Home Remedies

Now let's not get carried away here; I will be the first to send you to a doctor if you are sick, I prefer name-brand, store-bought cleaning supplies over Sam's all-natural organically made stuff, and I will always take science over folk wisdom. That said, these are pretty good ideas that I do use on the occasions that require them. Enjoy!

1. If you have a sticky or baked on mess in your microwave, placing a large bowl of water inside and setting the microwave for five minutes will loosen everything up. Also, adding fresh lemon slices will remove pretty much any bad odor, including fish.

2. Sore throat or lost voice after the big game? Hot tea mixed with honey is really good for the vocal chords. Gargling with salt water is also a common practice among singers to help out the ol' voice box.

3. Toothpaste will dry out pimples. Not kidding, it really works. For those stubborn, super oily under the skin spots, dab a little toothpaste (whatever kind you have) on the area and leave it overnight. It will dry out your skin so fast it's not funny. Even an hour will make an improvement.

4. Lemon juice in your hair will bring out highlights. Just squirt a little on the top, go out and play in the sunshine for a few hours, and come back and wash it out. Don't over do it or you'll bleach your hair.

5. Really really oily hair? Solution: rinse with vinegar. I don't think it matters what kind, but I always use apple vinegar because it doesn't smell quite as bad. Rinse your hair with it a couple times and then let it soak in for about five to ten minutes. Wash it out so you don't smell like vinegar all day. Then go buy yourself better shampoo.

A Delightful Story of Success

For those of you who are not aware of my current class schedule, I am one of many victims of the Vector Calculus Massacre. They lure us all into a room with the promise of credit hours, and then kill us one by one. It's a simple mechanism really. They use "homework" and "quizzes" to distract us while they slowly suck out our souls.

During one such torture session today, our normal demon was out for the week, and we were greeted with that eerie friendliness common to graduate students, also known as "Phase II: the Victims become the Torturers". Our homework for chapter 12.6 having been especially difficult, many 0f us had come ready with questions, our only defense. While I struggled to stay awake through the first section of the class, 'Dan' walked us through every minutia of several excruciatingly easy problems. Finally we got to the grand daddy of them all, Number 23. Unable to reconcile our limited abilities to figure it out ourselves with his limited abilities to teach it to us, 'Dan' put the book's answer on the board. Reggie, one of my intellectual peers, and I puzzled over the book's methods until a beautiful light went off somewhere in my head.

Racing against some unknown clock, I worked with the frantic drive of a mad scientist who has found a secret formula. Finally, raising my head in triumph I could not stop myself from declaring, "I've got it!" There is simply no better feeling. I showed Reggie my work and he agreed; my answer matched that on the projection screen. I had won. Grinning from the desk of

Jackie

A Trip to the Grocery Store.

Well, technically speaking, I went to the CVS, which is a drug store, not a grocery store. But I bought groceries. I've been meaning to go for over a week now; I finally ran out of poptarts, which sustain my existance several days a week. So, listening to My Prerogative and Piece of Me, which are two of my favorite power jams, I walked the three blocks to CVS. The weather is really spectacular today. Cloudy, temperatures in the 60s, humid, gentle breeze. I love this weather. Upon arrival at my destination, I spent about $20 on microwaveable meals, pretzels, popcorn, poptarts, and Scooby Doo chewy snacks. Well worth it. Listened to The Remedy (by Jason Mraz) on the way home.

Oh and did you know the tuba is becoming popular in France? TF1 said so. This has been the 3 o'clock news from the desk of

Jackie

You Are About as Cute as an Aardvaark

Did someone really say that? Yes, they did. Don't ask; it's a long story. What is not a long story is that I beat Grid today. Grid is one of many addicting games on candystand.com and it recently garnered some attention on my hall. I believe Cameron started it. Anyway, I tried it, and like everyone else, became enthralled. I love the word enthralled; it's fun to say. Anyway, back to the story, it's a logic game essentially and some of the levels towards the end had me stumped for a long time. I got stuck on level 32 for instance last night and left it until a few hours ago. Andrea, Cameron and I were playing in Mimi's room (she refused to try it) and I finally managed to beat it. I was rather proud of myself. Finishing a game like that, which is solely a matter of mental effort, gives one such a feeling of accomplishment. I highly recommend it.

Another thing I did today was write out my birthday list. My birthday is Valentine's Day and my mother had been bugging me for a list for weeks now. On the top of that list was of course the Sims 3. I am a major fan of the Sims. I've thought about it and decided there are two essential reasons why I like the Sims games. First, I'm a control freak. I can't control the actions of people around me in real life, but I can control everyone in the Sims. Also, while it would be unwise for me to take revenge on people in real life for the little annoyances they cause me, I can do whatever I want to a Sim without worrying about consequences. Instant gratification. Second, and this somewhat goes along with the control freak business, Sims is like a grown-up way of playing dollhouse. The Sims is like a giant dollhouse in which you can completely customize every detail of the dolls and the houses. Plus, with the goals and life wishes and etc, it never gets boring.

