THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN

The battle of the century just took place in TA37, right outside the bathroom.

Details to follow.

I have found perfection and it is Grace's cookies

HAD to blog about this: So Grace came back from Thanksgiving break with a packet of cookie recipes she'd collected from magazines. And today was her first experiment: No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Cookies.

No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 2 to 3 dozen cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooling Time: 30 minutes

½ cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups quick-cooking oats

1. Add the first four ingredients (through the cocoa powder) to a 4-quart saucepan.

2. Bring to a rolling boil and let boil for 1 minute.

3. Remove from heat.

4. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla until smooth, then stir in the oats.

5. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto wax paper-lined baking sheets.

6. Let cool until set.

It was delicious enough while she was melting it over the stove, but now that they've cooled they're FAN-TASTIC. I'm serious.

Three of my favorite things: chocolate, peanut butter, and oatmeal, all rolled into one. It's perfect!

I'll be updating further on Grace's cookie bonanza!

Lost Bread

We have two big, white, crumbly problems in our fridge. No, not mold-bread! (Though mold is sure to follow). Through a quirk of fate, we have acquired much more bread than we usually eat and we now must get rid of it! Behold:

We've eaten a lot of toast over the past few days, but there's only so much one can do before one becomes what one eats, and we can't have that with finals approaching so swiftly. And as you can see, we have a lot of eggs to get rid of too. Therefore, I extend this invitation to our friends and the campus at large: come over for some french toast!

I am entirely in earnest about this--if you stop by TA37, and I'm home (and I know you (no creepers)) I will make you french toast. And I'm told my french toast is very good! But this is a first-come first-serve offer--only good until the bread and eggs run out!

Roundabout Ramblers at the Dubliner!

What are you doing on Thursday, December 8th, between 5 and 8pm? Why, going to The Dubliner Irish Pub on Main Street, Poughkeepsie, to see the Roundabout Ramblers, that's what!

They're even advertised on the Dubliner's website! Check it out:


So cool, right?!

Home

It's Sunday night and we're all back from our respective Thanksgivings. Jo and I arrived at almost the exact same time, around 5pm this evening, and fifteen minutes later Grace came in with her parents and her cousin in tow to help her settle in. For dinner we had a casserole that my mom sent me back with. Now it's the evening and Stuart has just come in while I sit here working at my desk.

It was good to go home for Thanksgiving, to see my family and friends. But it was also really good to come back to TA37. Better than I expected. After all, this kitchen is more my own; this bedroom, with the walls covered in thesis materials and favorite quotes, is more 'my room'; this TA, while far from 'my house,' still feels closer to it than any other place I've lived. It's a different feeling than being 'home' at my parents' house.

As the semester draws to a close, thoughts of our inevitable graduation and eviction from TA37 loom large, but right now, at least, I can say that I have two homes, and two families, and I am so blessed.

What Dreams May Come

Well, it's Tuesday morning and quite a few shenanigans went down this past weekend.

Jo and Stuart brought back an enormous bag of bagels and a huge loaf of bread from a prayer service this past Friday night, so this whole weekend we've been rushing to eat as much of it as possible before Thanksgiving. Let me give you an example: This Sunday, I had a toasted peanut butter bagel for breakfast, a bagel with kimchi for lunch, and a pizza bagel for dinner. It bagels the mind, doesn't it?

This weekend was also ice skating, Harvest Ball, and shopping with Kaylene. On Sunday Stuart threatened to buy Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword just to torment me, even though he has a lot of other stuff to do, but thankfully he didn't follow through on the threat.

Also, as Stuart's been rather busy this weekend, Jo's been left alone with Grace and me quite a lot, and we have been, as he says, "team-tormenting" him. I think we broke his brain last night.

On Monday Grace participated in the 33-Hour Famine for LiNK, in honor of the 33% of North Koreans who are malnourished. You can still sponsor her (I think!) Monday evening, Jo and I had bagels (of course) with a bizarre omelet comprised of the leftover onion, tomatoes, cilantro and hummus in our fridge. It actually was pretty good. First I sauteed the onions, then added the tomatoes until they were roasting, then added the cilantro (and by "the cilantro" I mean "about two fistfuls of fresh cilantro") and 5 eggs, with some garlic. Meanwhile, Jo toasted the bagels. We then had the egg dish on bread with hummus. It ended up pretty good, but Jo was giving me flak because I put my laptop on the kitchen table and watched Star Trek while cooking it.

This morning, I thought the Morning Prayer group was coming up for breakfast, so I made french toast out of the rest of the bagels. Turns out they couldn't come though. And we still have more than half that loaf of bread left!

