Random Topics of Interest = Steph De-stressing!

Hi all!
So, I don't have anything terribly exciting to talk about, although I'm sure you weren't expecting a blog entry so soon! Anyhow, here's a few little quips about life with me...

3 Meals a Day?!?!
Ok, so, I might have been a little lazy for the past few months (although also thrifty...) and I was basically only eating two meals a day (one around 1 pm and the other around 8 pm) as I was practically nocturnal. However, I set up a bit of a challenge and now not only am I striving to take a vitamin daily and ingest three meals, I'm also trying to eat red meat twice a week. I've become a sort of involuntary vegetarian, as meat has to be purchased with a plan. Most of my meals come from items I've learned to stock and are semi-quick. However, sometime in December/January I started to notice that my stomach was NOT happy whenever I ate red meat, ranging from slightly queasy to You Probably Don't Want to Know. During the month of March with Chris and my parents around I actually ate some more red meat and so that seems to be going ok now - I had spaghetti with meat sauce with Dinkel pasta. Dinkel has the pleasant connotation of being whole-grain, but somehow seems tastier under this title, and I honestly loved it a lot. Anyhow, I really wouldn't have a problem cutting red meat out of my diet, but I really think I've been lacking in iron (and other sources such as spinach and beans are harder to use in my diet and more expensive/time consuming). I'm trying to self-motivate myself into actual exercise, but I might settle for 1-2 bike rides a week and walking from campus to town a few times a week once the weather evens out. We'll see...

In Which Steph Inherits a Job...sorta.
So, I had been trying (literally for months, exhaustively through e-mails) to get a job involving English conversation. As soon as I abandoned designs on ever achieving a job, one lands in my lap. Since the Colorado kids actually have an adviser on campus, he steers them into jobs. Luckily for me (and Eric), most of them have vastly different schedules this semester and won't be able to continue their English Conversation Course at a local high school. The job is incredibly easy (or hard...) - all I have to do is get 14-16 year old boys and girls to talk in English. Although my group apparently has 2 very radical teenage boys and so the students are not allowed (under any circumstances, says Molly - the girl who's day I got teaching) to pick their own topics. So, my first day is tomorrow, and it's only for an hour. I figure we'd do the "Get to know you" day, and try an ice-breaker or two. Honestly, after Upward Bound I think I can handle just about anything. As long as they don't ask me to sing.

Class...or Not...
I realize I am using an absurd amount of ellipses, but really, with the way my English is going down the tubes, it's not only a reflection on my state of mind, but is also indicative of the chaos that I call my life in the first week of classes. Or non-classes, as it happened for the SECOND time this week. However, at least the secretary came and told us that our professor was "sick" - although a lot of professors seem to be "sick" conveniently and the beginning and end of the semester. So, once again I had gotten up at a completely unreasonable hour, to find out my 8:30 class was canceled. So Eric and I coerced Kim (Korea) into going to breakfast - does a sandwich count as breakfast? We always speak English with Kim, which is actually probably far more valuable to him than German will be. I pestered him with questions (not that I've ever done that to anyone before, right mom?? : p) about topics from school to Korean funeral traditions. I now am a repository of funeral etiquette (ie, from bowing to a picture frame of the deceased twice - the only time you bow twice in Korea- to the fact that superstition is rampant and many people have dreams of the deceased coming back and telling them to move their graves from water, which they do by dowsing...). So, I actually did some learning at 9 in the morning.

Britain's Got Talent 2008 Episode 1
Ok, so I kinda got sucked into youtube...so I'm going to post a few videos from the 2 most amazing acts I saw... they should be on the bottom. The kid's voice is so amazing it gave me goosebumps, and the dog trainer probably has no human friends or a life...but WOW. Enjoy!

In Which Steph Begins a New Obsession
I was reading an article I found through www.fark.com (great for boredom and random dinner conversation = perfect for Steph) and I found an article on African Pygmy Hedgehogs being the new rage in England. What are they, exactly? They're little balls of pure-magicness and I thoroughly succumbed to being enamored with them this afternoon. As I type, the cost of 190.00 is slowly shocking me less and less. They're just so darn Cute. (As you can see above...awwww). And yes, Mom, it is a rodent...and it's nocturnal....and expensive....sigh. Want Want Want Want Want....and it's much more realistic than the chickens I wanted to hatch a few years ago. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm back in the US and see how much time (and money...) I have to commit. Although they are pretty ideal for apts and college students, as they wake up in the evening and only need a little room to romp in. Guess I'll just have to see...

Steph Finally Passes Muster
I finally had something to call home about yesterday (although I refrained, since last time I called my mom with news she freaked out in a minor way, automatically suspecting something terrible...obviously I've been calling home a whole lot...lol). I went to retrieve my English paper -finally- from my English lecturer. I was a little apprehensive because I wasn't sure what kind of possibly-impossible grading scale I might be facing as I was American and I supposedly know English. However, I was shocked to discover my grade... a 1,0! (A+). The best part was the fact that I got to choose a topic completely not covered in the course - Heinlein's Science Fiction and his Female characters not fitting classic literary archetypes (dork...dork...dork...) Damn, I just set off the "Dork Alarm" on my blog. I bet you didn't even know they had one....

Ok guys, I'm sure that was disjointed and about as random as I could get. But, um, one last request. I always say hello to everyone and refer to my readers in the plural (which, considering I know my Mom, Dad and Grandma read this, is probably technically correct), but it makes me wonder...is anyone ELSE out there? You could leave a comment with a "Hi" or something...it'd pretty much make my day...
Take Care,
Steph