Another vlogday!

A little more about my classes... and towel turbans. Welcome back to vlogday! Betcha didn't see it coming quite so soon!

Day One of School, also Vlogday!

Welcome to the first day of classes, me! I sold my soul for textbooks. :( Here's a vlog about my day, my textbooks, and my new obsession with calendars!!



B/Vlog tomorrow about my second day!

Spring Classes

It's that time again! Time for the spring semester to start... and time to let my mother know how to stalk me every week.

Et voila! My spring 2010 school schedule!


It may (or may not) change, and depending on how the first two or so weeks of school go, I may drop one of the classes. In any case, classes start tomorrow and I'm actually looking forward to it! Not looking forward to using my alarm, but at least my earliest class is at 10! SO much better than 8!

Bring it on, UT. I'm ready.

-----

So, I live right across the street from a gas station, and every once and a while, I spot a gem while they gas up...


AWESOME.

I Need Vs. I Want

I'll be honest - I have a problem with admitting that I am not perfect, and tonight, I really opened up to my friend Ally. She helped me realize that I have friends who I can depend on to help me... and be my guilt monkeys when I need someone to kick my arse into gear.

I have a habit of projecting the fact (or fiction) that I am totally put together and collected all the time, but in reality, of course I am totally not. In my mind, it is easier to project the image of being collected than it is to admit that I need some help. I struggle daily with the fact that I don't have it together all the time and it upsets me that I don't. Of course I know that nobody really has it together all the time, but for some reason, it really doesn't get through to me that it is okay that I don't.

I have these crazy expectations of myself to be perfect, and I believe that those expectations I have of myself are the same expectations that others (my parents, friends, and family) have of me.

The thing is, they're pretty high expectations that I wouldn't expect of anyone else. So why on earth would I expect them of myself? It has been something I have struggled with for a long time, but no matter what, I can't seem to get rid of them.

So when I don't do well, I shrug it off. If I don't make a big deal out of it, it won't mean a big deal to me. I can't help but feel like this is the wrong approach, because if it doesn't mean anything to me, how can I fix it?

After collectively drinking three (or four? I can't remember) pots of tea tonight, Ally encouraged me to write an "I need" and an "I want" list as a way to prioritize and set goals. I thought I'd share them with yall. They'll be on my wall for everyone to see.

I need...
-Grades that will keep me at the University of Texas. (I need A's and B's.)
-To consistently keep on top of reading assignments.
-To give myself permission to fail.
-To be me.
-To reconnect.
-To be okay with my vulnerability.
-To be honest with myself and others.
-To not brush it off.
-To eat breakfast.

I want...
-A companion.
-To (really) cook something every week.
-To not say 'no' so often and to take a chance.
-A lot.
-To learn something every day.
-To open up more. Truly open up.
-To write (and finish) another story.
-To try something different.
-To learn how to play a new song every month.
-To learn how to play that guitar sitting by my keyboard.
-To play the piano every day.
-To BE a writer.

In this way, these are kind of my new year's resolutions, but kind of not. I didn't really make resolutions this year... probably because I was afraid of what I would tell myself to do.

What I want for this blog is for it to be a place for my honest thoughts. It is tough to admit to some things and easier to admit to others... but here I am, telling you that I am not perfect. I don't make good grades all the time, and I don't want to eat my vegetables every day. I would rather eat a bar of chocolate than an apple, and I desperately hope that my really cute neighbor notices my new haircut. I am terrified of what the new semester will bring, and I really, really would love to run away right now, but I won't. I am facing the new semester with a vengeance and it better look out, 'cause Stefanie has arrived.

Something New

Today feels new, do you know what I mean?

Today, I got a new haircut. One with BANGS. Bangs and I have not been friends during my lifetime. We... aren't necessarily acquainted. Sure, we've had our flings in the past. It looked cute when I was little,


but when I was five I decided that me and bangs have had our thing and I really, really didn't lik them anymore. Mom let me grow them out, and that was that. I never looked back.

