Day 4: They're unforgettable

Guten morgen, blog readers! Or rather, guten 1 PM (again).

I'm trying to think of a cutesy name for you (potential) blog readers. All I can come up with is "bleaders" or "breaders." Neither of which sound very appealing.

So last night my mom and I watched It's Complicated, that Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin movie. There I was, just staring at the tv, when suddenly I saw MYSELF. Sort of. The girl who plays the youngest daughter, Gabby, looks like me from the side. It's freaky. The actress' name is Zoe Kazan. Look at her face from the side and tell me that's not me.

In other news, I just made couscous! All by myself! It was delicious. I put blueberries and spinach in it.

Hmmm.....what do you guys want me to talk about? Any ideas? Controversial topics into which you'd like me to delve? Just say the word!

Ooh, book review time!
I finished reading The Year of Secret Assignments yesterday. It was really fun to read. I thought it was really witty and clever, and its structure was fairly original. Occasionally, though, I did get a little annoyed with some of the characters, particularly Emily. She was so petty sometimes, and her misuse of words drove me crazy. Granted, some of her misused words could have been Australian slang I'm not aware of, but I doubt it.
Grade: B

Finally, I just need to make sure that all of my bleaders (yay? nay?) are aware of "California Dorks." It's a wonderful antidote to the worthless drivel that is Katy Perry's "California Gurls." I know I'm a little late to the party, but I finally watched it last night and I'm OBSESSED. And I'm getting my Facebook friends obsessed too. :-P It's worth a watch or twelve.

Dorktastically yours,
Kaitlyn

You and me could write bad final exam.

Jeez, I've been blogging so much lately. It's ridiculous. As you can probably guess, I'm mostly just avoiding finals revision, but blogging more is a habit I'd like to get into, anyway.

Granted, I know that the more I blog the few comments I'll get. Whatevs!

I resisted longer than most people, but I have to admit that I finally love Lady Gaga. It's not a creepy obsession like with my teenage Disney stars, but I'm having serious trouble getting her music out of my head. It's hopelessly catchy. In fact, "Bad Romance" is playing on my iTunes right now. And while we're on the subject, how creepy/awesome is that video? SO creepy/awesome is right. Also, did you know she's only 23? Crazy.

I actually took two naps today, so I feel like this morning happened days ago. My diversity in education class final was at 8 AM. Gross. But before we could take the final we had to watch presentations from the groups who didn't go last week. One girl did her presentation on colorism within the African American race. It was really interesting. Anyway, then we took the "final," which was just some "tell me how you feel about this" or "what did you learn from this" bullshit. No big. Then I went home and took nap #1.

I woke up around 1, which was an hour later than I meant to. I had to do my econ take-home final, which I hadn't started. By the time I finished it was nearly 3, when I thought the was supposed to start. So I ran to class having not studied in the slightest for the non-take-home part of the final, and when I got there THE ROOM WAS EMPTY. Oh, my God. I freaked out. I thought I missed it. When I checked the computer I discovered that it didn't start until 4. Hallelujah. I went home, ate some substantial food for once, studied as much as I could, and went back to class. The final was multiple-choice. I have no idea how I did, but at least I could put an answer for everything!

THEN I got a text informing me that my conducting final project is due Friday instead of tomorrow (Tuesday)! Woohoo! So then I made good use of my extra time by taking another nap. Hah.

Now I'm kind of studying but mostly just internet-ing and eating chocolate. Oh. My. God. I don't even want to think about how many calories in chocolate I've consumed in the past two days. Suffice it to say that I ate an entire 8-oz. bag of Hershey kisses yesterday. Yikes.

I'm guessing that most of you know this by now, but I got a Formspring account. I mostly just got it because the name "kaitlyn" was still available. :-P So yeah, go ask me questions! If you want. It's kind of boring when I have no questions to answer.

Tomorrow I have a book presentation in conducting and my biology final. Wish me luck and shit! <3

[Note: Now that my conducting project is due Friday, I'm afraid it's still
FOUR MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL!]

Pointless materialism, pointless vandalism, pointless attempts at blogging.

Shoutout to commenter Sarah for making me smile. Random people are always telling me that they have "Hangover Saturday" stuck in their head for one reason or another, and it never gets old.

