Free Time?

So my "insane amount of free time" is gone. G-O-N-E. Apparently I should have been using that time to stay on top of my classes. However, in true Janie-style, I opted to play Wii (yes we got one and yes I'm obsessed with it), go out drinking a lot, and generally lounge around the house not doing anything productive. It was a wonderful idea at the time, but looking back I wish I had at least done a LITTLE bit of anything.

I did break down and finally go to the grocery store tonight after only having a kaiser roll with a piece of cheese on it for lunch and some really old oatmeal for breakfast. I have found frozen Stouffers meals that cook in the microwave in like 10-15 minutes. I am so excited. I just hope my microwave doesn't catch fire since the last time we used it for a prolonged period (read more than 3 minutes), it did, resulting in a new microwave. So I am testing out this microwave, and so far, so good. I do have the cabinet door open where it is plugged in, just in case...

I'm sure you are thrilled to learn about my grocery shopping and microwave status, and I don't blame you-it's quite an exciting topic.
Microwave just beeped-looks like I survived!!

Back!

Well after my summer hiatus, I've decided to return to the world of blogging. I can only assume that everyone stopped checking after months of inactivity, but that's okay. School has started full swing, but without work in my schedule, I feel like I have insane amounts of free time. Just being a student has been so much fun already. I even went up with a UM-hosted group to Gainesville for the UM-UF football game (despite the loss, it was still a lot of fun!). I am starting the job hunt- I go back and forth between thinking it's fun/exciting and terrifying/depressing. Hopefully it will end up on the fun/exciting side of the spectrum.

I am currently taking a break from doing homework on a Friday night (yes, I am that lame) but am anticipating a Wii purchase this weekend, so I am planning ahead. Matt and I will be battling it out and surely spending too much time wii-ing. We were going to get a dog but decided a Wii would be just as fun without the responsibility and mess. You don't have to take a Wii out to go to the bathroom at 6 in the morning. But Wii's don't cuddle, so it was a trade-off.

Telephone Booth

It's funny to me how movies, shows, and books about the future written awhile ago get so many things wrong. A common one I have recently noticed is the notion of the telephone booth. In watching (I fell asleep about a quarter of the way through, but maybe I'll finish it someday) 2001: A Space Odyssey and reading Player Piano (I'm not finished with this one yet either but am more actively pursuing its finale) both imagine that the public telephone booth would still be the main form of communication to the home when away. They envisioned screens and video chatting but failed to think that some kind of portable device would be more accurate. I can't think of the last time I used a pay phone. In fact, it took me awhile to even remember the phrase "pay phone." We don't even have a land-line anymore at our apartment.

"That" Guy

So it seems like every t.v. show or movie has to have some over the top super annoying character or character with some terribly intolerable habit. A few that come to mind:
Nora from Desperate Housewives
Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars
The insane amount of slurping noises in the third season of Weeds
George from Seinfeld (mostly in the 3rd and 4th season...they seemed to calm him down after awhile so that he was tolerable)
Ross from Friends
The female lead in the second Indiana Jones movie (yes the entire movie was terrible, but that actress made it that much worse)
Dr. Zoidberg in Futurama (although sometimes he is funny-the episode where Planet Express stock goes through the roof is his best performance)
Nikki/Jessica from Heroes (although not the worst out there, enough with the whining already)

Those are just some off the top of my head-I'm sure there's more, but between the thunder/rain storms last night and the building's fire alarm going off for about thirty minutes at 4 a.m. (felt like I was living in a dorm again), I didn't get a great night sleep, so my brain doesn't feel like exerting itself. Feel free to add or defend anyone or thing on this list.

Walking Bank Statement

So there's this guy in my office who loves to talk about how much money he makes and how much things cost. It's incredibly irritating. I don't care how much your pen costs or your son's golf lessons and clubs or how much your weekend vacation to the Ritz was...seriously. He is also the type that LOVES to name drop. 99% of the time I don't even know who he's referencing, but I just assume it's supposedly someone powerful. Like how his nephew is some big shot lawyer and can call the White House direct and get their immediate attention...yada yada yada...

I really hope that if I ever make decent money I will not become one of those people. When I first moved down to Miami, it was so easy to get caught up in the labels and who's who stuff. But I quickly realized that it's just not my thing. I was trying to explain this to Mr. I Want Everyone to Know How Much Everything I Do or Purchase Is, but it was something he couldn't understand. I said something to the extent of "I don't feel the need to buy things for their label" (don't get me wrong, I used to a whole lot and still do on occasion...) and he was like well obviously you don't "need" stuff but it's nice to reward yourself with nice things, and then I told him that camping and hiking are my idea of a pleasant vacation, and he found that kind of absurd/naive. Maybe I am being bright-eyed and overly optimistic about my future self, but I hope that I can prove my current self correct. Maybe I'll look back at this very post in ten years and think "I was so naive and silly then" as I sit in my $1,000 desk chair reading on my $3,000 computer wearing my $2,000 suit. I hope not. God I hope not.

Counting Down the Minutes

I don't really have anything to discuss, but I am trying to kill some time until I can leave for the weekend. It has been a horrendously slow week at work, and I've recently found something wonderful to make the time go by faster- online sudoku. I am apparently terrible at sudoku and 94% of people finish the puzzles faster than I do. It gives me something to improve on while passing the time rather quickly. I used to care about wasting time on company money, but I have asked everyone for something to do, and still no one has given me anything.
Most of you have already seen this, but if not, it's fun/hilarious:

http://www.myheritage.com/celebrity-face-recognition

Here are some of my results:
Hot Stuff
I always thought Paul and I looked similar.

Snobby Recipes

So I'm trying to be healthy with my eating and have been looking at recipes from Whole Foods. I found an appealing recipe but was confused by a few of the ingredients. I hate it when I have to find obscure ingredients for recipes, especially in grocery stores like the Coconut Grove Publix. Anyways, so this recipe calls for tamari and haricot verts. I don't know what either of these are. So I of course wikipedia them. Turns out tamari = soy sauce and haricot verts = green beans. What the heck? Why not call a spade a spade? It made me slightly angry, but I am making the recipe tonight, so hopefully it will still be tasty despite its elitist use of ingredients.