general update

I slept 12 hours last night.

In some ways it feels the semester is going quickly, however, my main comment on this semester is that it's overall uninspiring, which makes it also feel slow. I don't have even one class that I love. I have memorized many, many muscles and their origins and insertions and actions. Oh, boy. I feel like the batch for the next test is even larger. Yikes. I am, though, feeling grateful I am not in one of the classes that some of my classmates are in because it sounds so hard. What a thing to look forward to for next spring!

I have two semester projects going on. One is for a research methods class, and my partner and I are collecting data to add to a 20-year study. That is the cool part. The not so cool part is that this means we have often been dependent on someone else to complete her responsibility before we can do anything. It can be frustrating at times. I think we will finally get to begin our data collection next week. Another not so cool part is that we are supposed to find 30 participants. They have to be undergrads. This is quite difficult, especially since it is completely volunteer-based. Wish us luck! (Oh, "hi," partner! I just realized you might be reading this!)

A highlight of this semester was all of the basketball we got to watch. We ended up getting season tickets and really, really enjoyed getting to go to games. I grew up loving to watch KU basketball and love the (Big 8)/Big 12 conference, so it was great to see those teams. We were picked to be last in the conference and ended 8th, so that was quite good. I anticipate good things for the next couple of years! Tonight, Kansas represents -- the state's two teams will battle it out to be champion of the conference tournament. Hopefully KU can pull off their 3rd win over KSU of the season. Then it is March Madness time! I have high hopes for KU.

Next week is our last week of class before spring break. I feel fortunate that I don't very often feel overwhelmed this semester, but even so, a break will be nice, especially since we are planning to go home. This is the only time we will go home this semester, which is kind of a sad realization. I am glad we will get to spend our summer there.

But perhaps the most exciting event in our near future is our move! We get the keys to our new place on Thursday! We will not quite double our square footage, but it will feel so much bigger! And we will have another room. I am so excited. I feel like we will finally be settling into the place we will stay for the next couple of years. I can't wait to have our own furniture. I think it will finally feel like we are home. It could be interesting at first though because we are as of now unsure exactly when our stuff will be driven out (whether someone will bring it to us next week or whether we will bring it at the end of break). So it could be Thermarests and sleeping bags for several days for us! And no place to sit.

We are beginning to have some really beautiful days. I want to have hope that winter is over and spring is here. We will see. I love spring.

an outrage, i tell you.

I've never been much of a chicken nugget person. I can't even tell you how long it had been since I had had Chicken McNuggets. I think the last time I had them they looked more breaded and were all a uniform S/parallelogram shape, but I may have just made all of that up. The Olympics advertising for Chicken McNuggets (as much as I pretty much hated the McDonald's ads) got to me, and I wanted to try the sweet chili sauce (limited time offer...you know, to eat like the Canadians and Olympians at Olympic Village...).

Earlier this week, Brian went out to get McDonald's for us, and I requested Chicken McNuggets. I could NOT believe when he reported to me that a six-pack cost $3! $3, I tell you! That. Is an outrage. 50 cents per nugget?! Ridiculous. Had I been there for the purchase, I probably would have passed on them, but they were tasty.

Second. This was mere days after the closing ceremonies. Not weeks. Not even one week. Brian was informed that they no longer carried sweet chili sauce. It was still on McDonalds.com right before he left. Disappointment.

The real kick in the shins about this? My bag had an Olympian snowboarder on it and it ADVERTISED SWEET CHILI SAUCE! I told Brian I refused the bag, but I don't think I taught McDonald's any lessons.

you're kiding, right?

I had a test in my first class of the day today. It was kind of crappy, and the 10-page study guide I typed out (from the professor's given study questions) was not much help. Glad I spent the time on that. After the test, a girl from the class who I do not know sat down in the empty seat next to me for our following class. She asks,
"We have a test in here [as in, the 2nd class] on Friday?"
"Yep."
"Over, like, everything?"
"Um, yep."
"And what are we doing today? More information for the test on Friday?"
"Yep, and some review for the test, I think."
"Oh. I think I'll go."
And she does.