Here's an anecdote that no one will care about. After years of not understand what the big deal is, I've finally become obsessed with Vera Bradley stuff, just like every other girl in the south. Yesterday I went Christmas shopping and bought my mom a Vera Bradley lunchbox. I decided I wanted an all-in-one wristlet for when I go jogging (hah) and such, but I didn't like any of the colors at the shop. So I came home and looked around on ebay.

Why the hell am I telling you this story? It's so pointless. It's not even funny. I'm sorry in advance. You can skip down to the part about....my finals? Why am I so boring????

Anyway, after much searching of the ebay, I found a wristlet in a retired pattern I like, and it was really cheap. So I bid. Then I bid again. I got into a bit of a bidding war. When I got to $20.50, the other guy stopped. That's when I noticed that the wristlet had no "Vera Bradley" ribbon on the zipper (which means it's possibly fake or used). Instead of stressing about my finals, I started stressing about ebay. I kept refreshing the page every two minutes and using my ESP to try to force someone to outbid me. Luckily, someone did outbid me this morning, but boy was I nervous. I decided to just ask my mom to get me one for Christmas, so now the pressure's off.

Hah. Sorry, I told you it wasn't funny. I swear I'm not normally this materialistic; I'm just on a kick right now. Soon it will pass.

So anyway, today we had a Handel's Messiah sing-along at church. It was fun and very chill. I wish all choir concerts were sing-along-style.

Aaaaaaaaand that concludes everything I did today. My finals start tomorrow. Hopefully my last finals ever. (Everyone cross your fingers.) I should be a lot more concerned about them than I currently am. I just want to go hoooooooooooooooooooooooooome.

Here's my schedule for the week:
Monday - 8 AM Diversity class final; 4 PM Econ final (and turn in take-home final)
Tuesday - 12 PM Conducting presentation (and turn in written project); 4 PM biology final
Wednesday - Nothing, hooray!
Thursday - Voice jury sometime in the late morning; potential student teaching interview (eek!)

Yep, I may get to have my student teaching interview! I e-mailed the education department head and requested one since my grades have improved, so my professors are going to conspire about me one more time and let me know if I'm worthy yet.

Finally, I don't know how many of you follow Lena Gabrielle on Twitter, but someone seriously vandalized the music school at Ithaca College, where she attends. The vandals completely destroyed more than 60 pianos and all sorts of other equipment, causing around $500,000 of damage. You can read more about it here. As music major and a human being with a soul, it breaks my heart to know that someone would do that. Can you imagine? Gaaaaaahhhhh. So horrible. And best of all, it's finals week, so their music juries start tomorrow.

If you would like to help with the cost of the repairs to the IC music school, please send money via Paypal to Lena at hpmusicqueen@yahoo.com. I've already donated, and I hope you will too if you are able.

Whew. I need to end this long, weird blog on a lighter note. I'm currently wearing a Threadless shirt that shows a cheeseburger saying, "I want to be inside you." Tee hee. :-P

That's all for now. Wish me luck on this finals shiz. <3

FOUR MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL!
Yeero Yeero indulgences this school year: 13
Pop-Tarts this school year: 12
Subscribers: 1,152

I'm thankful for the Prt Sc key.

So here I am, home for Thanksgiving break. I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out on Tuesday, though, so this year I'm probably just going to be thankful for Oxycodone.

I didn't actually get home until the wee hours of Sunday morning. I stopped with Costas and Katie at a Snarky Puppy recording session/concert/party thing in a tiny little swamp town. The band is HUGE, and they're all incredibly musicians, so the music was fantastic. You should definitely check them out (and I say this as a person who is always reluctant to listen to new music). We ended up getting hopelessly lost on the way back to civilization, hence why I got home so late.

Today I didn't do much besides sleep late and catch up on my Hulu. Well, I didn't quite catch up. I'm following too many shows. More importantly, I saw The Blind Side with my mom and my brothers, and it was really, really good! I wasn't too excited about it initially, and I don't even like football, but I loved the movie. It made me smile big time, and it still does when I think about it. Again with the recommendations. Sorry! But I don't think you'll regret seeing this movie, especially if you're from the south.