And finally, the quote of the day: Over french toast bagels (eggs, vanilla soymilk, sugar, and lots of cinnamon), Jo told Grace and I about a dream he had last night.

"You know how in dreams, it's like real people? Well this [dream] was [about] a Dan in woman form. And this Dan looked like Emma Watson. We had the most wonderful time on a train. It was so romantic."

...

Well, just two more announcements before I leave you to your emotional scarring! One: the title for this blog post comes from Hamlet, act 3, sc. 1, the "to be or not to be" soliloquy, and it's also the title of a video game I'm designing for my final project in MEDS 250: Virtual Worlds and Utopia! And two: The Roundabout Ramblers will be performing at the Dubliner on the second weekend of December. So stay tuned (ha ha--get it?) for more updates!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

"I guess I tend to like the schmucky ones." -Jo

More music!

Remember that particularly schmucky day we had a week or two ago, which featured Jo drinking Coors and composing songs on the guitar about how he didn't want to go to class? Well the beautiful and fantastic Grace captured the event on video!

Enjoy...

Beautiful Music...and Some More Music

TA37 is preparing for the first weekend since we can remember that we won't have anyone sleeping over at our TA! It's kind of sad. But anyway, updates!

On Wednesday Michelle and I performed the song "Now I See the Light" from Tangled at Vassar's Kaleidoscope event. Grace was supposed to record it, but there was a user error. So your ears are spared! Here's a picture though:
Thursday night Jo, Joe, Theo and Zach performed "Dare You to Move" by Switchfoot at the RSL Coffeehouse while Sarah, Abby, and Cayla danced. My poor phone doesn't have the skillz to get a good video of their dance, but we have pretty okay audio:




And this morning, my ears were 'graced' by this jo-cular tune:




"You know," said Grace afterward, "I--I heard you thinking about recording it. I heard you. I knew you were going to."

That either means that Grace and I have a psychic connection, or that my schmuckiness is getting predictable.

New Background!

I was playing around with the HTML on the website, and have been redesigning the background! I made this on MS Paint, so be kind.

Morning Report

No, not that apocryphal musical number they added to The Lion King DVD. I mean a Monday morning report of TA37's latest adventures!

First, let's get on record Jo's fantastic quote that now makes up the current banner for the blog:
Me: *fretting about theses*
Jo: Aw, theses are easy. You just start writin' crap.

Excellent.

This weekend, Chelsea's siblings visited and stayed with us! I can't remember the last time it was just the four of us staying at our house over a weekend--and I love it! Jo and S mostly entertained them, because Grace was in the city and I was attending a conference at college.

Sunday night Stuart baked a delicious chocolate cake from scratch! It really was marvelous. Irene has pictures on her camera; I'll try to get them so I can post them here.

Earlier today, Stuart did a 'photo' shoot, first for Irene, then me, because senior profile pictures for the yearbook are due, apparently. Stuart was very into it! With his torn jeans, sweater, knit cap, thick glasses, and southern drawl, he was the perfect hipster photographer. "See, Jill," he said approvingly from behind his camera, "you can look pretty good when you get your shit together." I think we're going to get Grace this evening for her photo shoot when she gets back from the city.

That's all for now!

So cute I can bearly stand it...

Grace documented the state of our beds one morning last week, noting startling similarities between the two:

Ted, in my room ...and a nameless bear, in Grace's

SOOOO CUTE!

Light Side, Dark Side

Well, it's just the four of us again, and in the twenty-four hours since I drove T.A. to the train station, we have experienced some of our most camaraderly highs and and our schmuckiest lows.

Let me paint a picture.

Yesterday evening the four of us were in the living room. Stuart was cooking dinner (stuffed mushrooms, pasta, and carmelized pears for dessert), Grace was at the kitchen table working on a paper, I was on Paolo (our couch) reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, and Jo was in the corner leafing through the Lord of the Rings: a Bestiary that I had compulsively bought that weekend. After a delicious dinner we watched 꽃보다男子 (Boys Over Flowers) and then went to bed. It was adorable.

This afternoon, however, found Jo drinking Coors Lite and composing songs on the guitar about how much he wanted to skip class and keep drinking Coors Lite and composing songs on the guitar. I was on Paolo again, this time watching Star Trek: Next Generation on the left side of my computer screen and playing Minesweeper on the right. After Grace dragged Jo out of the house two minutes before their class started, S arrived, eating Tasty Tuesday empanadas and complaining about how he's lost a reading that I photocopied him and that he had two weeks to read and now, two hours before the class, hadn't touched.

