The Invasion of the Ants

Our ant problem has escalated at a socking rate.  A few days ago we discovered a few ants hanging around the recycling box that we keep next to the trash can.  We discarded the box and hoped that our ant problem would be solved.  The next day there were still ants crawling around the trash can.  Hannah bought some ant traps and we set them out around the kitchen.  Today there are ants EVERYWHERE.  As I was cooking dinner, I counted five crawling around the counter and one crawling up my pant leg.  The problem is that I don't kill then, I set them outside.  However, there are too many now to do this. I am at the point where I just watch them crawl over everything.  I think that bugs make me more nervous now than they did when I was a child.  Strange. A few weeks ago there was a ginormous, super long bug in our shower with about 56 legs.  It was terrifying.  I was forced to flush it because there was no way that I could have traveled to the front door with it.  I hope these ant traps start to work ASAP.   

Life.

We are doing peer edits on our final essays in my composition class.  I'd have to say, I am very proud of my 14 page personal essay.  I enjoyed writing it.  I am finding more and more that I truly do love to write.  I read three of my classmate's essays for the peer editing workshop.  One was about her battle with anxiety and depression.  One was about how her best friends accidentally hung himself the day of their middle school graduation.  The final one was about her best friend who died in a boating accident when she was ten years old.  It is crazy how sooo many people have these terribly tragic stories to tell. As they say, life's a bitch.

But life is also amazing and beautiful and what you make of it.  There are numerous cliches about life, such as "life is like a box of chocolates. One of my favorite quotes about life is "Life begins at the end of you comfort zone." However, now that I really think about this quote, it is somewhat untrue.  You are "living" until the day that you die, regardless of if you are doing anything big/productive/meaningful with your life or not.  You don't only live once, you live everyday.  You only die once, which is probably why so many people are so afraid of death.  

I have been on a runner's high all day after running the Illinois Half Marathon this morning.  However, I have felt slightly sickish all day and now have a head ache.  Yes, I am currently feeling that life is both amazing and a bitch at the same time.   

I love the Earth

Although it is Wednesday, I would like to backtrack to Monday, which was Earth Day.  My Earth Day was pretty fabulous, and here is why.  First of all, I got a free ISU Camelbak water bottle.  There is a somewhat comical story behind how I was able to obtain it.  I did not know this until later, but there was a water bottle give away on the quad for the first 750 people who brought a plastic water bottle to be recycled and as a trade in for the Camelbak one.  When I got to my Spanish class, one of these water bottles was just chilling under the desk next to me.  Normally, I am in no way a supporter of stealing.  However, I really wanted that water bottle.  I casually slipped it into my backpack when no one one looking. 

One of my classmates entered and began talking about the Camelbak water bottle give away on the quad.  There had been a hugeee line to get one that wrapped all the way around the quad.  Perfect! I thought.  I just obtained a brand new water bottle that someone else definitely would have snatched up if I hadn't.  Another girl commented that someone had left one and went to point it out.  However, it had "disappeared" AKA was in my backpack.  As everyone who had seen it there two minutes earlier began to exclaim "Oh my god!  Where did it go?" and "Whaaat? How did it just disappear?!" I played along. "Uhh hmm yeah... Very mysterious..." 

Also, ISU Sustainability had a twitter contest that day.  If you tweeted at them your Earth Day plans you were entered to win a new bike.  I tweeted my untrue plans of sitting out on the quad and taking extra time to enjoy the beautiful weather and nature.  Well guess what? I won the gran prize! Ex ISU President Al Bowman is going to present me with my bike sometime this week.  We will also take some photos together hahaha.  I am not going to ditch Sherly though (AKA my adorable $80 bike from Walmart). I am too in love with my current bike and her cute new wicker basket.   

I'd say that it was definitely a great to to celebrate planet Earth. 

I have a question for you...

Yesterday morning I came up with a question that for some reason I put a lot of thought into.  I probably put a little bit too much thought into this in fact.  Here is my question: If you had to choose one meal as your favorite, which one would you choose?  When I texted Alyssa this very question, she responded that she would most likely choose breakfast.  Yes, I do love breakfast.  Especially my steaming hot cup of delicious coffee.  However, I would choose lunch.  Here is my deeply thought out reasoning as to why...