I loved playing Barbies when I was little, and I loved the idea of a dollhouse. The dollhouse I had was too simple and not intricate enough for my tastes. It was also not big enough to house the barbies, and I rejected the dollhouse dolls as too ugly and unfashionable. The problem with the barbies was that they had no house. My parents (in retrospect quite rightly) would never buy the huge expensive and tacky Barbie house. I had to build them houses out of books, chairs, and small plastic tubs. I never had enough materials. Sometimes the top of my bed would serve as the house and rules and pencils would mark off where the rooms were. So my games would be limited and constrained. The Sims allows me to play out any story that comes to mind. I can build people exactly as I imagine them and decorate an infinite variety of houses in an infinity of ways. Hand over the game, my imagination is ready. Unfortunately my birthday falls 6 days before the game's release, so I'm hoping someone will preorder it for me and it'll get mailed to my local address. Fingers crossed from the desk of

Jackie

A Rather Wonderful Day

Today has been rather more wonderful than most. I've done many paragraphs recently so I think today will be a list. I love lists.

1. I slept in until 10:30 this morning.

2. French was quite simple and I was the only person to report on the tuba video clip. I enjoy being unique. I also finally know what the deal is with our conversation hours. Good stuff.

3. I had a chocolate chip muffin, a blueberry muffin, and a Rescue vitamin water. I want to try all the flavors of vitamin water and I've never had the Rescue before. It's the green tea flavor. Not my new favorite or anything, but not bad.

4. I found a cute french poster at the poster sale at Russell today. It was only five dollars, but the postage cost me almost as much. I had to pay over two dollars for the envelope (it's not a big poster, but it ended up needing a fairly big envelope) and then I had to use six stamps. Oh well it was worth it. It'll be a perfect addition to her birthday present.

5. I got a chinese take-out menu in my mailbox.

6. Theater was easy and I'm partnered with Ben the honors kid who lives in capstone and Jenny the relatively intelligent but slightly annoying theater major for our group project. Better than the other options. The other options by the way are boy theater major who is incredibly stupid and irritating, Mary the theater major who thinks too abstractly for her own good, blond girl #1 who's a print journalism major (nuff said), blond girl #2 who sits in front of me and appears to be nice, and the red headed girl who doesnt say much but apparently lives in maxcy. yep.

7. Our men's basketball team beat Florida!! It was the most amazing game ever. Well, not ever, but the most amazing I've seen in a long while. We won by 1 point in the last 0.2 seconds. The entire crowd went nuts. Incredible.

8. I finished my homework for vector calculus.

So that is a total of eight reasons why today was rather wonderful. Hoping your day was as wonderful as mine from the desk of

Jackie

A Few Thoughts on the Inauguration

Congratulations, Mr. President. God Bless the United States of America.

For anything that anyone could ever say against Barack Obama, no one can deny that he is a wonderful speech giver. I loved his speech; if you haven't watched it, you should go find it online. It really is very good. Now of course, his little fumble on the Oath of Office was slightly funny, but I won't hold it against him. I would have been so nervous I wouldn't have been able to speak at all.

I find it very interesting what everyone chooses to wear. I felt Obama's outfit was extremely well chosen. Dark Navy suit (not black which is his signature) with the crisp white shirt makes the bold red tie stand out. The red tie, in my opinion, was a symbol of strength. The red, white, and blue color scheme befits the occasion and his little gold flag pin was a nice, if overused, touch. His wife's light gold outfit was quite chic and his children were also quite well dressed. George Bush looked very dignified, contrary to his usual.

Those are my thoughts. Love 'em or hate 'em.

My MLK Day

So of course today was Martin Luther King Day here in the US (because who else would bother?) and like everyone else, I had the day off. I would never have thought to bring curtains to college, but Sam did; we have lime green sheers and navy cotton ones that sort-of act as dark outs (to match the bedding). Sam is very color-oriented and and overall decorative person. Over our futon she hung three battery-run chinese lanterns for no reason that's apparent to me. Anyway back to the curtains. So I never used to close the curtains at all because the rod falls down very very easily and it was easier to just close the blinds and leave the curtains as is. Well the sun pours in through the blinds as if they're not even there, and 90% of the time, this doesn't bother me. I have to get up decently early in the morning anyway so it doesn't matter. Well the other night there were so many lights and cars and I don't know what else outside our window that the room was just too light for me to sleep. And I'm talking about with the blinds closed. So I decided to see if closing our curtains would help it all. It did help. Alot. Now, every time I close the curtains before bed (I've done like three times now) I end up sleeping in really late. Normally I can't sleep beyond 10:00. It just won't happen. But the past few times I've had the curtains closed, I've slept until 12:30. I think normally the sun coming in the room sends a signal to my brain that says, Hey It's Daytime! You shouldn't be sleeping anymore! But now, with the curtains closed, my brain is not getting that signal. It's very weird. The moral of this story is that I will not be closing the curtains tonight because I have class tomorrow.