And now, as I sit in class this afternoon, writing this blog post, all I have to say is--that's all I have to say about that.

Alumni Reunion Weekend

TA37 hosted an unofficial Vassar Christian Fellowship reunion this weekend! We were visited by such illustrious alums as: Dan, Tiffany, Chris L., Sarina, Tian An (who comes so often that it's not that special anymore), Sarah T., Rich, Grace T. (G-Tan), and, the star of the weekend, Samuel R., whom I haven't seen since my freshman year!

Sam and T.A. came Thursday night. It wasn't until Friday that the true invasion began.

I got back to the TA at 6:30 Friday evening to find the living room full of crazy people, and the delicious smell of T.A. and Grace cooking dinner.

I have cute friends.
I don't know what's happening here.

Then even more people showed up!

Preparations for dinner turned hazardous, but Sam used his army muscles to save the day.

For dinner we had kosher chicken that Sam brought from the city, tofu seasoned with soy sauce and scallions, Grace's famous lime-curry potatoes, seasoned rice, and of course, lots of kimchi. For dessert, Sarina brought us pie and wine!


By the evening, look how many people were there!
We played Mafia, then the Adverb Game.

Here's a video of Nora being Sam's personal trainer in the manner of the word "dangerously." Because that's how we live at TA37!

Then in a moment of indecision, an unfortunate bout of weenis rodeo broke out.

Sam opined that our having weenises is a result of the Fall. "If we're made in the image and likeness of God," he said gravely, "I just can't imagine we're supposed to have something called a 'weenis.'" Speak on, Sam.

Anyway, we watched Tangled after the games, and then went to sleep around 2:30. Five alums slept over. The next morning, Rich and I made breakfast!

Thanks, Sarina, for this gem of a pic.

Anyway, Rich made Bisquick pancakes and flipped his first flapjack in the griddle! Then we added pumpkin and cinnamon to the batter--and then chocolate chips! Meanwhile I made scrambled eggs with sauteed onions and Vermont cheddar cheese. The pumpkin-chocolate chip-peanut butter pancake I had for breakfast was fantastic.

That afternoon a few of us went for a walk. Grace T. and I took pictures. Her camera's better (though my phone has served this blog valiantly), but here are a few of mine:

In this case, 'thumbs down' is a good thing.

After, T.A. and Grace made another late lunch/early dinner for us--fantastic curry and rice and naan! The rest of the afternoon was whiled away playing Super Smash brothers, jamming on the guitars, and chatting.

Here's a video of Jo and Chris serenading Sam:



Annnnd some pictures of the music sesh getting started:

Rad tuneage

By the end Sam, Tiffany and Dan had joined in too, while Rich labored valiantly to unlock Wolf for us in SSB:B. I didn't last past 11pm though. The almost three-day party was too much. When I went to sleep Sam was showing the remaining people pictures of his army unit.

So now it's Sunday morning and only Sarina, Sarah and Tian An are left at the house. So before I finish this long blog post I just want to thank everyone who cooked over the weekend, everyone who helped us with the massive amounts of dishes we went through (though having chosen vessels helped), and most of all, just everyone who came for being awesome. Come back any time!

Okay, now I seriously have some homework to do!

GRACE IS MY HERO

Well, we did have a problem. A big problem. Or rather, a problem that made up for its subjectively small size with its disproportionate amount of legs.

I was tackling that enormous pile of dishes in our sink this afternoon when suddenly something crawled out from under the muffin tins.

"Oh dear!" I exclaimed. "Grace, I do believe there is an insect of some sort in our sink!" Well, that's not what I actually said. But it's what I meant.

Well, anyway, your faithful reporter ran to her room--for my camera--while Grace swooped in and sliced the fiend in half. She even took pictures of it herself because I was still in my room, because I couldn't find my camera and I was searching for it. Behold:

Joe L. has identified it as Scutigera coleoptrata. He showed us the picture on Wikipedia. Thanks, Joe L.

We Have a Problem

As Grace said, it's gotten to the point where the amount of dishes in the sink makes it impossible to do the dishes. You-Know-Who is seriously contemplating taking his small group out to dinner tonight so he doesn't have to deal with dishes. I've already promised food to my Art and Spirituality chat group tonight, so it looks like I'll have to get down and dirty with the dirty dishes.

In better news, we have a MASS INFLUX of alums coming back this weekend! It's going to be CRAZY! Pictures to follow!

Impossumble!

I saw a possum on campus today! It was creeping along a moulding on the CompSci building!