Bittersweet farewell, or whatever.

December is knocking, and I'm not hesitating to answer. It's been a nice little month of daily blogging. I don't fully understand how it's such a challenge to post every day, though. It's just like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast dessert or taking a shower: it's something you just make sure you do every day. Still, it takes a little extra time, and it'll be nice not to have it looming as another thing to do before I sleep. (For sure thought I could make a whole post out of that topic, but this well's running dry.)

On a completely different note, it's my understanding that most people in the world like chocolate. And I would hope that most of you like me, so what I'm about to say should be followed by great excitement: someone in the Wheaton Symphony got the bright idea of having us sell chocolate bars as a fundraiser, and you, yes you, can buy some! Or all 32 of them! So many different flavors! Chocolate mint! Mocha! Almond! Peanut Butter Crisp! Chocolate Melt! Chocolate Crisp! Just plain Solid Chocolate! Point is, folks, the holidays are coming, and if you want to keep up on all the treats your extended family expects you to ingest, these bars are a must, and you can get them for the low, low price of $1.50 each! What a deal!*

And now, I apologize once more for a month full of ramblings that you really didn't need to read. In the coming weeks, I can't promise you that I'll post every day (who would want that anyway?), but I'll do my darndest to give you the dose of excessive verbosity that we all crave.

*I know, I'm just such a great salesman. Who needs college when you can sell candy? (Answer: this kid.)

I swear, I bring this upon myself.

Tell me something.

I go all gung-ho on productivity, finishing French workbook pages in record time and memorizing choir music like nobody's business. I reward myself with banana bread in my RA's room. AND THEN. Instead of being a responsible person and writing a little two-page letter for a class tomorrow, I decide to play with wrapping paper. Because it's custom to wrap our doors in it. But I can't just be satisfied with a ten-minute wrapping job. No no, I have to quilt the wrapping paper first because one kind just isn't enough.  So I count squares on the back of the stuff and cut here and tape there, knowing full well that I have a little bitty paper to write. Silly business. Tell me why I do all this. (Note that I did use a wee bit of self control, making myself stop the insanity at 9:40 if I hadn't finished, which I haven't.)

And then to make it all better, instead of beginning immediately on the assignment, I decide to blog about how much time I spent being crafty. It's all your fault, you readers. (See how I did that there, pinning the blame on you guys?)

And the best part? If I had to make a prediction, I'd say that I will most likely bang out the letter in a half hour (fingers and toes crossed) before staying up entirely too late to complete the wrapping job. At which point I will add a photo to this post. (Update 11:29 p.m.: door complete, photo added.)

Interior designers, watch out. I'm coming.

Some days, I swear I should be a four-year-old, albeit a very precise and exacting four-year-old.

Three weeks notice.

[Disclaimer: This post is more of a pep talk for me than it is entertainment for you. Whoops.]

I've got 3 more weeks until the semester's done! Let's break it down now, y'all.
This week:

• rehearsals every afternoon, gearing up for the legendary Christmas Festival at week's end. Totally going to be worth it. Plus, I've been through so much worse. A couple hours each afternoon is nothing compared to five or six hours in the pit. I'll be fine.
• a little writing assignment due Wednesday. No big deal. It's two pages. A letter to a friend. I write letters all the time. Really, it's all fine.
• a chem test Friday. Hey, we've had three already. Think of this as prep for the final. Plus, it's just one out of four. It's just a test. And I like tests.
• Mom's coming. All that really entails is a wee little trip to the airport. Airports are fun. And driving is fun. Nothing to be worried about.
• playing for studio class on Friday.  Hey, if I can't pull this off, then there's no way I'll be ready for juries. It's like a practice test.

Next week:

• basically a dead week. All tests will be over. But instead of having a big testing and rehearsal week, it's...
• party week. Chorale Christmas party, 3-South Christmas party, freshman class Christmas party (what is this, elementary school?), and "secret sister" exchanges...twice. All that really means is that it's a big...
• baking week! Because there's a bake-off for Chorale (basically a big ploy to feed the Glee Club), my suite may or may not be housing a gingerbread-house-making set-up for the 3-South party, and I'm sure not about to go get people gifts when I can bake them things they'd enjoy more.  Plus, I brought back all those spices, with a rolling pin and cookie cutters to boot. I'm asking for it.
• birthday! which means I have another excuse to make a cake and force-feed it to innocent bystanders. Current plan is a chocolate cake with a cinnamon-coffee frosting and potential caramel hiding between the layers and drizzled on top.
• studying? No no, that's what the weekend is for.

