Study Buddy

The good news is that the weather is starting to cool off and the fall is beautiful here! The bad news is that it hasn't COMPLETELY cooled off but the apartment complex decided to shut off the AC for the season this week. Sooooo, we've been spending alot of time with the door open or studying out on the balcony. The only problem is that a) you are constantly distracted by the eternal soccer match going on across the street and b) scarlett

My amish rocking chair is so comfortable out on the balcony. Unfortunately, Scarlett REFUSES to let us sit in it alone. If we're in the rocking chair, so is she. It's ridiculous. Caleb joking calls it my amish hug chair because when he sits in it he feels like he's being hugged by an amish person. I guess that means Scarlett likes amish hugs? Maybe she likes watching soccer? Who knows, but she loves that chair!

It is with heavy hearts that Caleb and I are announcing our search for a new NFL football team to be fans of. No, we are not turning into Deadskin fans, but we do need a team that actually wins once in awhile. While the search party is still out, at least we still have the Rangers!

Europe Trip!

I think this may be my last high school memory. I'm ready to blog about other things. One of my greatest high school memories was the Europe Trip. My parents made a deal with all of us that if we took 3 years of a foreign language in high school, they would pay for us to go on the school's Europe trip our senior year. This was easy for me because I LOVED French and even ended up taking all 4 years. My senior year, the trip went to Scotland, England and France. Of course, we went in February so it was FREEZING! Here are a few of my favorite highlights:

 We climbed a mountain in Scotland!

 What you can't see in this picture is the HUGE knife this guy has tucked into his sock

 Re-enacting the Chariots of Fire scene on St. Andrews Beach.

 Part of the old Roman wall.... I can't even tell you how cold it was here

 We tried but just couldn't get him to smile...

 Sadly, we didn't get to see the queen at Buckingham Palace

 We got to go see Les Miserables!

 Stonehenge

 Roman ruins

 Inside the Louvre

 I bought a painting from him 2 years before when my Gran to me to Paris. I ran into him again at Montmartre and bought another painting : )

 My favorite chateau in the valley- Chenonceau

Ya... I'm not sure who took this picture on the way home, but we were whipped! It was a wonderful trip.

I have to say a big thank you to Mlle. Cox, my favorite French teacher. She leads the Europe trips and we had a GREAT time! In the picture below, we showed up at the place to take pics of the Eiffel Tower and as we drove up, it started to snow, I got my delicious chocolate crepe and it could not have been a better moment. Merci Mlle. Cox!

Rascal and Sir Galahad

My sister is going to be horrified that I am posting this on the internet, but I feel it is important for this story to finally go public. The next random fact about me that you probably didn't know was that I used to have guinea pigs, and I loved them dearly. See, I didn't have alot of friends back in my middle school/early high school days, so I decided to have pets : )

My first guinea pig was named Rascal and he was albino. I used to brush him and I had a box that I carried him around the house everywhere. Here is his tragic tale (that has since become a joke in my family). Everyday before I went to school, I always said "goodbye rascal, see you after school." When I got home I immediately went to my room and checked on him and played with him. One day, I was in a huge hurry in the morning and left without saying goodbye. When I got home, I was upset about some stuff and didn't go immediately to me room. I suddenly panicked that I had not gone to say hello to him. When I went into my room, it looked like he was sleeping. I reached my hand into his cage, and he was cold. It was awful....

To say that I was traumatized would be a HUGE understatement. I mean you would have thought that a human being had died. My mom let me hold him and brush his fur one more time before we wrapped him in one of Grace's babydoll blankets, put him in a box, and buried him in the yard. We put a piece of marble on top with his dates and the lyrics to the Michael W. Smith song "Friends are Friends Forever" written on top in sharpy. We also placed a wooden cross there. In an effort to cheer me up, my parents took me to the movies that night. Unfortunately, we chose to see Armageddon, one of the most tragically ending movies ever. I wanted to sleep outside in a sleeping bag out by his grave that night but my dad told me I couldn't. RIP Rascal

I then got my second guinea pig to replace Rascal. I named him Sir Galahad because Sir Galahad was the second best knight after Sir Arthur. And, in my own reasoning, Laddy (as I called him) was the second best guinea pig after Rascal. He was a very good pet, but I actually don't remember exactly what happened to him. This picture is terribly embarassing, but it is the only one I have of laddy. I know I look like Medusa but those curlers were in style back then! Also notice the brush laid out as I have clearly been brushing his fur.

Anyways, all that to say that I was a really awesome person who had guinea pigs for pets. If you have never had them, I highly suggest them as faithful companions. Plus, they're big enough to ward off of pets/predators. My brother chose to have gerbils (all with names starting with P) and I think all 7+ of them died painful deaths due to our Scottie dog.... but that's another story.

