I’ve been running around non-stop since I got out of class today. First, I had a doctor’s appointment, then Todd dropped me off at home and I watched Jess make a yellow cake with chocolate icing, then we hit up the grocery, then we came home and the real fun began. She worked on frying chicken (which turned out to be some of the best fried chicken I’ve had in my life, and believe you me, I have had some excellent fried chicken), making chicken gravy (also great), hominy, peas, and sliced tomatoes. Meanwhile, I worked with Amish Friendship Bread starter that my cousin gave me, mixing in flour, sugar, and milk before doling it out into separate gallon bags to pass out to friends. Jess is taking a couple to coworkers tomorrow, and I’m going to bring some to Kathy who, poor thing, fell on the sidewalk the other day and broke her arm. I’m hoping she’ll enlist the help of Thom for baking it, since she’d probably have a time measuring ingredients and stirring them up. I think it’s the neatest thing that the bread keeps making more of itself, provided you feed it and mush it around every few days.

Anywho, so after I doled out the four portions, I added the following to my remaining batter: 3 eggs, oil, milk, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour, and a box of instant vanilla pudding mix. I had to sprinkle a cinnamon sugar mixture over top of it once I’d poured it into pans (one rectangular, one snowman-shaped because I’m limited on my bread-baking supplies) and then bake it for an hour. It turned out pretty well, as I’m snacking on some currently.

However, Amish Friendship Bread leads to strange encounters when you bake two loaves of it and can’t think how you’re going to eat it all before it goes bad. A few minutes ago, Jessica and I went and knocked on all three of our neighbors’ doors and no one answered till the last one. A man came to the door and opened it wide enough to peer around it, but no further. He had on a shirt, definitely, and socks, but we don’t think we saw any pants. Something that further made this odd was that he said we “kind of caught us” or “kind of caused us an awkward moment.” He accepted the bread, thanking us, and introduced himself, but all from behind the door. We’re now concerned that we caught him having sex, and honestly, who answers the door while having sex or doing ANYTHING pantsless?! I’m all kind of disturbed and want to hide out in my bathroom in case he comes a’knockin’ to thank us again. At least we gave it to him a paper plate, so he won’t feel obligated to return some glass dish. O_o

*snort* This just made me laugh aloud:

Why do mortal women always have to fall in love with sexy, brooding vampires? Why can’t they fall for a nice yeti who will make a good husband and a solid provider?

— He’s So Tormented! Quick, Fetch My Fainting Chaise So That I May Gracefully Lose Consciousness

My dad was asking me what the big deal is with vampires the other day when we were flipping through channels and found some ad for another vampire show. Beats the flip out of me; have you ever sucked on a cut finger? That stuff’s nasty! What is the appeal there? Of course, I was all about vampires myself in high school when I got into Anne Rice’s and Laurell K Hamilton’s books. I can’t seem to bring myself near the Twilight series these days, though, because it just sounds so cliché and cheesy. How many vampire romance plots are there these days? Now ’scuse me while I go make my Sim into a vampire witch (just got Apartment Life)…

I’ve seen the beginning of Pete’s Dragon about twelve times now because my four-year-old cousin has discovered the wonders of the DVD remote. I’m visiting my family and have been alternately sang to, tugged around, and shown every room in my cousin’s house. I was also introduced to my cousin’s dad’s exercise machine, and it was insisted that I sit on it with her and slide back and forth. Her songs are the best, though: one of them was about a little girl who went swimming in a hole and then drowned with spiders (how pleasant is that?!), and another went like “Sarah was a girl, then she became a boy, and now she’s a girl…” That last one prompted me to ask her mom what kind of transgender issues they discuss nowadays in “Pre-K”.