So tomorrow I'm getting my "hur did," as my brother Grant so eloquently put it, and I'm eating sushi for my "last meal." Yeah...my Thanksgiving dinner is going be a milkshake. :-/

In closing, I have some interesting information for you. Whenever you see a fake newspaper article in movies or on TV, do you ever wonder if they actually write out a whole pertinent article or just use random type? I used to wonder. Now I can tell you with absolutely confidence that it is the latter, and I have proof.

Here's a screen cap from recent episode of Heroes. It's an article that Bennet is tacking to the wall. Pay attention to the headline.











And I happened to pause it at just the right moment so that I saw this:












See?! The article itself has absolutely nothing to do with its title. I suppose it would be silly to flesh out an entire relevant article for a 1-second shot. Still, you really can't expect to get away with too many shenanigans in this dot-com society.

And just because it's funny, here's one more screen cap for you. This is what happens when you enter "how do" into Google. I can't even remember what I was searching for, but it was certainly none of these glorious gems. My favorite is "how do you get pregnant." Bahahahaha.



Yeero Yeero indulgences this school year: 12
Pop-Tarts this school year: 12
Subscribers: 1,147

Yale trip, day 2

Omg, you guys. I love, love, love, LOVE it here! Everything is so beautiful and collegiate! The buildings are all 300 years old and look like castles. The leaves are changing colors because New England has a legitimate fall season. And Dunkin Donuts exists here!

I want to move here. By "here" I mean probably any city in New England. This is my favorite kind of environment. I feel so comfortable here, and I've only been here for a day. I really like that you're not required to smile at every stranger you pass. I know, I say this stuff every time I get out of the south. I'm such a Yankee at heart. Would anyone be too sad if I never came home?

My only problem with this place is that it was already dark at 5 pm. Lame!

Anywho, we got to sleep late this morning, and it was wonderful! I ended up getting out of bed around 11, which was earlier than anyone else in my room. Once I finally coaxed Marissa out of the room, we did the obligatory Dunkin Donuts thing. We sat at the window bar so we could watch New Haven over coffee. It was so picturesque, and I wasn't even creeped out that passersby were watching me eat!

Next we had about 30 minutes to explore Yale, so explore we did! We walked through Cross Campus, and I was like a kid in a candy store. Everyone looked so smart! There were people sitting in circles on the lawn, just like you see in movies (or on Gilmore Girls, as the case may be). I was such a nerd. I took pictures of Yale kids while squealing, "Look at them, sitting around looking all smart, talking politics and shit!" Marissa tried to burst my bubble by claiming that they were probably just talking about Facebook, to which I replied, "Let me have my fantasy, damnit!!" :-P

Then it was time to rehearse with Camerata (my choir that was invited to sing here at the National Collegiate Choral Organization biennial conference) in Hendrie Hall, where the Yale Glee Club rehearses!! Again, I was a total fangirl, taking pictures of the hall and creepin' on the Asian kids with violin cases. The Glee Club has group pictures from every year on the walls of their rehearsal room, just like my other choir has. So cool! We rehearsed for 2 hours, and toward the end the president of NCCO came in and said we sounded wonderful and that he couldn't wait to hear our performance. Omg!

Marissa and I raided the Yale bookstore after the rehearsal. I bought myself a sweatshirt (as usual) and pajama pants, and I got shirts for Grant and Lane. Now, equipped with Yale campus maps like the tourists we wish we weren't, I think we're going to find some dinner and see some nerdy Yale sights. I'll finish blogging when we get back.

------------

Well, after sitting around for an hour trying to pick a place to eat, Marissa, Cara, and I settled on Ivy Noodle, a decently legit Asian noodle house. My vegetable fried rice was really good, but my shrimp dumpling noodle soup was a little strange. Then we decided we wanted some ice cream, so we let Marissa's blackberry lead us several blocks in the cold weather to an ice cream shop that no longer exists. We did find ice cream eventually, and I came out with a cone three times larger than I was expecting.