Parker Pride

As most of you know, I am a terrible dresser. Seriously, I don't know how to make myself match or what's in style or how to accessorize myself. Thankfully I have a very fashionable sister who is willing to make sure I look at least half decent. However, I don't think my inability to dress is really my fault. From Kindergarten-Senior year (13 out of my first 18 years of life) I was forced to wear the Parker uniform. When I graduated and went to college, I seriously had absolutely no idea how to dress myself. I vividly remember standing in my dorm room freshman year on the first day of class just staring into my closet. As much as I despised the plaid skirts, button up tops, sweaters, and knee-high socks, as least I didn't have to think about what to wear.... I seriously had panic attacks trying to decide what colors went together and whether something was "in style" enough. So... as most of you know... I took the easy way out and typically opted for jeans and a tshirt (its hard to mess this up). Here is a picture of my Parker pride ; ) And yes, this is what I looked like pretty much everyday for 13 years with the exception of the lower school jumper days and the awkward middle school kulot shorts phase...

No we did not actually wear our uniforms the way they look below- we had a day where we got to wear our uniforms sloppy. It was awesome.

One of the best TCA memories and hilight of every senior's year is Uniform Desecration Day. On the last day that the seniors go to school, they pretty much destroy their uniforms, decorate it in their college colors and wear it to school. It's awesome and I really can't explain the joy that comes with destroying those skirts.

This is me and my friend Michael, who obviously also went to A&M. We HATED our senior English teacher, I mean really she was the worst. So, as mature high school seniors, we went and did a little dance in front of her room : )

So, obviously, my inability to dress is clearly not my fault. I choose to believe that my fashion sense was supressed by the awful uniform for so long that I have just not yet been able to recover. Of course, now that I have graduated from college, my closest family members have told me that I can no longer wear jeans and tshirts, that I need to dress like an adult, and not look like "a hobo." So I am working on in it. I'm still young, I can still learn : )

Latin Lives!

Here's a little fact about me you probably didn't know.... I technically took Latin for 8 years and even took the AP Latin exam. What makes this interesting is that our school only has 4 official years of latin study (5-8 grade). BUT, one of my all-time favorite teachers Mrs. Gannon went the extra mile for a few of us latin-lovers.

She decided that since a few of us wanted to continue our study of Caecilius and his family at the time Mt. Vesuvius erupted, Roman culture, and conjugating latin verbs, she would volunteer to teach us Latin at 7am every morning. That's right, for 4 years, we all got up and started our days off right, with some latin grammer! The best part is that we took class out in the portables which were not very weather resilient- when it was cold, it we froze, and when it was hot, we suffocated. Looking back, I'm not sure why we were all that crazy and while I really look back on those mornings fondly, I'm sure if you asked Mrs. Gannon, I probably complained about it every.single.morning.

Poor Mrs. Gannon even took on attempting to teach us AP Latin our senior year. This meant reading Virgil's Aeneid in its original Latin... If you've ever tried to read the Aeneid in English, you'll realize how much of a challenge it was to not only read it, but read it in a foreign language! While we all put forth a valiant effort, the AP test was a joke. We didn't even understand the essay questions- one girl wrote her testimony in Chinese instead to pass the time.

Sadly, the school didn't really like out 0 hour latin experiment and they no longer offer it for the latin lovers of TCA. I like that its something special the few of us and Mrs. Gannon have to always remember. It was crazy, some days we all hated it, some days we loved it, but I will always be grateful that Mrs. Gannon was willing to go out on a limb for us and let us continue our latin studies. Plus, I'm sure that is the reason all of our SAT scores were so high : )

Here is our little group (and yes, we are in fact all wearing AP Latin sweatshirts that we had specially made!)

On a separate note, yes I know that President Obama had a townhall meeting on the GW campus this evening, and no, we weren't invited to attend... surprise surprise. The worst part was that they blockaded my building off before he arrived so I couldn't get to my class until 2 minutes before it started. While I waited, I had to listen to the crowd chant "O-BAM-A!" for several moments and I got to watch the "protestors" hold up signs that said things like "don't tax me bro" or "obama on campus is the best propaganda your tuititon can buy" or "students want jobs not taxes" or "the unemployment line starts here." Pretty classy if you ask me. And no, despite Caleb's encouragement, I was not one of the protestors. Well, I better get back to cheering on my Rangers.... (fingers crossed!)

TCA Homecoming

I got to go home this past weekend and it was wonderful! We have hit the rough part of the semester, so a weekend to relax in Dallas and see my family was just what I needed!

Even better, it was my 5 year high school reunion! I can't believe I've been out of highschool for 5 years! Man the years have flown by! I flew home mid-Friday and spent the day driving around all my old favorite spots with my mom. We went and saw the movie Life as We Know It, which I highly recommend. It's very sad but also sweet. It's been awhile since a good romantic comedy came out. Anyways, that's beside the point. Friday night we went to the annual TCA Homecoming football game. Not alot of people from my class made it to the game but I did get to see my friend Laura and meet her precious little girl Scarlett!