Are you kidding me? You are the last person who should be skipping class! Plus, these tests are hard. Definitely doable if you put the time, but hard.

Speaking of, I better start my studying for it. Ugh.

food. food. oh, food.

Yesterday I snapped pictures of two food items I wanted to blog about. This morning when I was uploading pictures, I found a third food I had photographed to blog, so this will be a food-rich post.

First up: Monster Cookies.

Sometime before Christmas 2008 I had asked Emily for the monster cookie recipe we made at her house in Ohio during spring break of junior year (these things apparently stick with me). This recipe truly is monster. I took the time last year to quarter it, but never got around to actually making them until a few weeks ago. Quartered, this recipe made well over 50 good-sized cookies. Good thing I did not make a full recipe because I fit whatever I could into a gallon freezer bag. This took up the remaining room in our freezer at that time. And we still had more than 20 cookies sitting out for consumption. Oh...yum.

I couldn't resist making one true MONSTER cookie.

No more room! These are pretty delicious out of the freezer, FYI.

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Second: Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes.

Cheesecake = love. Chocolate Cheesecake = true, forever love. I love, love, love chocolate cheesecake. Luckily, Brian likes it too because I made this as dessert for Valentine's, and it would be kind of selfish if it were purely for me. Despite my love-love relationship with cheesecake, I have a love-hate relationship with making cheesecake. Several times it has turned out just fine. A few times have been iffy. Once was doomed from the beginning when I straight up substituted Oreos for graham crackers for the crust and didn't take into account that the Oreo cream would do some of the binding action and not as much butter would be needed. We tried to salvage what we'd already done, but that crust was very stuck to the pan. And then the middle of that one was kind of soupy. And of course it was for an actual event. This seems like the appropriate place to mention that I do not like graham crusts very much, at least not for true, actual cheesecake. They are ok for the Jello-type cheesecakes and probably other things I can't recall right now. To me, a perfect cheesecake has an Oreo crust. Also, making the crust for the cheesecake is probably my least favorite part.

So there is all of that, and on top of it the fact that I don't have a spring form pan. Kind of necessary for making cheesecake. Then I was thinking about Oreos and how, really, they are already their own perfect crust...just for smaller cheesecakes. Seriously -- twist apart and scrape off the cream and what do you have? A mini crust. No sides, but who cares? Crust is not the best part of cheesecake. The less of it, the better.

I set off reading chocolate cheesecake recipes to find the one I wanted to make. I had decided that a recipe with two packages of cream cheese would be a good amount for the number of mini cheesecakes I wanted to end up with. No recipes fit this criterion, so I knew I would have to adapt. The egg to cream cheese ratios I was finding in recipes made this tricky. But then after realizing how each recipe had its own ratio, I decided I could do what I want and it would probably be fine. Here's the recipe I ended up with (oh, as I started typing it, I remembered how goofy it is given the adaptations...you may just want to skip it):

2 pkg. cream cheese
2/3 c + 1/4 c sugar
2/3 of 2 T flour ...see what I mean about goofy?
1/4 c + 2 T cocoa
2/3 t vanilla
2/3 of 1/4 c milk
2 eggs

Even though it's goofy, I certainly didn't measure those "2/3 of..." exactly, so it doesn't make it much more difficult than a regular recipe. If you don't want it to be chocolate, you can leave out the cocoa and the extra 1/4 c of sugar. And if you want sour cream in it, you can substitute it for the milk and maybe leave out some of the cream cheese. Whatever. I ended up deciding that the recipe couldn't really be screwed up, but I haven't exhaustively tested that theory.

Let's see. I got the cream cheese and sugar good and mixed. Carefully mixed in the flour and cocoa (if you don't know about cocoa, it takes it a bit to mix with liquid, so it stays powdery -- READ: messy -- for a while). Mixed in the vanilla and milk. Added the eggs one at a time, mixing gently/only just mixing until combined.