Then I got to go touch the toe!!! We looked like morons trying to open the gate into Old Campus. After we tried pulling on it to avail, a girl came up behind us and used her key card. Facepalm. Then, after checking the names on a few statues (which was tricky in the dark), we found Theodore Dwight Woolsey. I touched his shiny toe while Marissa took a picture, and it was a glorious moment in my life. We knew we looked super-touristy, so any time a student passed I turned to Marissa and said something like, "Yeah, that guy's class is sooooo hard! I haven't even started my paper yet." Bahahaha. Then it took us forever to find an exit gate that was actually unlocked. We were really smooth.

By the way, does anyone else think it's funny that Harvard's motto is "Veritas," while Yale's is "Lux et Veritas"? It's like, oh, you've got truth? Well, we've got light AND truth. Hah! Nothing like one-upping your rival using Latin.

Now I'm blogging alone in my hotel room wearing nothing but my new Yale sweatshirt and pajama pants while everyone else is in Costas' room watching Die Hard. And now I'm done blogging. See you tomorrow, I hope!

The time has come, my little friends.

This is it, kids. The moment you've all been waiting for.

I'M GOING TO YALE TOMORROW!!!!

We're boarding a bus at 5:30 in the mother-lovin' morning. I will be extremely cranky. I won't have gotten much sleep. I won't get much sleep on the plane, either. But none of that matters. I can't, can't, can't, CAN'T wait to get there!

I've been looking forward to this trip for seven months. I have so many exciting shenanigans planned. You just don't even know. I want to spend three billion hours exploring the library. I want to see creepy, taxidermized Handsome Dan. I WANT TO TOUCH THE TOE! Gilmore Girls? Anyone? Oh, and let's not forget about my super secret side trip of awesome! Mwahahaha.

Oh, plus I'm going to be singing for thousands of the nation's best music educators in one of the 9 best choirs in the nation. There's that too. :-P

Sometimes my major really gets me down. You all know that. Sometimes I really hate it. I'm not even sure I want to use this music degree in my real life. Even still, music always comes through for me. When absolutely nothing else in my life is certain, when I start to feel like all I do is wait around for something that will never happen, when everything (and/or everyone) disappoints me, music is always there. Some people drink when they get down. I prefer to listen to music I love and remind myself that I kick ass. :-)

Anywho, that's all the bloggin' you'll get out of me tonight. Please let me know if I ever get too vague and cryptic about my personal life around here. This is not, I repeat, NOT livejournal. I got a new blog for a reason. It's perfectly alright to say, "What the hell are you talking about in such and such sentence?"

I think I'm going to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich. I can do that now that Michael Aranda's "The Nonsense Song" taught me how. :-P I'll dropkick your face if you touch my pizza, suckaz.

Yeero Yeero indulgences this school year: 12
Pop-Tarts this school year: 10
Subscribers: 1,146

I always forget there was a president called Zachary Taylor.

It rained today. It rained really, really hard today. It rained really, really hard ALL DAY, and I had a lot of places to go. But that's not the most horrible thing that happened today!

I went through the drive-thru at my beloved Yeero Yeero for lunch, and I decided to shake things up a little. I usually order a chicken gyro pita sandwich and add feta cheese. Today I ordered a chicken gyro platter instead, which is basically the sandwich in platter form with a side of vegetables and a drink. Well, the pouring rain and rushing wind must have made it difficult for the Greek kid in the headset to hear me, because I got home to find that my platter did not contain chicken. They gave me.........LAMB! *gasp* Oh, the horror.

Ok, it actually wasn't too terrible. It definitely wasn't as good as the chicken, though. So lunch today left me a little disappointed. Maybe it was sign from God that I should drop the feta and pick up an apple now and then. My bank account could definitely use the break. I'm supposed to be saving for a trip I may want to take this summer, and I haven't been doing so well with that lately. I need to get one of those design-your-own credit cards. The background image of mine would just be the words "INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL IS BETTER THAN GREEK FOOD AND NERFIGHTERLIKE T-SHIRTS."

In other news, ALL CAPS music has been stuck in my head all day, probably because I've been listening to it in the car all day.

---
Whew, ok. I'm back. I had to go pick up my roommate because her won't start. Hah, we really don't have good luck with cars around here, do we?

