Showing posts with label Grace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grace. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2012

miniREUNION

There has been confirmation of 3/4 TA37 residents attending the upcoming Summer kick-off. What this really means is that Jo is the smartest of us all. He will not be wasting his $10 to attend an evening of light (probably sweaty cheese cubes) refreshments and a cash bar. So not only do we "donate" money to our Alma Mater but we are then expected to pay for the booze. Wasn't the four years of tuition and miscellaneous fees enough to pay for a lifetime of open bars?   I mean a poorly calculated average of $224,000 (well that's the sticker price, at least) must not go far now a days.
And as part of the young alum, we get to mingle with people from 12 years back. I mean, yea we aren't going to have a freaking clue who these people are. We were just let go into the real world, we are lost sheep. Maybe this will work to our advantage, or maybe it won't. And to be completely honest, a month out, what do we really have to talk about in our lives. Job success? Love success? I think all of the above is something hardly worth bragging about. But I will brag about my new found love for blogging and the blog itself. I just read every prior post and having an external memory bank is wonderful. Cheers to young alumni and the internet. Without them, the world would be less young and more banal.  

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

These are the moments

So at 5:30 today, Grace and I are sitting across the table from each other in our TA. It's too early to eat dinner, but we're hungry. So we've been scrounging around for a bit, and now I've got a coffee mug with some sunflower seeds and milk in it. Grace is eating pickles out of the jar. There's no talking. We're tired--it's hump day. And we're busy eating.

I looked up at Grace. Our eyes met. And then I started laughing. "I'm going to miss this."

"These are the moments," Grace agreed in that faraway voice she does when she's joking around but in a serious (and often sarcastic) sort of way. "This won't happen again."

Back to our pickles and sunflower seeds.

Then, "Won't happen after this year," Grace amended. "It'll probably happen again tomorrow."

Hashtag collegelife.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Honey, we're home!

Hoo boy. We got exactly two months to go. Two months exactly until graduation.

Things we also got: Seven-eighths of a coffee cake, almost all of a lasagna made by my mother, a pitcher of ginger-lemon tea, the movie Jacob's Ladder, and a whole lotta lovin'.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

First Week In (or Out)

I feel like I haven't written in forever! Maybe the idea of writing this blog into the second (and last) semester was daunting. Or frightening. Or maybe I've just been lazy this past week. In my defense, it's been REALLY cold, and it snowed at least twice in this week, and that makes everyone sleepy.

Well we've got lots of news in just the first week back, some of which will have to wait. I was filming my housemates (gee, what a surprise, huh?) and got a video of a lot of good moments happening in a very brief amount of time. I can't post it, however, for reasons of security (see the next paragraph) and because I really want to edit this video and clean it up a bit. I intended to save it and use clips of it to make a 'Best Of' montage, but as I now understand why my free video editing program is free (thanks for nothing, Avidemux!) that'll have to wait until I get myself into the DMZ (not the Korean one) and edit it properly.


Our next piece of big news: Sloth is a finalist! I won't write all about it until we get confirmation about the final decision, and I certainly won't post the video of us trying to figure out a variation of the "Happy Birthday to You" song that would be appropriate for a nominee. Hoo boy.

This brings us up to yesterday, Saturday, where we did pretty much nothing. Oh, except make Jill drive us all to Adam's in the middle of a blizzard. That was great. Regardless, I have a pretty funny video of Grace, Tian An and Michelle, but I'm not allowed to post that one either. Then Michelle's birthday party in the THs was yesterday evening.

And today, we're now making dumplings, sushi/kimbap, and fried fish for a Lunar New Year dinner! Pictures and video to follow!

The year is new, the food is old, the wine is froze, the fridge has mold. TA37.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Elmo, Christmas Trees, and Old Man Jo

It's been an eventful Saturday evening, friends. Tian An is here to visit, and he confirmed what we have long suspected: Grace is Elmo. Just listen:


It's uncanny, isn't it?

Next, I've been working on a Christmas Tree made of collected branches. A picture is below:

Grace tied the bow on top. And though you can't see it very well, the container it's in is from the centerpiece from Ming and Jeff's wedding! The sight of our beautiful Christmas Tree (because although for it isn't a 'tree,' it is a 'Christmas Tree,') melts my heart. Not Jo's, however.

But I got my revenge. He's headed off to Catherine's orchestra concert, and Grace and I gave him some fashion advice:
He left the house like that.

Anyway, now Grace is making more cookies (peanut raisin chocolate chocolate chunk (!!!)). This is her third batch, the second being delicious ginger-molasses cookies. I'm up in my room waiting for cookies and working on my thesis, my Christmas-scented candles burning away (don't tell ResLife!). I'll try to get better pictures of our Christmas Tree when the lighting's better and the decorations are more complete.

Happy December!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN

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

Details to follow.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

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!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

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

Friday, November 18, 2011

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.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

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!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Happy Birthday, Grace!

The last twenty-eight hours have been devoted to a celebration of our dear Gracie's birth, twenty-one years ago today! (Or yesterday, by the time this gets posted).

Monday night a few of us went to Main Street Pizza in Poughkeepsie and got to meet some folks from Poughkeepsie over a few fabulous pizza pies made by Dominic and Melinda! The whole thing was orchestrated by Tian An, Grace's bf (though if you didn't already know that you probably should't be reading this blog), based on the gospel of Luke, ch 14.

Tonight, Tuesday, we went to the Dubliner for "drinks with mates," as they say. What friendly people there! The owner gave Grace a free drink, and then the bartender gave us free Baileys' shots when we left! (Mmm, creamy...) Anyway, we'll be back there as often as our pitiful college finances allow.

We are SO CUTE.

Birthday girl holds court


And, while we were there (and after Stuart had had one or two 'Drunken Pumpkins' in him), this happened:




I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!! Well. If this is true, it's certainly something to look into...

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRACE! (And happy birthday to Kristine, too!)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Девушки and 여자

I think all of the women around here are broken; None of them cook or make sandwiches for lunch. So why again did they live with us if they are not fulfilling their God given right?

A Post in the Meantime

TA37 had our first party last night!  In honor of Christie and Sarah's birthdays, we had cookie pie that I baked (which turned out hard and crunchy, though our dear friends were too nice to criticize it) and lots of soymilk and Bailey's Irish Cream in our shot-goblets. It was marvelous. Michelle said that this was the first party she had ever been to that served milk. I am very proud of holding this honor.

Pictures of the party are coming later. Now I'm writing to record some snippets of conversation that have occurred today between myself, Jo and Grace (Stuart's at work all day).

When Grace and I left for class at 10:15 this morning, we left Jo a few chores to do: dishes, garbage, setting up the kimchi fridge...nothing too much!

“Wait,” he called pitifully as we walked out. “When are you coming back?”
“We’ll be back for lunch,” I said. “Want to make us something?”
“Yeah,” said Grace, “Make me a sandwich, honey.”
And she closed the door on Jo’s womp-womp face.



When Grace got back at noon, she greeted Jo in the kitchen with a "What's up, honey bun?"
"Who're you talking to?" said Jo indignantly.
"Yo' mama," Grace replied.

Now, Grace and I are in our respective rooms, and Jo is reading in the living room. Grace was singing the theme song from Khot Poda Namja (Boys Over Flowers). You can here it hear:

"Stop!" Jo cried; "You're torturing me, reminding me that we haven't watched Khot Boda Namja in over twenty-four hours!"
But Grace didn't stop singing.
"You know, Grace," called Jo, "I'm getting the feeling that you enjoy torturing me."
"You're very perceptive, Jo!" Grace called back.