Reason 1: Timing.  Breakfast is a meal that I'm usually not particularly hungry for for.  I always eat it because it is "the most important meal of the day," I enjoy it, and I know that I will die of hunger if I wait to eat until lunch.  Dinner is even worse timing wise.  Have you noticed how disproportional the timing in between breakfast and lunch is compared to in between lunch and dinner?  There are about four hours from breakfast to lunch but usually around six hours between lunch and dinner.  By the time dinner rolls around, I feel like I'm either starving or not very hungry at all (due to snacking) and just eating simply because it is dinnertime.  

Reason 2: Variety. It is pretty ironic that I phrased it like this, considering I eat the exact same lunch every single day.  What I mean by this statement is that my sandwich, fruit, and dessert lunch combo covers all levels of deliciousness.  First there is the sandwich with the works; cheese, hummus, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapenos, avocado... (yes I know, I go all out).  Next, I get my fruit fix with a nice juicy apple or pear.  Finally, dessert is a must so that I can get my chocolate fix in.  Yep, I have every category or the (vegetarian) food pyramid covered with this joyous meal.

Reason 3: In Spain, lunch is the largest, main, and most important meal of the day.  It is eaten around 2 or 3 and is the meal in which the family usually eats together, sort of like dinner is for us Americans.  Spain is awesome.  Lunch is awesome.  There you go. 
Now, someone take me to Panera for a Mediterranean Veggy sandwich.  

It's just natural

I think that I have the opposite problem that many people have.  I'm going to make the assumption that a lot of people expect too much of others.  They expect people to want to call or text them, and not the other way around.  They expect that people are concerned when they are sick or when they are sad or when they are overwhelmed.  I am, to some extent, the opposite.  Now that I am actually typing this out, I am slightly worried that this is going to sound too "oh woe is me" but I shall continue anyways.  For some reason I am always just a little bit surprised when someone texts me first, even it is just my sister, my mom or a good friend.  

I feel like I tweet about being overwhelmed or having too much work to do way too often, yet I keep doing it.  When you really think about it though, social networks have an inevitable self-centered aspect to them.  You have your own page that is completely about yourself.  You have your albums with pictures of you at various activities, with other people too of course.  People are by nature self centered. However, this is also our natural instinct, and therefore it is totally and completely normal.  I just read a personal essay for one of my English classes that actually addressed this type of issue.  The author referred to this phonephone as our "natural default setting." 

We like to believe that we are the only ones who are having a terrible day or who has three 10 page papers to write (like I do).  In reality, there are many, many people who have it a whole lot worse than we do.  I have strayed from the original topic, but I like this direction better.  

It's hard not to let the hard, bad, and stressful things in our life overshadow all of the good, happy and positive ones.  I am going to make a conscience effort to keep things into perspective though, especially with final fast approaching.  All I need to do is look at this adorable picture and my mood will be lightened.  

"the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return"

I wish that I had some deep and meaningful topic to write about right now, but I don't.  My brain is way too fried from this long and stressful week anyways.  So I am going to steal a topic some a blog that I like to creep on, and write about my two favorite movies of all time: Moulin Rouge and Pirates of the Caribbean. 

I love the story of my first viewing of Moulin Rouge.  I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I want to say I was around twelve years old.  My family and I were at the Wisconsin cottage and Emily Pojman had the movie, saying that it was one of her favorites.  I was so uncomfortable and embarrassed as I watched the awkward, misunderstanding, seduction scene between Satine and Christian. 

Moulin Rouge is one of those movies where the first time that you watch it (and possibly even the second time, and the third time too) you say to yourself What the hell am I watching right now?! However, with each viewing of the movie, I fell more and more in love with the catchy songs, the sexy voice of Ewan McGregor, and the gripping story line of the romance between an aspiring young English writer and a beautiful courtesan who is dying to escape her unsatisfactory life.  Wow, and now I sound like a movie critic...