I think I'm going to end this particular entry now anyway. Like I said, I did a bunch of things today, such as go to church and go to church orchestra rehearsal and sing a choir concert at a church (it is Sunday, after all), but nothing truly interesting happened. When I had a thought today, it was usually that I wanted to take a nap. I guess there was one awkward/funny moment to take from today, but I decided to make a video about it. I know, right? I actually made a video. Grrrrrr busyness and sleepiness keeping me from videoness!

Speaking of videoness, did anyone else notice that John Green left Gerald Ford out of his video about U.S. Presidents' last words? I did. Still, it's a pretty badassly nerdy video. I hope my last words are good. If not, tell them I said something worthy of being memorized by Pudge Halter.

And with that, I leave you. Goodnight, all!

Yeero Yeero indulgences this school year: 10
Pop-Tarts this school year: 10 (WHOA! A TIE!)
Subscribers: 1,142

I'm hooooome.

I'm home from vacation! Actually, I'm not excited enough to use an exclamation point. It's more like, "I'm home from vacation."

It was a really great trip. The family started to make me a little claustrophobic after a week or so, but I had a blast overall. I met one of my REAL LIVE YOUTUBE FRIENDS, and that was pretty epic. It's nice to know that not every person on the internet wants to kill and/or rape me.

I don't feel like blogging about the whole trip right now. I'll try to do that soon. I'm just feeling horrendously crappy right now. I'm talking nausea, chills, dizziness, and one count of throwing up spaghetti into a Blockbuster toilet. Yeah, tonight was a super-fun night of work. Luckily David, my manager, is cool and let me not work too hard.

One thing I have to mention, though, is OMG JERSEY BOYS! I saw Jersey Boys on Broadway last week, and I am completely obsessed. I've always like The Four Seasons, but now I can't get enough. The story is so exciting and emotional and sometimes hilarious, and this current cast is amazing. We bought the original Broadway cast album, and we were slightly disappointed that it wasn't as good as our cast. Jarrod Spector is the best Frankie I've heard (and believe me, I did a lot of YouTube research when I got home), and Sebastian Arcelus is great as Bob Gaudio (skip ahead to 3:40 in that video - the rest of that cast is not up to snuff). Also, Sebastian is incredibly attractive, in my wavy-haired-music-nerd-loving opinion.

YouTube really needs to get some more illegal Jersey Boys action goin' on. This is the only video I could find of the current cast, and the sound quality is pretty suckish. But it's the song I'm most obsessed with!!! Although I contend that big girls DO cry. Hello, period?

Also, singing along to the cast recording in my car has led to realize that my comfortable singing range is pretty much the same as Frankie Valli's. Is that....weird? Should I just call myself a countertenor?

Well, I set out to write a quick blog saying that I'm home and barfy, and look what happened. Jersey Boys took me away again. If you are in or around NYC anytime soon, you should go see it while this cast is still there. And I should sleep.

In closing, I'm going to steal something from Hayley just this once.

Sexy: Craig Ferguson, especially when he talks about guinea pigs.
Unsexy: Throwing up spaghetti into a Blockbuster toilet.

Other side of the world, here I come!

I've been working, which is exhausting.
I went shopping today, which was annoying but successful.
I have so much packing left to do.
My mom and brother are driving me up to school tomorrow, and IN THE MORNING I LEAVE FOR NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA!!!!!!

I'm so excited, but I'm also filled with a certain amount of dread. I HATE flying. Well, I enjoy being up in the air and all, but I'm slightly terrified of the idea of flight. I've been on a plane many times, and I still haven't gotten over it. No amount of comforting statistics can convince my brain that air travel is safe. Baaaaahhhh.

OK. I can do this. Once that 14-hour flight is over, I will be in a magical land that many Americans never get to see. I will be singing the Mozart Requiem in the Sydney Opera House. I will (hopefully) be seeing John Green at a bookstore in Sydney. It will be an AMAZING, once-in-a-lifetime trip. I can do this.

So this is probably my last blog post for a few weeks. To hold you over until I return, here's a video of me doing the Hoedown Throwdown. :-P

Bye guys! See you when I get back!

Subscribers: 1,025
Days 'til I head Down Under: ONE!!!