I had my hair cut today with my favorite person (a lady named Linda) and she always does wonderful things to my hair. Today, she asked me what I wanted, and I replied: "Something different. Something short."

The result?

Bangs.


I know it's not a lot of bangs, but they're in my eyes and it's weird. And I know that people go around all the time, every day with bangs and they must be tolerable... but it's weird to have things in my eyes. I was trying to read a book, and they got all in my vision. Weeeeeeird!

Every time I look in the mirror, I see a different person. I like that person - she's kind of pretty.

To go with my new bangs, I bought new perfume. And a new belt (but I wanted the belt anyway, not because I need a new belt to be new or anything.)

So there you have it. New me, bangs and everything!

-----

As an aside, Siobhan has been telling me for ages to watch the BBC series of Robin Hood. They have the first two seasons to watch instantly on Netflix, and I'm not kidding - I've watched the entire first season in less than 24 hours... I AM HOOKED.

Later, I'll start the second season! If you have netflix and, uh, 10 or so hours to waste, WATCH IT. And then buy them as a present for your favorite blogger for Christmas next year! :D

ROSE BOWL!!

So guess what, yall?

I WENT TO THE ROSE BOWL!


Originally, I was going to just go and run the flag with APO. So in December, Mom booked my flight to go out there on the day before the game (last Wednesday) and to return the Saturday after. I was looking forward to running the flag with my friends and then going somewhere with my other friends who didn't have tickets to watch the game.

Since Mom had to pick up Mike from the airport at 3, and my flight was a 6:30, she combined trips and dropped me off super early, which was great because they had me on standby. I got through security just fine and found my gate, where I had to sit through two different flights (an outgoing to Chicago and an incoming from Dallas) and when I saw a lady at the desk, I went and asked if there were any available seats, and she gave me one right away.

It turns out that I was extremely lucky for that! As the hours wore on, they started calling for six people to give up their tickets for a $300 credit and get a flight on an 8am the next morning. Because there was no way I could do that, I sat quietly and boarded the flight when I could. I spent the flight talking with one of the only people on it who wasn't going to the Rose Bowl, poor guy. Almost the entire flight was full of people wearing burnt orange with pride! I heard so many people discussing the game, and how they were really optimistic. When I landed, I found a taxi and made my way to the hotel.

At the hotel, we had two rooms between twenty of us. It happened that for two of the three nights I stayed in the one of the rooms had nine people, and the other had eleven. My room was only for two nights, and so for the third I moved to the other one. Four of the boys claimed the bed (so unfair!) so I slept on the floor in front of the TV. Here's a diagram of the room that I just made in paint!


On Game Day, we were all up bright and early (7:30!) and were were at the field by 10:30.

We did a circuit of the stadium first, which (with seeing people we knew, and taking our own sweet time of it) killed about an hour and a half. We saw lots of fans, and amusing tents and tailgates...


(The sign says "NO TRESPASSING. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.")

I knew that my old spanish teacher from high school was having a tailgate with his wife and her family, and so I made my way over there to chill for a bit. We made hotdogs and put chili on them. Yay for chili dogs!

(That's him, Daniel Diffen. It's still really weird to not call him Sr. Diffen!)

I had to be at the flag trailer at 3:30, and so we snaked the flag to the gate...



and were (finally!) let into the stadium at about 5pm. First, they had to waste our time saying "in thirty minutes" (forty minutes later, it was "in ten minutes". This continued until the band had already taken the field!) They had a dog search the flag to make sure we weren't bringing anything in it.


We finally took the field (sorry for the blurry picture!)


and did a simple open and close during the Eyes of Texas. We snaked the flag back to the trailer, and I took a last look at everyone in the stadium, trying to imprint it on my memory for fond recollections later in life. It was cool I didn't have a ticket - I didn't need a ticket. I got to run the flag at the Rose Bowl! How cool is that!