My other favorite movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, never gets old.  For starters, Johnny Depp is my favorite actor of all time.  Jack Sparrow is definitely my favorite character that he plays.  He makes such a sexy and witty pirate.  I also love Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom.  English accents are so awesome.  The second and third movie of the series (what do you call it for movies? Series is books. Oh well.)  Aren't nearly as good as the first one.  The movies started getting way too supernatural after a while.  

This has been a somewhat pointless post, but I haven't written for a while, so I figured that I should.

The devils advocate

is what I am going to play in this post.  I apologize in advanced if I sound harsh, uncaring, or rude.  Today, a terrible event occurred at the Boston Marathon.  There was a bombing in which two people were killed and dozens were hurt.  If you didn't hear this news, you must have not checked any social networks yet, because it is EVERYWHERE on them right now.

The number of Facebook posts and tweets about the marathon bombing today were crazy.  I am trying as hard as I can to put this in a soft way, but how many of those 50 plus Facebook friends of mine who posted statues about the bombing actually have a genuine, emotional connection with the event?  How many of them took time to read up on what actually happened?  How many of them just posted a Facebook status because everyone else was doing it?  

I came across a great quote on Pinterest once.  It said "We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge."  We are constantly invaded by media news and stories.  However, I feel like society is starting to become desensitized by the quick, brief, and not very informative news that is shown to us over Facebook and Twitter.  Yes, we all saw the information that our new feeds and Twitter pages, but is that enough?

I am not really sure exactly what I am getting at here.  I just wish that grief didn't sometimes appear as a "jump on the bandwagon" sort of event, for lack of a better term.  

no sé

As a double major in English Education and Spanish, I am qualified to teach either one at the high school level.  I also have my middle level endorsement, a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) minor, and apparently an unintentional middle level social sciences endorsement.  I know that as a first year teacher, I am going to take any job that I can get.  However, I often go back and forth between which subject area I would prefer, if given the choice.

I love Spanish.  I really do.  I love everything about the language.  I love the look of it.  I love reading Spanish novels in my Spanish Literature class.  I love when I have my iPod on shuffle and a Spanish song plays.  What I don't love, is that although I have come sooo far with my knowledge of the Spanish language, I still feel like my oral skills in the language are not up to par, and it scares the hell out of me.

English. Obviously, I love to write.  Writing has always been something that I have excelled in.  I, like most people, have never found the grammar aspect of English to be very enjoyable.  However, this semester I am taking a grammar class with K. Aaron Smith. He not only comes to class everyday with a smile on his face, excited to teach a seemingly dull subject, but he also makes learning grammar fun.  I know, this seems impossible.  My Advanced Composition teacher this semester is another example of a passionate professor who truly makes her class memorable and worth while.  If i do end up teaching English, I aspire to be English teachers like these two.  

Do I even want to possibly teach middle school?  At first I was thinking definitely not.  But little by little I am starting to warm up to the idea.  If I am going to be 100% honest with myself, I believe that I would feel most comfortable and the least stressed as an English teacher.  I know that I would be completely satisfied with doing this.  I feel like deep down inside I would choose to teach Spanish though.  But then again, do I really want to teach a subject that I don't feel like I have mastered to its full extent? 

I DON'T KNOW. More and more I am starting to believe that everything happens for a reason though.  So for now I am just going to wait and see where fate leads me.  

The Fridge Theory

I have created my own personal "fridge theory." I just Google searched this topic to see if such a theory has already been created and dammit, it had been. However, my personal "fridge theory" is different than the one that I found by some Canadian man named Duncan. His theory is on a Personal Development And Small Business Topics website called bigdreams.ca (who knew that Canadian websites used .ca)  Good ol' Duncan's theory was formed one day when he was a young boy working at a restaurant in England. He recalls,

"There's no space in the fridge." I told my boss.

"Then make space." Was his reply. 

He then showed me how, by emptying a half full container of rice into another, thus freeing up some space. When I approached the fridge, I was more a victim of the circumstances, whereas he was in control of them. He changed things around to achieve his objective. It was an important lesson I learned that night. I have since carried that learning to other parts of my life.

