Enjablog

The HOY Reunion was a success! As tradition continues, my sis threw a party at my place to reunite with former roommates and friends who have moved out of the area. Lots of games, lots of food, lots of people.

Thanks to all the friends who came over for the fun! And thanks for the guests who went above and beyond to bring supplies over and who even emptied my trash mid-party. I finally did clean-up today after looking at the mess for 2 days. Everything was cleaned up in the time it took for a batch of brownies to bake. Pretty impressive.

Only 2 complaints about the noise this time. Not bad at all. Happy new year!

I took the GREs.

Scores came in today. As expected, since they gave me my scores when I finished the exam. My analytical writing was a little lower than I hoped, but reading the descriptions of how it was scored, I think it was a fair assessment. I gave good arguments, but didn’t use any fancy words. “… demonstrates good control of sentence structure…”

In other news, Ian recorded part of the HD Yule log on Christmas and I’ve watched part of it every day since. I couldn’t believe the surprise ending! Hehe…

Pan Cream Puff
INGREDIENTS
* 1/2 cup margarine
* 1 cup water
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 4 eggs

* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
* 3 cups milk
* 2 (3 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix

* 1 (16 ounce) package frozen whipped topping, thawed
* 1/4 cup chocolate syrup
* 1 cup sliced almonds

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan.
2. In a saucepan or in the microwave, bring water and margarine to a boil. Mix in the flour, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Spread mixture in the prepared pan, then bake for 25 minutes. Press down any large bubbles with a wooden spoon. Cool cream puff before filling.
3. For the filling: Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Stir in the milk and pudding mix. Beat until mixture is thick, then spread over cream puff. Top with whipped topping, drizzle with chocolate syrup and sprinkle with almonds. Refrigerate 24 hours before serving.

Notes: Use a saucepan! The microwave method came out terrible for me. But that could just be because my microwave isn’t strong enough. Replaced chocolate syrup with caramel. Used low-fat whipped topping and cream cheese and you can’t tell the difference.

LOTD: Free Hugs

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Now for the annual story-telling:
On Christmas night, Santa is in a superposition of quantum states, smeared out all the way around the planet, and each quantum state delivers presents to a single child. This explains why it is so important that children are asleep, because if just one child sees Santa, he immediately collapses into a single state, in accordance with Heisenberg. This would mean that no other children would receive presents that Christmas. This theory elegantly avoids all the flaws in the conventional theory. The only problem is that you will have to explain quantum theory to your children before you tell them about Santa.

Sean Smeltzer, Croydon, Surrey, New Scientist, January 16, 1999

Happy Birthday Eepie!

My boss could only stay at our office Christmas party for the cocktail hour. He had to head over to his wife’s Christmas party that same night. He seemed really bummed about it.

First thing Monday morning, though… even before our department staff meeting, he stopped by to chat with me. Not one of our usual chats where he hovers by the doorway and says something work-related while inching toward the elevators. He came inside, sat down, and wanted in on the gossip.

Boss Jr. is on vacation and he’s usually the office drunk at the party, so Boss was hoping MacaroniGuy would pick up the baton and carry on this important tradition. Unfortunately, there was no such incident. I did hear that he was making out all night with his date at their table, but it was heard through a series of people and originates from an unreliable source. Still sounded good though. TattooGirl, who recently submitted her resignation, had planned to get trashed at this event. She, too, did not fulfill expectations. There was disappointment over this, but Boss was kind of glad she didn’t, since he would’ve been sad to miss out.

In any case, I am so proud that people know where to go for the quality info in our office. I received many visits yesterday and offered the Rated G report to most. I might have given out more interesting information, but people didn’t really bring me anything new. Sad, I know. The only new things I heard about by the end of the day: a swinger couple, a mail-order bride, and a heart-felt apology involving a unicorn.

LOTD: Chopstick Hair

My office Christmas party was last night. It was a swanky party. Cocktail hour, followed by steak and chocolate sin cake. Mmm!

My mom was nice enough to fix up the dress that my dad brought back from China for me. I was very Chinese-y. Many compliments on the dress and at the after-party, I showed off my mother’s handiwork. The dress used to have sleeves and the material she used to close off the dress after removing the sleeves, she just picked out. It’s practically a perfect match. Not to mention she took in the dress and had to do it somewhat asymmetrically because there was a zipper on one side. Everyone was very impressed. (Thanks, Mom!)

First time in years that I have been offered cash to take off my clothes. Ahh, my coworkers… What a night.

