Random....

Haha, okay so this is just a random comment that I didn't want to forget. Last night, at church on Christmas Eve, the pastor was introducing the candlelit part of the service. There were a few hundred people there and everyone, including the children, has a candle- so it looks really neat once they're all lit. But before we started the flame around, the pastor said, and I quote:

"We're going to pass the candle around now, so if you rely on an oxygen tank to breathe, now would be a good time to turn it off."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH-- save the old people! Let them keep their oxygen!

:)

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

Okay but this one's NOT just like the ones you used to know. Here are some things about the White's at Christmas that I may have neglected to tell you....

1. We traditionally eat homemade Chinese food for Christmas Eve Dinner because several years ago, my older brother called in to one of those NBC- "Audience Speaks Out" deals that asked what people's Christmas Eve traditions were. While we eat what I call "the food of our ancestors" (HA!) on that night every year, we also remember with a good laugh the man that called in to the same show saying... "Well, I don't have many friends, and not much family...so I pretty much stick to Shake n' Bake." Sad. But funny.

2. We are also always the ushers at the 9pm service at our church on Christmas Eve- ever since I can remember. We get to stand at the doors and hand people bulletins and candles (one part of the service is candlelit). One year, a man who we will call BM rejected, yes- REJECTED, my older brother's offer of a candle. He and I were so stunned and we made it into this funny inside joke. But THEN, a few years later, said BM left the church with another member after they were caught up in a huge local scandal. HA. Should've taken that candle dude.

3. Last year I hung up 80+ individually cut and painted paper snowflakes all around my house really late/early before everyone woke up. Yeah, I'm pretty much the favorite child. It doesn't hurt to get in good with Santa either.

4. It's a season of family togetherness, but in this household the little bro is still the funny one. Note, while decorating the tree...
C: Hey Hayley, you know why there are no red lights on this tree?
Me: Uh, why?
C: BECAUSE RED IS THE COLOR OF COMMUNISM
Yeah, this is the same kid who got 11 frisbees and a toy that shocks you on purpose for Christmas.

5. I remember one year when my little brother opened like 4 of my presents on accident. I was really upset, I think I cried. Don't judge me.

6. Every year each kid gets socks and underwear in boxes suspiciously labelled "from Tess", our dog. This year I got a whole tube full of it. Good times.

7. Also every year for at least a few years, my dad's work sends him/us a Christmas "gift" of, are you ready for this? A GIANT box of Usinger sausage and cheese. You guys, I'm not kidding. Though it works out nicely because, circa New Years, I am so sick of sausage that making a New Year's resolution is easssssssy. NO MORE SAUSAGE FOR A YEAR.

8. We make the same kind of cookies every year and decorate them as a sort of family tradition. Well this year all of our creativity ceased all at once and the 3 of us kids and my friend decided to cut our losses and decorate the rest of the cookies as flags of the world. I think my little bro's Canadian moose and my older brother's mountain of icing that was a Brazilian Santa were the clear winners and, well, my attempt at a Great British Star was announced dead at approximately 8:07 on the evening of December 21st.

9. We can't escape Christmas without at least ONE picture of SOMEone wearing a bundle of ribbons on his or her head. It hasn't been me for a while...

10. To keep my dog entertained on Christmas morning (she gets jealous of all the present-opening and runs around the house like a malfunctioning robot on Tang) we always get her a gigantic bone. Gigantic = 4 feet or so in length. This is really great fun for her. And for us, as we get to see her swing it around, taking out any vulnerable object standing upright within a 20 foot perimeter. And then she chews it till her gums bleed and we all take lots of pictures.

11. It just wouldn't be Christmas at the White House without Legos. Every year the boys get some sort of Lego. This year it was Dino Attack and it's already built. Sweet.

12. It used to be that the kids would wake up really early and wait, like good little children, until at least 6 or 7am to blare Christmas music to wake the folks. Now the parents have to wake up the kids and remind them that it's Christmas and tell them that Santa came. I was the last one up today around 9am, a perfectly reasonable hour.

13. We still listen to the Raffi Christmas Album.

14. Our other traditional music selections? The Chipmunks, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and some random Jackson Browne, Ska, and "flashback to Hayley's freshman year of HS" mixes that, for one reason or another, are in the CD mix and we're too lazy to get up and change the music.

15. My aunt always sends really funny gifts to the boys. This year, my little bro got a Napolean Dynamite calendar as my older bro opened his Swimsuit Model calendar.

16. Okay, I admit it. We have some ugly ornaments. Really, the only ugly ones are these obsure pink violins/cellos/violas- of which we have about a dozen. My mom tries to get rid of them every year but the kids always triumph and get every last one on that tree. It's mostly the little bro that spearheads this effort, and it was he (not surprisingly) who, this year, snuck a rubber shrunken head on a string (Halloween decoration) onto the back of the tree. PLEASANT, let me tell ya.

17. The best part of Christmas? We have a humongous turkey with all the fixin's AND a honey-baked ham for dinner (yes, there are only 5 of us), pies for dessert and then, after dinner, we open our stockings. Then Christmas is over!

Merry Christmas!