Well, that is one way of looking at my fridge related OCD of making sure everything in the fridge is neat, orderly, and in the proper sized container in a more positive manner. This is a side note to my fridge theory, but I legit have a slight obsessive compulsive disorder tendency when it comes to the fridge. In my apartment, I always keep my food items in one section of the fridge. The rest of the fridge is a free for all between my other three roommates. However, the food on the fridge door is a mixture of everyone's food, mine included. There are many times when I have to resist the urge not to immediately open the fridge and relocate a misplaced item to where it properly belongs. Don't they know by now that that jar of olives belongs on the door and NOT on the main self with all of the beverages?! hah. I'm terrible. 

On to my theory, which I may have to rename at a later point due to the fact that Duncan beat me to this title. There are two aspects to someone'e fridge related habits that can actually tell you a lot about them as a person:

1. What type of foods they keep in the fridge. This is the obvious one. If someone has a bunch of vegetables, salad dressing, chicken, fish, etc. they most likely have a healthy lifestyle in general than someone who has no vegetables what so ever, hot pockets, burgers, and left over Chinese food from a week ago. Also, if they buy the same food over and over again, or if they mix it up says something about them. Someone, like myself, who is a creature of habit, buys pretty much the same set of groceries every single time. Someone who is more spontaneous or free spirited might buy different food every time they go.

2. How long the food items have been in the fridge. It has always amazed me how some people can let an item sit in the fridge until it is gross and completely uneatable. I understand that sometimes it's hard to keep track of expiration dates with items such as dressings or sauces, which last for a long time, but if someone constantly leaves leftover food in the fridge until it molds, it could even suggest something about their personality or attentiveness to details.

So there it is in all its glory. "Kristen's fridge theory." Now the question is, what do your fridge habits say about you?? ;-)

Henry

Is the name that I have given to the possum that I sometimes see when I'm running on the Constitution Trail.  I saw him again today.  I was so close to him too.  I never realized that they have those huge, disgusting trails just like rats do.  Although I hate the trail and I am not a fan of rats, I am a fan of Henry the possum. 

I was looking through the pictures on my phone the other day. I came across one that Alyssa had sent me of Mom and Dad eating Taco Bell in the basement after their night class.  I noticed the old and obnoxiously pink carpet that we have down there and thought about how much I love it.  I know that my mom is going to cringe when she reads this, but our basement is so joyously tacky.  I mean, who else has a basement with large cloth band posters covering the walls, plastic football helmets all over (the extra large one that I bought Dad for his birthday is a classy addition), and an extensive collection of board games in their bathroom?  I love it. 

Our entire house isn't this random though.  I would say that the upstairs is pretty normal, besides the dining room table, which is used solely has a storing place for papers and other miscellaneous items.  Although our house is definitely on the small size, it's cozy, welcoming, and low maintenance.  I want a small, cozy, house of my own someday.  Preferably with a fireplace and a front porch.  Now if only the Schneider house would get that hammock that I've been contemplating buying for years.

This morning I had my iPod on shuffle and a Kesha song came on.  I'm not gonna lie, it's a song of hers that I really like.  There is a line in the song where she says "You held my hand and they made me cry while I swore to God it was the best night of my life."  This "best night/day/time of my life" statement is questionable.  I mean, can you really choose one best day ever? I'd have to argue for most people, not so much. I have 22 years and therefore 8,030 days to pick from here.  I began to think about what I would consider the best day/time/memory/event of my life...

Here is what I came up with.  However, I feel like this short list is slightly biased due to the fact that they are going to be semi-recent events.  Since my childhood, middle school, and even now high school are years and years in the past, it's hard to remember the "best" times that occurred when I was young.  I should start documenting these momentous events so that I can remember them. 
1. no not #1 because that makes it seem like the top event.  I'm just going to list them in no specific order.