We’re taking a trip to visit my parents tomorrow, and I know my cousin will love that because she’ll get to chase ducks and possibly bounce on the trampoline if her parents allow it. I brought along some homework for Wednesday, including reading in The Upanishads for Asian Philosophy and Utopia for honors. I started on Utopia the other night, and that was actually more fun that I expected, but that’s probably in part because I had experimented with an iceless Mudslide involving Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Rain vodka, milk, and Hershey’s syrup, so I probably could have read the phone book and enjoyed it as much.

I was amazed at my astronomy class today, not because of the insight and knowledge I gained, but at how little was shown by my colleagues in there. One kid asked “If Mercury’s so hot, why isn’t it considered a star?” and some questions that were asked of us included “What is the most massive object in our solar system?” and “What type is that most massive object?” I distinctly remember in fourth grade studying our planets (there were nine in those days *nostalgic tear*) and learning about these various things, and I can’t believe anyone can get to college and not know some of this stuff.

Today was the first day of classes at UK, so let me tell you about how it went:

artificial intelligence

I figure this is going to be a hard class, but the lecture was pretty interesting today. I can’t say I had any interest in the subject going into it, but throughout the lecture I kept thinking of I, Robot with Will Smith, so who knows, maybe it’ll be fun. The professor seems like a good lecturer, at least, and the programming project we’ll have this semester can be written in our choice of language. No more arguing with type conversion and pointers in C++!

Asian philosophy

I found myself biting my tongue to keep from laughing a couple times in today’s lecture because I think I’m in there with a few dolts, but this may be an okay class. We talked about what the self was today, as in what we mean when we use the words “I” or “myself.” One guy rambled on about he is himself and “you are YOURself”, blah blah, which the professor seemed to appreciate. Someone else pretty much stated my view of it, which is that “self” is defined by its boundaries, that is, the thoughts swirling around in your head and the separation of sensation, like I see you get punched and I don’t feel physical pain, whereas you do. Then the professor asked “well what about God in Christianity, with His three selves?” and that same kid from earlier went off on some tangent about how all we know about God is what the Bible says, and then he started spouting off irrelevant Biblical quotations. I feel like I’m going to do a lot of sighing and surfing the Internet in this class.

astronomy

This professor is “off the hook,” to quote one of his slides that made that comment about the subject of astronomy. He’s this sixty-year-old white guy that kept saying “bullshit” and then started rapping. He was asking us what we did over the summer and some guy said he went on a choral trip. The professor asked what the guy sings, and if he sings Lil Wayne. This got a few chuckles, I guess because we were all thinking “He knows who Lil Wayne is?!” Then, the professor started singing “Shorty want a thug, bottles in the club”; I didn’t even know Lil Wayne sings that, though of course I’ve heard it umpteen times on the radio. He started out the lecture with a big slide saying “FBI Warning”, with a photo of what looked like a shot from Dragnet: two detectives pointing guns out at you. He went on about how “any unauthorized recordings or distributions of this lecture would be punished to the full extent of the law,” something like that, then said “That’s bullshit.” (There’s his favorite word again.)

honors

I think I’ll like this professor, too, just because of his attitude. Definitely not because of the reading material, because we’re reading “classics” from the 1500-1900’s, and they’ll probably bore the pants off me. They include stuff by Nietzsche, “The Prince” by Machiavelli, Thomas More’s “Utopia”, some philosophy, and some Kierkegaard. Our classroom is way off the beaten trail; me and some other students kept wandering the halls on the top floor of an old building, finding the restrooms and myriad other hallways instead of our classroom, which is shoved in a corner. Other students kept straggling into the classroom throughout the class, muttering about being unable to find the place. We’re thinking about moving to an unoccupied and larger classroom across the hall, though, which would be nice because there wasn’t enough room at the table for us all and so several of us sat in chairs against the wall.

operating systems

This is taught by a tiny Indian man who speaks very softly and has that peaceful sort of voice that makes surfing the Internet or taking a nap very tempting for me. I hope I can pay attention long enough to glean some information from him about the subject. I’m going to try and borrow Kathy’s old edition of the textbook, since I’m sure a new or used copy would be well over $60 at the bookstore.