There were nine of us who didn't have tickets, and two of us had to take the flag trailer to the hotel, and so the rest of us started to walk back to the car to go find somewhere to watch the game. On the way, we listened to the people trying to get rid of their tickets, and one guy approached us and offered us his tickets for $150 a pop. He had seven tickets (two groups of two and one group of 3) and we bought them on the spot and headed to our seats.

Can I just have a moment here?

A $150 ticket! To the Rose Bowl! Face value was $233! Eeeeep!


So we went to our seats, and painfully watched Alabama beat us. But we fought a valiant battle! I feel so bad for Cold McCoy! But I won't dwell on that. The game was AWESOME. I was so happy to have scored those tickets. The crowd was pretty much evenly divided between orange and red.


The bands played... Enjoyed the halftime show.


After the game, we sang the Eyes of Texas. And it was beyond awesome. It shows our pride! Everyone in orange had their horns up!


We made our way back to the hotel. Everyone in our room was really disappointed, and we went to bed pretty early (around 2 or so). Apparently the other room stayed up a lot later and had quite the party. Of course, they did have Jose to make them feel a little better.


The next day, since my room was all going home, I moved down to floor six, went out to grab some coffee with the few people who were actually awake, and then we all went to grab a bite to eat,

And then to the metro station to see if we could see a bit of Hollywood.

(Oh look! Hollywood!)

We exited the station and were handed a flier for a map of Hollywood, and when we got to the place, the lady behind the desk offered us a 2 hour tour of Hollywood for $20 a pop. We jumped on the offer and hopped in the truck (which was roofless) to see Hollywood!


It was all a little bit unbelievable, and totally bizarre to recognize so much from TV and see it in person. Things like the Kodak and Chinese Theatres, the walk of fame, Sunset Boulevard...


We saw the trees in front of Johnny Depp's house (how clever of him to block it like that...)


And we saw one of Elvis Presley's houses.


The current owners have left his calling box and a little inscription that says "TCB 2" on the brick right next to it! And the door next to it has inscriptions and notes from his fans to him.


We saw where a lot of celebrities have their apartments. (The tour guide said, "Rob Pattinson lives there, but we only see him at night.")

We saw one of Sandra Bullock's houses.


(She also has a house in Austin!)

After the tour, we had dinner and celebrated Tina's 21st birthday with a round of beer. (The waitress might have asked if we were all 21... and nobody disagreed.)


And after that, we walked up the walk of fame and took pictures of stars!


And cause we were all Greens, we took pictures with Kermit the Frog!


We went into the Kodak Theater and I took a picture of...

Hooray!! (Dork moment, sorry!)

We went to the Chinese Theater and took pictures of handprints... Like Johnny Depp,


And Shirley Temple,


And the Harry Potter bunch.


With that, we turned around went back to our hotel. But before we got back, we went into this other hotel, which had glass elevators and took pictures of the city at night! It was so cool. They had elevators facing every direction, and we went up and down them all!




And we hung out in the comfy couches in their lobby for a bit, too!


After that, we finally walked back to our hotel and at around 12:30 or 1, I went to bed. Everyone else was still awake! I finally got to sleep on a bed... and it was a glorious 3 hours, but then I had to wake up and leave the hotel and go to the airport. My flight was at 6:10, and I flew from LA to Dallas, and then from Dallas to Austin... IN FIRST CLASS. It was my first time in a long time flying in first, and it was so nice. They served me breakfast, and I chose the oatmeal over the omelet. (Being able to choose kind of made me feel like royalty. Just a little bit...)

It was great to get home. I missed sleeping in my bed.

So, despite the fact that we didn't win... my trip to California was epic. I only hope that I can do it again sometime!!

Hook 'em horns!!

Wrapping Up

Hello, yall all the way over there! Welcome to 2010! I'm going to miss having double-0's in my years from now on.

Yes, I am still in England, but only for another 20 hours or so, sad though that is. I love being in England, cold and damp though it is, and I will miss it when I land back in the States, but at this point I am really looking forward to coming home tomorrow. It'll bring back the reality of a lot of things, like the fact that my grades last semester were a little bit less than what I'd hoped they'd be, but the new year will quite literally bring me home.