Finals week:

• exactly what it sounds like: finals. Except that from the looks of it, I'll only be taking one, maybe two finals during the three-day span that finals are supposed to be going on. Silly. Guess that means there'll be an abundance of food laying around.
• juries! on Reading Day. Lamest decision ever. Way to go, Wheaton. 
• packing: more fun than packing to go back to school, but still, a pain. 

Three weeks. It's go time. This is all completely doable. If people have survived it every year, there's no reason I can't do it this year. Still, I'm thinking I need to plan some arts and crafts sessions.

Housekeeping.

A couple matters of business to attend to today:

Firstly, a handy feature of blogs on Blogspot is that you can see some little stats about those who view your blog - particularly, what country they're in. Here's what freaks me out: apparently fifteen of you are reading my blog from Russia, and one of you in Germany! And I know no one in those countries! So if your name is Vlad or Igor, you should know that I'm onto you.

And secondly, I feel it is my duty and privilege to let you all in on a secret. It's universally acknowledged that the majority of college students spend a good chunk of their allowances buying baking ingredients (don't laugh; you know it's true). I'm here today to tell you that your worries will soon be gone, thanks to HEB. Today I ventured to the potentially overwhelming cornucopia of foodstuffs to claim my prizes, and in a mere $5.11, I procured three-fourths of a pound of crystallized ginger (gingerbread men, here I come) and more thyme, rosemary, ground mustard, cardamom, allspice, pepper, and ginger than I could possibly use this year. Oh, it's a good day. Now off you go to do the same. Together, we'll save MILLIONS.

Day in the life.

8:53 a.m. - rolled out of friend's futon.
8:58 a.m.* - began crafting chocolate chip pancakes, far superior to Saga's.
9:06 a.m.* - ate chocolate chip pancakes as they came off the griddle.
9:45 a.m.* - began watching some of the most excellent episodes of Alias, ever.
11:15 a.m.* - flopped around.
12:45 p.m.* - made toasty sammiches and ate them.
1:10 p.m.* - preliminary readings of a new song by one Wiley DeWeese regarding a duck named Twinkle Toes.
2:05 p.m. - began creeping through the blinds at our soon-to-be-expected guest.
2:12 p.m.* - guest arrives! sight-reading and accompanying commences!
3:20 p.m.* - flopping resumes.
4:00 p.m.* - Chick-fil-A run for peppermint milkshakes. Mmmmmmm minty.
5:40 p.m.* - cooking! little sweet potato wedges with some nice spicy things.
6:20 p.m.* - ate more food, against my will.
7:00 p.m.* - more flopping.
7:42 p.m.* - departed for home. =(
8:10 p.m.* - many, many rounds of Scattergories. OK, just six. Still.
9:00 p.m.* - memory gap.
10:35 p.m. - hem and haw about what to blog about.**
10:54 p.m. - subject you all to wasting whole minutes of your life reading this.

*time is approximate
**ultimate inspiration came from ever-trusty sidekick masquerading as sister.

And we'll have fun, fun, fun...

Probably one of the best things about having incredibly different musical tastes from the rest of your family is that when you're playing cards, you can start rattling off phrases about a guy stuck in a cave in Kentucky or a man being tried for a crime he probably didn't commit, and as long as you throw in a southern accent, you just sound like you're making up crazy poems on the fly. There's really not much of a reason that this is fun other than that it's silly, and that you can do it while winning the card game you're playing. That's fun.

Note: Once again, I apologize for not giving you something a little meatier (yes, like a tiny asteroid is a little meteor), but when life is short, posts are too.

Big sigh.

A big sigh because it's time to exhale all of the day's efforts:

• in cooking cranberries and tarts and biscuits and scones and sweet potatoes and galettes and green beans, and then eating them all.
• in talking about politics and vaccines and all sorts of things that really don't affect my daily life at all. Excuse me while I go destroy things violently.
• in being patient with people.
• in scratching behind puppies' ears until they're satisfied, which would be... never.

And now that all that has been blown out, I can take a nice deep breath of leftovers and reading and catching up on TV and friends.