I spent Saturday getting my nails done with my sister, watching all of my sports teams lose (apparently me coming back to Texas was a jinx), and seeing my sister off to the Homecoming dance. I remember those days where you spent all day primping before the millions of pictures, overpriced dinner, lousy dj and exhausting afterparty. One of Grace's friend's mom asked me during the pictures if I missed that. The answer was a definite no, but I remember how much fun they were back then...

Sunday I got to go to lunch with my gran, grandy and aunt Tammi at my favorite restaurant. I felt a little guilty that I was getting to eat it without Caleb... but not so bad that I did not make a pig of myself. I think my favorite part of the weekend was after lunch. Grace, my mom and I went back through my old high school year books, scrapbooks, and pictures. Let's just say we had a few laughs.

Sooooooo..... in honor of homecoming, I am dedicating the blog this week to some of my favorite high school memories, embarassing moments, and maybe a few things you didn't know about me.

Highschool Disaster #1- Yearbook pictures. To say that my yearbook pictures are bad would be the understatement of the century. I wasn't very "girly" in highschool, so having to make myself over for picture day was a pain, plus I had no idea what I was doing. I had long hair which I had no idea how to straighten, I did not usually wear makeup (too much trouble), and I didn't know you could/were supposed to tweeze/wax my eyebrows. I always wondered why I wasn't considered one of the "hot" girls in highschool. Looking back at these yearbook pictures explains alot.... haha

Observation A: Freshman Year

Observation B: Sophomore Year- ah the middle part years!

Observation C: Junior Year (I believe Grace's exact response was: what the heck is wrong with your hair!)

Senior Year- I actually like this one, so if you don't, it might be better not to tell me...

Luckily, one of the biggest lessons I have learned since highschool is that beauty is not just about your appearance but about your heart. The most important thing is for YOU to be happy with who you are and how you look. This was really difficult for me in high school, but I am glad for such wonderful college friends who taught me what true beauty is. While it was difficult back then, it is funny to look back now. At risk of never living it down, I am going to post Grace's favorite... my 4th grade yearbook picture. I must admit, I have absolutely NO idea how we got my hair to look like that- its HUGE, but since it was just 4th grade I'm tempted to blame this one on my mom....

Blog Hiatus

My apologies to my avid blog followers for my extended absence. It has been a busy couple of weeks and I just have not had time to devote to my blog. School has been incredibly busy, so there hasn't been very much blog-worthy material to write about.

However, on Sept. 28th I did get a year older. I'm not willing to admit on the worldwide web my new age, but I am a year older. We had as big of a celebration as we could on a schoolday.

It is a family tradition that on your birthday, you get to pick the meals and everyone eats together. Since Caleb had class at 8:55, I decided to forego breakfast and sleep in. For lunch, we met at our favorite burger place, Good Stuff Eatery, down by the capital. It is the restaurant run by the Top Chef show contestant, Spike. Here is a picture of our delicious lunch

It was delicious! AND..... I got the best birthday gift ever. Every time we go to Good Stuff Eatery, I always hope and pray that maybe Spike will be there. As we walked up to the restaurant on my birthday, I told Caleb that maybe he would be there today... for my birthday. We got in, ordered our food, but there was no sign of him. As we were finishing up our burgers, around the corner, came Spike! It was unbelievable! I was too nervous to ask him for a picture at first, but some other ladies asked him so I waited my turn. Not only did he let me take a picture with him, but he even wished me a happy birthday!!!!  Here is my picture with Spike

After lunch, unfortunately I had to go to school. The film class I TA for was watching Charlie Wilson's War that day so I decided to bring cookies for the class. One girl told me she thought it was sad that I had to bring cookies on my own birthday. Like I told her, I consider my birthday a national holiday, meaning that the entire world should be celebrating. Therefore, if I have to bring cookies to ensure that they celebrate my birthday properly, so be it.

Then, I had to go to my own class which didn't get out until 9:15 that night. Since everything in our neighborhood closes early, we decided to stay and have dinner at an Italian restaurant on campus.

After dinner, we went home and when we walked in, this is what I found!

So sweet! I had a WONDERFUL birthday! Thank you to everyone who made my day so great!

The next day, back to reality.... Midterm season has begun! I have been crazed between my own reading, grading papers, applying for spring and summer jobs, etc. Plus, it is getting cold outside. If you know me, you know that I HATE being cold. When it dips below 80 degrees, I put on my jacket. It's going to be a long, cold winter.... luckily, my mom has knit me some mittens and I got 3 scarves for my birthday!