What can I say about the rest of my time here? Christmas Day was oodles of fun! The kids woke me up at 8:00 on the dot and dragged me out of bed to open stockings. They wrap the gifts in stockings here, so we sat around Neil and Anne's room opening the little presents in age order.

I spent the day lounging around in my new christmas socks (I am my mother's daughter!) and I played games with the little ones. I sat in the kitchen and I watched my Uncle Neil prepare the Christmas Dinner, and I enjoyed having a quiet day with the family.

Christmas Dinner saw us all wearing those silly paper crowns that come in crackers and digging into a meal comprised of turkey with all of the trimmings... roast potatos, brussel sprouts (I ate one), red cabbage (which was surprisingly good), and stuffing, among other things. My tummy was very happy! We brought out the Christmas Pudding (on fire, of course!) and ate that with some brandy butter and rum sauce. We opened presents (in age order again! We ranged from 10 to 89 here) and sat around drinking good wine and talking. The kids got a Wii, which they immediately handed to Duncan to have the task of setting up and have literally not stopped playing it since. I had a blissful moment of being better than them at Mario Kart, but when I got back from Helen and Paul's (more on that in a moment) three days later they had already unlocked nearly everything and are winning nearly everything. I never had the talent of gaming, though.

On Boxing Day, Duncan, Pippa, Dad and I were up early (7:30, eew!) and out the door within the hour. One of the more sneaky things that we had done with this trip was to surprise Pippa's parents by showing up for Pippa's father's birthday on the 27th. We made our way to Devon (on the other side of the country) and picked up Tom on the way and four hours later (can I just say that I find it incredible that we could drive from one side of the country to the opposite side in four hours?) we found ourselves at Helen (Pippa's sister) and Paul's house walking through the door and hoping that Pippa's parents don't have heart conditions! The look on their faces as we snuck in through the back was priceless. It was worth all of the hush-hush secrecy (they knew that Tom and I were in the country but they didn't know about the other three) and the call on Christmas when we told them that we were having a warm Christmas at home with the Stewarts, and all of those other evasions of their offers to take Tom and I for a day or two. They had no idea that we were coming and it was so wicked that I honestly look forward to the day that I may be able to trick my own mother like that. (Muah ha ha! Expect me when you least expect me, Mom!)

We ate like KINGS at Helen and Paul's place. We had another dinner the size of Christmas dinner (which was really just leftovers - but a lot of leftovers) and we watched movies on TV (Crocadile Dundee, which I've actually never seen before! And Australia the next night) and when we left on the morning of the 28th to drive the four hours back and to the wedding! The "real" reason that we came.

Our cousin Marcus (the eldest of our lot) married Rebecca in a really sweet (and traditional) ceremony. The reception was held in a beautiful hall down the road from our hotel, and so we were able to walk there and walk home at the end of the night. There was food, champagne, beer, and dancing, of course!

The following days consisted of trying to hunt down presents for everyone (we found some great ones!) and a lot of being beaten by the kids on the Wii. New Years Eve last night was actually a quiet affair - Dad and Pippa went to bed early (they're sick - poor things) and Neil retired early as well... so at midnight, we turned on the TV, popped the bubbly and welcomed the new year between Duncan, Tom, Ali, Jacqueline, Anne and me. The little kids had some champagne too, (we start them early over here...) and we all went to bed.

Today, we are all packing up and getting ready to leave bright and early in the morning. Well, it won't be bright (the sun won't have risen yet) but it will be early. A cab is picking us up at 5 tomorrow morning. So when you're going to bed? Think of me waking up.

Tonight we're hosting an Indian food dinner, and inviting some people over. The smells wafting up here into Anne's office are amazing! I will post some pictures when I get home (and all of them onto Facebook as well). See you on the other side!

(I will write my New Year's resolution blog when I am home! But I do have resolutions for you!)