• Cheesecake dates with Alyssa.  There is nothing better than ordering expensive cheesecake, drinking coffee, and talking about life with your sister/best friend.  The best was when we stopped at Taco Bell afterwards to get nachos.  Or maybe the best was when I stole the bread basket and took some priceless pictures with it on the car ride home.  Or there is the time we met Brittany at the Cheesecake factory. Hence my point, narrowing it down to the one best time is impossible.   
• The week that mom and I spent together in Granada, Spain.  We honestly had a somewhat surreal and wonderful time together.  Every morning  we ate breakfast on the Hotel Carlos V terrace, which overlooked the city.  We also ate picnic lunches in the park and had adventurous Tapa explorations at night. 
• High school cross country.  I'm trying to pick an exact moment, but I just can't.  I wanted to say the Sectional meet in 2008, which was my senior year.  I remember feeling unstoppable that race, as I passed Mallory Abel and remember thinking, "hey, I have never beaten this girl before."  Now that I'm looking at the results online, apparently I beat Amanda Fox, Ariel Michalek, and Tess Ehrhardt too. Who knew! But I don't think that I can say that my favorite memory is a race memory, because that wasn't the greatest aspect of BHS cross country.  Team bonding events such as pasta parties and potlucks, Coach Emo, Hana belting out "Let's Get Down to Business" from Mulan on Fairfax Fridays, and Waffle Wednesdays at the Swiatlo's house after summer practices are all in the running (haha unintended cross country pun) for the best cross country memories.  And now I'm off on a "I love cross country!" rant...

As you can tell, I do not believe that it is easy or perhaps not even possible, to select only one "best day ever."  However, maybe I'm just saying this because I haven't experienced mine yet. 

  

 

Ahh I am so excited that I found this on Google images.  This is the actual hotel balcony from Granada. iQué maravilla!

Springtime

 "In springtime, the only pretty ring time, birds sing hey ding... a-ding, a-ding, sweet lovers love... the spring." 

Can you name the movie?

......Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!  What a great movie.  Although I love Johnny Depp, the new version of that movies is no where near as good as the original.  I always think back to watching the VHS of that movie at Grandma's house when I was a kid.

This happy song about Spring crossed my mind because we FINALLY have Spring-like weather. The gorgeous weather is only one aspect of what has made my day a rather good one.  I had a fabulous long run this morning.  In my Grammar class we learned about the Oxford Comma, which I always thought was just the name of a song by Vampire Weekend.  I went grocery shopping and spent under $30, which is always an accomplishment.  I did laundry, ate some tacos for dinner, and am now watching High School Musical on Netflix with Amy.  She is taking care of a fake baby for the weekend for her parenting class.  This isn't your average take home baby though.  It has a computer chip that tracks everything, from the number of times it cries to the number of times that she changes its diaper or feeds it. 

On Pinterest today I came across this list of the ten best things in the world.  Number one is cold Chinese food.  Yes this is pretty awesome, but I would argue not top of the list worthy. Actually, now that I look at the list again, 1-6 are just meh. I love 7-10 though.
7. the feeling that you get when you give a really good gift.
8. lazy Sundays 
9. returning home after a long trip
10. conquering a fear

Lazy Sundays. I love love love lazy Sundays.  I usually don't even leave my apartment.  In the morning I ready my weekly delivery of the Sunday paper, drink coffee, and cut coupons.  The rest of my day consists of doing homework, napping, and watching movies.

It's past my bedtime.

Yes, that's right. I'm a Senior in college and 11:00 PM is considered past my bedtime, since I'm usually in bed between 10 and 10:30.  I do get up at 6:40 to run every morning though, so I believe my old lady bedtime is justified.  As much as I hate looking at my computer screen right before I go to bed, since they say that you shouldn't because it makes you more awake, I really wanted to take some time to write.

Today was a day of ups and downs: Having a not so great run (blah). Getting Lolla tickets (yay). Finally getting my bike tires filled (hurrah). Discovering that my front tire had mysteriously "unfilled." (I'm screwed). Is unfilled even a verb? But as I listen to some Zen meditation music on Spotify, I am not going to think about my financial issues or my bike or the ridiculous amount of homework that I have to accomplish within the next few weeks.  