I lined muffin tins with foil cups. I want opinions: would paper cups work for this? I couldn't decide. But now I have tons of paper cups because I save all of the ones from between foil cups, which I've used for a number of recipes, plus I have paper cups I bought as paper cups, and I want to make this recipe again. Anyone? Anyone? I dropped in one half of an Oreo (cream scraped off). Then I used a 1/4 c scoop to put in the cheesecake mixture. I made about 18 total, but I think I would make only 12 with this recipe because it didn't expand all that much and you know I like a greater cheesecake to crust ratio. I might also next time try crushing the Oreos (cream and all) and dropping a little in the bottom of the cup instead of putting in a whole cookie. Just for variety and to see how it works. And to have a less thick crust.

I read several mini cheesecake recipes (none of them what I wanted for the recipe) to try to guess at baking temperature and time. One said 350* for 35 minutes and one said 375* for 16 minutes. I tried 350* for 30 minutes, but I think it should be less. I would check it at at least 20 minutes.

I have never cared if the top of my cheesecake cracks, so I've never tried to correct for that. All I care about is the flavor, and chocolate cheesecake is delicious.

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And, finally, if you are still here: Sushi.

Family Housing has all kinds of clubs/activities. Most of them haven't interested me (scrapbooking club) or I don't have time for (book club), but I was so excited to see a poster for a new club go up: cooking club! Awesome + all of the ingredients provided for you? Perfect. The first meeting was this week, and we made sushi. This wasn't our first time making sushi, but it was our first time to be taught by a Japanese person. Fun! It was great and tasty. She showed us how to make rolls with the outsides being: nori (seaweed), avacado (shaped how a Dragon roll comes -- it looks so cool), and rice (and then rolled in sesame seeds). Of course, it was all very tasty too. I made mine at the beginning of the evening, and we split it there, so I have no pictures, but Brian brought his home, so I photographed it yesterday. Which also means it's not as fresh as right after it was made, but I still think it looks really good. So I'm very excited about cooking club. People can sign up to teach each month. I don't know for sure if I would want to, but what ideas would you guys have? We thought about cinnamon rolls or bohne berrogi (except neither of us has made it before/knows how to make it!) or flat pancakes or knepp...

chip, aw.

I think our mascot is ridiculously cute.

See? Chip.

He is also nationally recognized as an awesome mascot. He just brought home his second consecutive national championship from the 2010 Universal Cheerleading Association's mascot competition.

Chip with his two national championship trophies (2009 and 2010).

Saturday at half time of the [incredibly sad, sad] basketball game against Mizzou, they had some sort of basketball-ish, hula hoop competition (seriously, I have no idea what was going on in this playful competition) between area mascots. In addition to the cuteness of Chip, there were two more Buffaloes there (I guess with retired mascot heads) dressed up as Chip's parents. The dad buffalo was wearing spectacles and a sweater vest, and the mom buffalo was wearing a skirt and a blonde wig. I thought this was an adorable idea. They followed Chip around during the competition and gave him pats on the back and such when he did well. Cute! Chip won.

Chip is probably the only mascot in the country (world?) named after his own poop. At least, I assume that is where the name "Chip" comes from. Sad! Poor Chip!

basketball

(Goodbye, Sarah, see you next post.)

A most anticipated evening arrived last Wednesday: The KU Jayhawks came to Coors Events Center to play the CU Buffs. This was something I've been looking forward to since last spring. I had only seen the Hawks live once before in my life. Tickets are ridiculously expensive to go to a game in Lawrence. So prior to the game, I was pretty pumped. I wore my KU hoodie to classes on Wednesday, but I did add a Buffs t-shirt to my wardrobe before leaving for the game. Before the game Brian asked me who I hoped would win. I said KU because at this point in this season, a KU win would mean more than a CU win (CU's record is so terrible that one more win isn't going to make any difference for the conference championship or getting to the NCAA tournament, you know, but KU has a shot at doing well in the tournament, so I'd like them to keep as good of a record as possible). Plus, I've just always loved KU. We got lucky that they entered the #1 spot in the polls just a few days before coming to Boulder, so we got to see the #1 team in the country play.

