio.

"Homeless people can never enjoy camping."

I'm a little too tied to objects, to physical places. I think that's why my love language is gifts. I dunno why... the objects I use to represent people are often more important to me than the people themselves. I can deal with them better, I guess.

Need to sleep. Can't sleep. Need to sleep. Can't sleep. I have to do tons of homework this weekend. If I'm not gonna sleep now, I should do homework now so that later, when I should be doing homework, I can sleep instead. Good plan.

The end.

-Jesse

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Three facts from psychology that you will use in your everyday life

I'm a psych major, and thus have taken an inordinate amount of psych classes (haha, not really but still)... most of the information contained therein is very interesting, but not exactly useful unless you're going into the psych profession. However...

Here are 3 facts that you will actually use in your everyday life that I have gleaned from my psych studies. :P (Weirdly, they all have to do with sleep... was not intentional)

  1. The human sleep cycle is such that if you are going to nap, nap for either 20 minutes or an hour and 30 minutes. Any more or less than that and you will wake up groggier than you were before the nap. How many times have you slept for "just an hour" and woke up feeling like crap? Sleep for an hour and a half next time. You'll wake up nicely rejuvenated. (NOTE: This is not an excuse to not get a full night's sleep. -.-' But if you have to sleep less than your 8-10 hours, try and sleep in 1.5 hour increments... such as four and a half hours, or 6 hours... you'll wake up far less sleepy). Also, the "20 minutes" is from the minute you close your eyes and snuggle into your sheets. Your sleep cycle actually begins when you begin to relax into sleep, not from the second you fall out of consciousness. :)
  2. Speaking of sleep - during sleep, your brain converts all your short term memory into long term memory. So the things that happen to you during the last couple of hours before you sleep are the things first converted into long-term memory. Practical application? Study for tests at night before you sleep. (NOTE: This does not mean 15 minutes before you doze off - during that last stage before true sleep you aren't gonna actually remember squat)
  3. From the idea of Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs - If you are not well-fed, well-rested, etc. then you are not going to be able to function in more complicated realms of your life, such as relationships and spirituality. If I have to listen to one more person think some life-changing event has happened with God or with their boyfriend that can actually be attributed to dehydration or lack of a full night's sleep, I'm going to stab someone. Do yourself a favor and before you think that you're "falling out of love" with someone or there's "just a wall between you and God," look back over the last week - have you been getting enough sleep? Have you been eating healthy food? If not... calm down. Go eat a full meal and get a night's sleep before you make any big decisions.
I might randomly post stuff like this when I think of it in future days... I was just randomly basking in the fact that I have now learned how to manage my naps due to the information in point 1 and thought I should share. :P I actually kept thinking of tons more I wanted to share, but since I'm currently avoiding psych homework, I thought I should go back to the homework... ;) Bye!