Finals Week Makes Me Sad

2 things about finals week really made me sad this year (well, outside the tests...):

1. I realized that if someone sneezes, while taking a major exam, they are probably going to Hell. Okay, maybe not that extreme...but they're definitely not blessed! During all of my tests I would hear people sneeze and, unlike your ordinary cordial day at this prestigious southern university, absolutely NO one would say "bless you". I figure it's because people don't want the teachers to think they're cheating? Or maybe the phenomenon is just isolated in huge science classes (which were my observation pools), so maybe I'm just crazy. But I'm still sad.

2. I told this next one to some people and their sad reactions made me even sadder. Walking to my 8 am Italian 3 final in Hanes Art Center, I had to walk up the more than slightly inclined path between Phillips and Memorial Hall. It was a super cruddy day outside- cold, raining, foggy, and dark with a sense of lingering despair hanging over all of our exams. (okay, so I'm a dramatist.) The path was iced over which, though I was struggling up it, put me in a rather jovial mood as I got to watch many of my coffee-clutching colleagues sliding down it. I know, I'm horrible. (But I knew I'd get mine as soon as I saw that Italian exam). THEN, my mood was drastically changed. For there, in the middle of the icy path, was a large puddle. And, soaking in the large puddle, was scattered the remnants of someone's neatly-made notecards. Obviously someone had been frantically trying to stuff yet some more frivolous knowledge into his or her head on the way to a monstrous exam (weren't we all?) and fell on the ice, scattering the flashcards. And here the cards were, soaking in cold brick-y water, their colored words draining from the paper. I got really sad. And then moved on.

Study Lounge Madness

Hayley: How's the studying going in here guys?
Lauren: I wish I was dead.
Kellie: I wish I had a gun.
Lauren: I wish she had a gun.

Finals week brings out the best in people...

SHS: Student Health Sketchiness

My eye hurt. My eye hurt real bad. So I went to the James A. Taylor Student Health Services Center like any self-respecting college student that doesn't need to be blind on top of stressed for finals week. I think that was pretty responsible of me! But alas I got Dr. T. (Ummmm you could probably figure out his real name from the website....) I think the following quotes of conversation speak volumes about my experiences in Clinic II today.

"Where are you from?"
--Colorado
"Oh! I'm a High Sierra's man myself!"
--Oh, I thought that was California
"It is." (Points to a picture of a generic mountain scene. Needless to say, awkward pause)

"Here, get down from the table, sit in this chair. That's why it's here. We can see eye to eye...haha that's ironic! Hahaha, do you get it?" (yes, idiot....)

"Wait! Let me go get my laptop- that's right, I'm wireless!"
Upon returning with a laptop with a huge plastic sign saying "DO NOT USE" on the top...
"Aren't you lucky? You get the only doctor to have everything they need on this little computer!" (people perceive luck differently doctor...)

"I'm going to go get my otoscope, it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better"

"Oh! You're photophobic! Excellent!" (I mean, that sounds awesome)

He shines a bright light into my eye and it is watering uncontrollably so I say "I'm not crying, I promise!" to which he replies...
-"It's okay, I tend to do that to women"

"Do you sleep with contacts in?"
--No
"Good! Oh wow Hayley, that's great. You're doing really well. You're getting all the right answers!"

Entering his office...
"This is my home, that's why I decorate it. Here, sit on my couch."

“I’m a doc and I teach. I’m adjunct. Adjunct, haha.”

"Take a business card so you can email me. Because you can't call me, I don't have a phone. (ummm aren't you a DOCTOR?!?!) I feel my communication is flanked if I have a phone AND a computer." (Okay then he blabbed on about a lot of medical stuff but I spent most of the rest of the time debating with myself as to whether flanked is a real word and, if so, did he use it in the right way?)

"Stress inhibits your immune system, did you know that?"
--Yeah, I guess I've heard that
"You need to meditate"

"I like to tell people that to get to the pharmacy, you go to the stairs, walk down, and it's on your right. It's easiest that way." (actually, that's just where the pharmacy is, dude...)

"If you ever come back you should suggest me. You get better care from one provider. You make better relationships" (*WINK*)



Okay weirdo. Peace. OUT.

DOT GOV: Save your souls!

Dot org-ing only gets you United Square Dancers Association, aka NOWHERE. We're going to DOT GOV it from now on people. Can't remember? Here's a clever trick:

Dumb as a board?
DOT ORG.
Got love?
DOT GOV.

Thank you and good day.

Chemistry...

In a continuing series focused on the effects of studying chemistry on the human brain.... this just in!

I was reading my analytical book and came to the sentence: "The grating is coated with aluminum to make it reflective" and I had to stop. "Coated? Coat...coat, coat?" You see, I was confused because I was pronouncing this word "co-ate" in my head (and then out loud several times) and becoming increasingly perplexed as to how I cannot recall such a short, simple word in the English language.

I mean shoot, I'm from out of state, I should know this stuff.

I even went to the far reaches of my intellectual capacity to find the answer to my problems-- Google. Alas, my confusion slipped away in 0.29 Google seconds when I received 37,200,000 results, the first of which being "Burlington Coat Factory".

And now the sentence makes sense, but I am still studying chemistry minus 5 minutes of my life.

Dang it.