Sherron Collins warming up before the game.

I was cheering for both teams. CU looked ok at the beginning with a few 3s to kick things off. But then it got bad. Quite bad. KU's big guy had a number of humiliating blocks against us. CU's defense was failing big time. KU was up 24-8. I had been afraid this game was just going to be a blowout. I mean, the #1 team in the country against the team that is 2nd to last in the conference? I hoped it wouldn't be a blowout, but it was sure looking like it would be. At this point, I figured KU didn't need my help anymore to win. I stripped off the hoodie and started cheering exclusively for the Buffs. School spirit kicked in. Higgins, Tomlinson, Relphorde, Thorne, etc. (unfortunately, Burks, one of our best guys, was out due to a knee injury) -- these were the guys I had been cheering on all season. These were the guys I have been hoping would get some much-deserved wins because they've worked hard at some tough, barely lost games. It was kind of crazy, but this Jayhawk went all out for Colorado partway through the first half.

Somehow, somehow, the Buffs turned things around. It was unbelievable. They started coming back and had closed much of the gap by halftime. They stayed with KU on offense and somehow switched up their defense to be more effective against them. CU was hitting 3s and free throws like crazy. KU and free throws were not friends that night. I think they ended up like 48% or something. Terrible. The last minutes of the game were so exciting. At like 10 seconds to go, the score was tied and we had the ball. I was just hoping they weren't going to try to fire off a misguided 3. The clock ran down too far, and we had to send the ball to the hoop. Unfortunately it didn't fall, but fortunately, there was less than one second on the game clock. We went into OT. Overtime didn't go as well for the Buffs, and KU looked more like a #1 team. KU won, but I was so, so proud of Colorado. It -- how well CU did against KU and my shift in who I wanted to win -- was so unexpected. What a fun night. And regardless of who I cheered for, it was so, so fun to see KU basketball live again. I hope to get the chance again at least the next two years.

Later I was thinking about my decision to wear KU to class that day and thinking about how, if I were a player on CU's team and saw a student at my own school wearing the opponent of the night's shirt, it would make me sad. I figured at the very least I probably never cross paths with any of these guys. But then Friday I totally ran into one of them. Funny.

One other highlight of the night:

Here's when Danny Manning was smiling at the camera for me. Because he knew I was his number one fan in the late 80s. :)

now that's what i call a weekend

This past weekend was wonderful -- exactly what my hopes for a weekend might be. I don't recall having very many "weekend" weekends last semester, and I may not have too many more as I get deeper into this semester. It remains to be seen.

When Brian got home Friday, he informed me that people from his lab were going out for sushi and did I want to go too? Um, yes. It turned out that his advisor was hosting a guest colloquium speaker, so he was taking out that guy, as well as...duh duh duh...subsidizing everyone else's meals as well! Super news for grad students. So we went out to someplace we probably would never and will never go back on our own (due to prices). It was fun. The sushi came out on a huge hilarious boat, and it was fun to try various sushis and sakes. His advisor was on sabbatical last semester, and so this was one of the first social outings his lab had, meaning it was my first time to meet some of his friends, which was great. I got the chance to meet more of his friends later that night because we went to see Avatar in 3-D with some. It was quite the entertaining movie, and I was pretty pleased with myself for not falling asleep during the three hours in the theater that began at 10:45 pm!

Saturday, I definitely slept in. Not long after getting up, we headed to campus for the CU vs K-State basketball game, which was great fun. We stayed for part of the women's game and then went home for supper and a movie (P.S. I remember watching like one movie last semester. This semester I've watched at least four!). A bit later we met the friends we went to the movie with the night before at Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Yeah. I suppose we won't be going back there either. Who charges $2.75 for a mug of brewed coffee?!

Sunday we slept in again and this day actually got some work done. Hm, I don't actually even remember what all went on. One of the best things about this weekend is that there was an extra day! Yay for Monday off! And I don't have Tuesday classes, so it was a four-day weekend. Probably why I am drawing a total blank on what we did Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. As it should be.