I did get a lot of work done today. I sat down and did all my french homework in one sitting, reviewed the last three acts of Othello (although maybe not as well as I should have), and will be subbing for a girl in the Garnet Band on saturday. Oh and I tried a grilled cheese with tomatoes. It was pretty good. Haven't checked my phone all day and it's probably almost out of battery. It's still cold here too. On the plus side I have my study abroad appointment tomorrow, I realized I know someone going on the same study abroad as I am, and I'm fairly certain I don't have chemistry lab tomorrow. Yay!! Plus it's only 11:40ish so I still have time to read more Count of Monte Cristo if I want. So that's what's happening from the desk of

Jackie

My Favorite Things

I promised a list of my favorite things and here it is.

10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, pere. Everyone should read this book; it's a quick read and a page turner.

9. The Cereal Bowl, aka the fish bowl in Sam's and my room. I gave it that nickname because the fish are named Coco and Puff. Feel free to find this way funnier than it actually is.

8. The Onion. This is a fake news network online and they do excellent parodies and satires. You should watch the clip about the new Macbook Wheel. Super super funny.

7. Group exercise classes at the Strom. The fitness center on campus has a bunch of exercise classes throughout the week and they're loads of fun. Tonight I'm going to Relaxation Yoga.

6. Martin Luther King Day. I totally respect MLK and everything he did, but to be honest, if we didn't get the day off, I would ignore it. As it is, yay for MLK!

5. The Cutest Blog on the Block. I love their layouts and especially the one I have right now. I'm a big fan of argyle, and when you add in the lacy-ish other pattern, it's just awesome.

4. Zia Juice smoothies. They're delicious and yummy and on the meal plan (which is perfect). On the other hand, they are closed for the holiday weekend. *sniff*.

3. Mail. I LOVE mail. I check every single day and I get excited if I get even a measly ad. Getting a package is the ultimate.

2. Facebook. This is the ultimate procrastination tool, the best way to waste time, and an excellent way to stay in touch with friends who insisted on going to colleges that are far away.

1. My new iTouch. Allow me to preface this by saying that I am a PC person; I am against Macs and most Apple products. The only exception is the ipod because I could not live without mine and I'm addicted to my new iTouch. Sooo much more space than my 1st generation nano. *smiles contentedly*.

So there you go. The list of my current favorite things. You also know what I'm reading right now, so you can keep up with my reading list, which I'm sure I will post soon. Have a wonderful day from the desk of

Jackie

End of the Day Update

I'm checking in on my new blog and quite surprised to see 12 people have visited my site. That's way more than I ever expected, so yay! Anyhow, I didn't accomplish much in the way of homework or laundry or anything; however, I did start The Count of Monte Cristo, which is excellent. I devored somewhere around 150 in an hour or so, and I could have read more. I chose to read in the study room though, which is where everyone was playing cards. So then everyone left to watch the Matrix and I really didn't feel like watching it. Not long after that though I was interrupted by this guy on my hall (I have to be honest, I don't know his name but I should) who was looking for people to try his new Tarot cards on. Now I've never had my Tarot cards read and I assure you I know next to nothing about the whole thing, so I was mildly curious and acquiesced.
It was an interesting experience to say the least. Nothing stood out as completely off-base or really incredibly wrong. It was all more or less accurate, in a very vague general sort of way. It was mostly interesting to listen to him tell me what the different cards meant and what the combinations of different things represented. He said that his interpretation was a little unorthodox, but I really didn't notice anything as standing out as weird. But that's not saying much considering I thought the whole "reading" was just sort of strange. Not necessarily in a bad way, just not something I'm used to coming across in my general existance.
Anyway, I hate how cold it is right now and I've got the heat cranked in our room. I've only left Maxcy three times today. Once to check my mail, once to get lunch, and once to get dinner. It's really dry too, and my legs are super itchy. My lotion is not doing enough and I'm trying to get to the end of my bottle of Bath and Body Coconut Lime Verbena, so I can move on to my next bottle of lotion; Jergens Naturals Hydrate which contains jojoba oil, agave & cactus extracts. I know, fascinating, right? I had a wonderful idea. Just now. Tomorrow I am going to make you a list. Anyone who has every even heard of Oprah knows about her My Favorite Things Show, where she makes up this list of really great products and usually at least one book and something really really awesome like an ipod or a computer or something. I am going to make you a list of My Favorite Things. And it will be way better than any list Oprah has ever made, except you won't all get a free bag with a sample of everything. Sorry. So stayed tune to the desk of

Jackie

First Post

Why am I posting? No clue. I have no real reason for creating a blog. Boredom I suppose is what it comes down to. So this weekend Sam (my roommate) is gone skiing with her family for her birthday. Really a good thing overall, because I like having the room to myself and I didn't get her anything for her birthday. But that also leaves me in charge of feeding the fish. We recently got two goldfish, Coco and Puff. Yes, yes, I know. hahaha. Anyway, in addition to completely wasting way too much time, I also have a ridiculous amount of homework to get done so I'll finish up here. Lovely talking to you from the desk of

Jackie