Instead, I am going to to talk about that fun question that often comes up during the first days of classes.  The professor asks that class to "tell one interesting fact about yourself."  There are usually a few of the "brush with fame" answers such as "I saw Justin Bieber getting off an airplane" or "I saw Carrie Underwood at Great America," which I did. Why do we feel that having an uneventful encounter with a well known human being makes US more interesting though? It's pretty weird when you really think about it.  

The real crowd pleasers that the ones that are really out there like "I have an extra toe" or any other fun fact that can be immediately shown or demonstrated.  I have always had trouble coming up with something that is not only fun and original, but something that I feel comfortable sharing in front of a group of people.  I think that is really where it gets tricky.  Some of the most original traits, experiences, or uniqueness are ones that people don't just share with anyone and everyone.  No one wants their one of a kind fact to be "I have obsessive compulsive disorder" or "my best friend died in a car accident last year."  

Alright, here are my "uncensored" (I need to stop using so many quotation marks) one of a kind fun facts.  One's that I'm thinking not many other people can say.  

1. I always empty the dishwasher as soon it's done.  I mean, like immediately.  I don't even wait for the dishes to cool so this is often a somewhat tricky process.  This is probably one of the reasons why I'm the only one in my apartment who has ever emptied our dishwasher. 
2. I love peanut/almond butter and Nutella but I NEVER put it on anything.  I just eat it by the spoonful.  How I still manage to go through jars so fast then is a mystery.  
3. I have a strange obsession with stretching.  I always stretch twice a day at the very least, but usually three times a day (in the morning after I run, in the afternoon, and at night before I go to bed). It's just so relaxing and helpful. 
4. I enjoy giving names to the inanimate objects that I am attached to. My bike's name is Shirley, my GPS is Linda, and my Nalgene water bottle is Delilah.  I had to take Shirley to the bike shop today because the front tire was flat.  Luckily they were able to repair it for only $8.00 though.    

There you go.  

Almond Butter

is delicious. It is also one of the items that I got from my parents for my birthday, along with Quinoa.  Its funny because my parents know me way too well.  I have wanted to try Quinoa for a while, since it's high in protein and I've found some great uses for it on Pinterest. I couldn't justify buying it for myself because it's so damn expensive.  When I told my mom that I was going to put it on my birthday list, she said that she was already planning on buying it for me, since she knew that I would never buy it on my own. 

I am currently burning the "Tiki Beach" candle that my mom picked out at Bath & Body Works.  My dad kept nagging her about how much money she spent on a single candle, so I had to ask her just how much she spent.  It was $20, but she loved the scent so much that she didn't want to settle for a different one.  My parents spoil me.  For real though.  The worst thing is, I've gotten in this habit of feeling guilty when people spend money on me, even on my birthday.  

Which leads me to the next point that I'd like to address in this entry; money.  Why am I such a cheapskate? That is a good question.  I think that it stems from the fact that my parents are paying for EVERY part of my college tuition; classes, apartment, food, etc.  The thought of getting a job while I'm at school has often crossed my mind.  However, school work is always my top priority and keeps me busy almost the entire day.  As much as I truly would love to help my parents out financially, a job would just cause me additional and unnecessary stress.  

As my parents and I watched the basketball game and shared a pitcher of beer at Pub II on Saturday night, there was a part where they talked about athletes that were newly drafted and what salary they signed with.  I am awful with money related figures, but lets just say that they are making way more money than anyone even needs to make.  It's a sad, sad fact of life that there are people dying of hunger, while others have no problem paying a $200 bill for one meal at a fancy restaurant. 

That's just the way it is though.  So lets just accept it, and move on I suppose.  I just wish there was more that I personally could do to help.  I am just a broke college student who is trying to justify spending $95 on a ticket that I hopefully will be purchasing for Lollapalooza.  I WANT TO SEE MUMFORD & SONS. I also really, really, reallyyy want to go and see the Dalai Lama in Wisconsin in May.  Why do the tickets have to be $35 for that? Aye.