A Vacation Would be Nice.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Lewes, Delaware for a week's vacation. No more work, no more calls. No more angry customers, broken things, frustrating technology. I'm going with my mother and my sisters and brothers (if they end up coming) and for one whole week I won't have any responsibilities. Not one day, not two days, or three. A week.
I can't tell you how much I need this.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to try and drag Brady out of bed before noon, get his haircut, then fill my cooler with vegan yummies and head off to the beach.
I will be utilizing my iPhone's tethering skills the whole week, so I will not be losing touch.
Growing up.
First of all, I'm terribly sorry for the complete lack of updates these past few months. I get on a roll, and then I become self-conscious about my writing, and my blog content. I get worried about who's reading it, or who wants to read it, or if I'm doing a good job being entertaining. Then I think that may be my everyday events aren't that interesting, and I'll just get teased for writing. I hope that's not the case.
Let's get back to the topic of this post. It's growing up. It's something I need to fucking do. You see, I've always just been a step behind everyone else. I'm afraid to move forward, become an adult, and leave what's familiar. So I took 3 years of college, found myself in a full-time salaried job, and then never looked back. It proved to me you could get a good job without graduating college. That people don't look at a degree as often as you might think. They look at experience. While I don't think I have that much experience, it's enough for me to get hired and not be asked any other questions.
However, I'm tired of feeling like an idiot. I'm tired of feeling uneducated even though I have finished my degree. Yes, finished my degree. In 3 years. Unfortunately the University of Delaware requires more credits than my degree provides me, so I'm left with having to take 18 credits worth of electives in order to officially obtain my degree. I'm an English major, but this year, I'm going back to school. I'm going to finish those credits, and I'll be able to call myself a college graduate by this time next year.
I applied for FAFSA a few months ago, to see what kind of money I'd be awarded. I'll be paying these damn loans off until I'm 40 years old, but for right now, I don't want to have to worry about that. I got enough money to be full time this year, but I'm going to only do 9 credits a semester. It's easier now because I work 3pm to 12am at my job, so all the daytime classes are out of session by then.
So far, I've accepted my awards, applied them to fall semester AND I have enough money to purchase books now. I'm even adding $150 of that to go to on-campus food, so I can eat between classes. What's next? I'm actually getting a permit so I can park my car. Sure I'll get crappy parking but it's close to campus, and I don't have to pay daily, and I won't be in danger of being towed or fined.
Finally, the big question is what will I take? I can't take that many more English classes. I have a limit of 54 credits that are allowed to be English, and I think I'm hovering somewhere around that. I've taken pretty much every German class there is to offer, except for a conversation class. The requirement for that, however, is that you haven't taken any German 300 or 400 levels, which I have. So that's ruled out.
I do love language classes, though, and I've always wanted to learn another language. I was interested in Portuguese, but the only option there is "Portuguese for Spanish speakers" which I am not. Not even close. Dutch isn't offered, or I'd jump on that. So I was between Hebrew, Japanese, and Russian. I think I'm going to choose Japanese. It think it's a good business language to know, and I would be able to watch anime now without having to focus my attention on the subtitles. I'm probably going to take Japanese I in this coming semester, Japanese II in summer, and then Japanese III in the spring. I won't be fluent but I'll be able to understand the language.
I should also probably take Technical Writing, even though it's an English class. I work with Technology nowadays, and I don't see myself leaving that career path anytime soon. I'm sure it will be helpful when writing tutorials and conversing with customers.
Lastly, ballet is offered as a class. It's specifically catered to people who have no experience with ballet. I do, technically, but I was 6. I don't remember very much from it. I think it would be fun and a good opportunity to work on my flexibility and lean muscles. Right now I'm so out of shape it would at least be something. I would also get an opportunity to purchase those vegan ballet flats that PETA is always advertising, haha.
To say the least, I'm very optimistic about going forward. I think if I finish this I can be ready to go on with the rest of my life. I feel like I've been wandering around wondering what would happen in my future, or not really caring. Now I can at least know, and maybe proceed with that.
The Cake is Not a Lie.
Long time without an update. Certainly not for lack of activity. A lot of things have gone on in the past month. I visited a Farm Sanctuary, went to the beach for a week, and lots else.
But today, my friends, I bring to you, the cake from Portal. I have to admit it's not 100% vegan. I *had* to have the fish-shaped crackers, if you know what I mean, and they have non-fat milk in their ingredients. But besides that, all is.
I don't feel like typing all the exact ingredients, but the cake is basically cocoa powder, a shitton of maple syrup, whole wheat pastry flour plus regular flour, and soy milk. The icing is a regular buttercream icing, with coconut milk substituted for soy milk. Since the original recipe calls for coconut pecan icing. I made 3 layers, icing in-between each. I pressed sliced almonds into the cake, and plopped maraschino cherries and fish-shaped chocolate crackers on top. Unfortunately, I had used all of my confectioner's sugar on the chocolate icing, and accidentally poured out the rest of my coconut milk before realizing I had to make some sort of whipped cream/white icing to hold on the cherries. So I compromised and smooshed the cherries into the cake.
The cake itself probably weighs about 5 lbs, and does not travel well. It's very moist, and won't allow me to wrap it in any way, so I'm hoping my two hungry boy roommates will make do with the cake ASAP. Basically "Hey, Portal cake in the fridge!" will be sufficient enough to get it eaten. Myself, I do not like chocolate cake nearly *this* much.