Totally being an infomercial today, so be forewarned.

I’ve been using Arm & Hammer liquid detergent for the past year or two and I recently discovered their perfume and dye free variety. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical, but it cost the same as the regular kind, so I picked up a bottle to try.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had eczema and go around scratching my arms and legs. Looking back at the past few weeks, I haven’t been as itchy and my skin is looking noticeably better. I’m pretty sure washing my clothes in this detergent made all the difference. Next, I’m going to try washing my sheets and towels with it. I have high hopes!

The weirdest thing about this stuff? It’s clear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen clear detergent before. I usually go for that mountain or spring fresh scent and those are blue or green. Maybe I’m allergic to mountains. I’m definitely allergic to spring. Hm… Maybe I shouldn’t be picking scents I’m allergic to…

LOTD: Chiron Beta Prime

Happy Birthday, Cousin D! :)

I went through a phase in life where I had severe insomnia. I was also suffering from depression at the time. And every now and then, when I get preoccupied by things, I will have difficulty sleeping at night, but nothing close to when I had insomnia. And… in a twist of irony, the reason I’ve been drowsy for the past 8 years is because I have narcolepsy.

I went to see a neurologist yesterday about the daytime sleep study I had done. The results indicate that I possibly have narcolepsy. They can’t say for sure without monitoring me for an extended period of time to ensure I get enough sleep at night and still have results like this during the day. But, if that’s what they’re basing this on, I would go with the narcolepsy diagnosis. I had enough sleep the night before; when they did the night time study, I slept for 7 hours through the night, and came home to take another nap before going to work.

Oh my goodness! I love the internet! I associate narcolepsy with a video I watched in my high school psych class: Narcoleptic Dog. This is why I didn’t think I had narcolepsy.

After reading a pamphlet when I was waiting for the doctor, I suspect I actually might. I need to do more research.

Normal daytime sleep latency: 15-25. My average: 2.5, REM in 3.5. Hm…

QOTD: “That wasn’t a cyst! That was a dude in her ovary.”

Happy birthday, BFF! :)

I’m a little sad today… This is the first time in 8 years when I haven’t visited her for her birthday. We’ll make up for it though. I still need to go see her new place.

QOTD:
“We know someone with bipolar; she’s very forgetful.”
“Are you sure you’re thinking of bipolar? I don’t think that’s a symptom…”
“Yeah, she takes medicine for it. And if she doesn’t take it, it’s because she forgot.”
“Are you thinking of that old lady you know?”
“No, but she’s forgetful too.”
“Does she have Alzheimer’s?”
“No, she’s just old.”

I took the GREs today… I cited blogs and American Idol as supporting examples in my essay. It, um, went well.

Combined verbal/quantitative score comparable to my SAT score. It was good enough for VT the first time around. I think I’m set!

QOTD: “This is an adult party. Cocktails will be being served.”

I face life with two categories: Things I think I’m good at (I don’t care what other people think. All that matters is that I think I’m good at stuff.) and things I think I could be good at if I took the time and put in the effort. Examples: Tetris - Good, Socializing - could be good, Eating cookies - *Awesome*, Electronics - could be good.

Anyway, last weekend I went out and volunteered for One Brick. I found something that did not fit in my categories… I will definitely consider doing one of their events again, but not one like this one. They were pulling invasive weeds in a nearby park. I figured it’d be fun and get me outdoors a little. Well, both those things happened. My problem? I don’t know what weeds look like. They showed us which weeds were the primary targets and what they looked like. Even pointed some out to everyone. I spent most of the time carrying weed samples around with me, trying to figure out if a given plant was the one in my hand.

You know how some people have trouble with names or faces? Outdoors to me is like a world full of clones. I was comparing leaves, color, size, texture… I’m lucky I didn’t get poison ivy. I unwound a vine of ivy off this stick growing out of the ground and found out later that that’s what poison ivy looks like in the winter. And, yes, you can still have a reaction to the plant without leaves. *Awesome.*

Outdoors, I’m done with you.

So, I was on the metro earlier this week during rush hour. I was standing near the door and holding onto one of the poles. The woman opposite me decided that she didn’t feel like standing, so she leaned her entire body against the pole, boobing my hand. Thanks, lady. That was a… memorable trip. I feel kind of bad for the girl standing next to me. She was pretty close to getting crotched by her.

QOTD: “sorry you were boobed by a non-hottie”

LOTD: Lap Dancer on Metro