It happened.

I know, I know. I haven't posted pictures of the elusive Falala mug yet but there is a reason. It's a reason that, I am sad to say, I thought I could avoid entirely this semester but it seems like old habits die hard. As you probably know, my immune system and I are consistently at odds. It is of the belief that it doesn't matter if I'm sick or healthy at the worst possible times in the semester and I don't understand why it has to act so irresponsibly on a school night. And yet here we are.

I have bought every cold medicine I could get my hands on and none of it has worked. Because I'm pretty awesome like that. So for the next few days, I'll be out of commission, trying to be productive with my cold-addled brain. Here's hoping everyone else stays healthy!

Case Closed

I know I had some of you on your feet for the last post but today, the short-lived saga came to a close. I hardly got any sleep last night so I knew I was going to be in desperate need for caffeine. I decided to go with Red Bull from the local HEB since my stomach was feeling weird anyway and coffee isn't exactly known for making those kinds of problems better. BUT THEN, as I was grabbing my car keys, M approached me and told me she had been craving Starbucks and wanted to know if I would go with her.

Sure. I thought. I could settle for plan B. So we headed down to the Starbucks and I glanced over on the shelf out of habit. No falala mug. Disappointed, I got in line in front of a display full of Christmas coffee when, LO AND BEHOLD, there was a falala mug, tucked in behind the bags. The absolute last one. I grabbed it and practically beamed sun rays at everyone until I got up to the front to order my latte. I informed the cashier I would be purchasing the FaLaLa mug and you know what she did? She gave me my latte for free. IN MY MUG. After washing it out for me! Can you believe?

Needless to say, it made my Monday astronomically better and the mug now sits comfortably on my dish rack :) Pictures soon to follow.

The Case of the Falala Mug

About a week ago, I was poking around Starbucks, like I frequently do, when I laid my eyes on this beauty:

(This is the only picture I can find of it! It's the cutie right in the center and comes to us courtesy of here)

I don't know what it was that drew me to it but it was instantly my favorite thing on the shelf. At the time, it wouldn't have been the soundest financial decision to buy it but I swore to myself that next time I came, it would be mine. That next time was a few days later. I was tired, cranky, in desperate need of a latte when I remembered: MY FALALA MUG! So happy!

Imagine my surprise when, literally just 3 days later, it was gone. Completely ripped off the shelf. There wasn't even one left. I was devastated until a friend of mine told me it would probably be online. A quick search verified that it wasn't there either. And so, I'm taking a break today from my horrible schedule to search for this mug so I'm not plagued with regret for not having bought it originally. But seriously, does anyone know what happened to this thing? I know Starbucks puts out more tumblers than any other store but 3 days? Really?

Any breaks in the case would be much appreciated!

In the Next 36 Hours...

I have so much I haven't blogged about! Like my weekend trip to Austin, a pretty crazy football game and other odds and ends but unfortunately, the craziness that was term paper week has spilled over into the weeks that followed. In 36 hours, I will be driving back home for Thanksgiving but until then, some pretty crazy things have to happen.

1. I will have to conjure 4000 words in the next 12 hours. Minus 2 for class. Minus 3 for a MUCH needed nap. 7 hours.
2. I will FINALLY go see Breaking Dawn with the roommate :) Do not judge!
3. I will take a test I haven't started studying for
4. I will review a merits brief
5. I will do MORE work on the insane International Law project we were assigned
6. I will rehearse for a meeting with the university president

And I'm just going to stop there because this list is getting overwhelming. But when all this is over and I enjoy my Wednesday/Thursday/Friday (because that weekend will be devoted to more work), I will catch you up on current happenings :) Until then, wish me luck!

Way Back Wednesday: Class Songs

SO, when I was a senior in high school, we got to vote from 4 songs which one we wanted to be our class songs. Two of them were country and I, not being the biggest of country music fans, automatically eliminated those. I ended up voting for Here's to the Night by Eve 6. It was the only song I had actually heard and I felt like it really summed it high school. Great nights, great friends and having to say goodbye to it before I felt I was ready (Here's to goodbye, tomorrow's gonna come too soon). It really IS a good song and I would encourage everyone to listen:



They were going to announce the song at prom and, when it finally started to play... I didn't recognize it. I know it is SUCH a well-known song but I guess I was out of the loop. My date and the bff and at least half of our table jumped out of their seats and started screaming along, air microphones and all. I wish I had thought to get a picture of it or SOMETHING, it was so entertaining :) I liked it right away but it wasn't until I got to college that I really started to appreciate it. For some reason, it was all the rage my freshman year and was ALWAYS playing on the radio. It was probably the soundtrack to my first semester at college haha And even now, it comes on often enough and we always sing, air mikes included.

I have decided, some 4 years later, that I like this song better than the other one. To clarify, I like it better as a class song. Yes, high school was about incredible times that ended but that song was entirely about looking back. This song is about look forward. It's honest (some will win, some will lose), it's hopeful (hold on to that feeling...) and it is just TOO fun to dance to :) And for some reason, everytime I hear those chords kicking off the song, I think about that hilarious moment at prom, the excitement of graduating high school and shipping off to college and now, the excitement of graduating college and launching off into the world :)



Thank you, class of 2008, for being FAR better song pickers than I was :) And just for fun, I'm going to throw in a few 'action' shots of prom. Disregard all of the pairings and things. Predictably, they've all broken up AND, fun fact, the girl in the last picture, (hereby referred to as the BFF) is now engaged to a sweet man who loves her (not pictured.) Enjoy!

Holiday From Real

Sometimes, there are these pure, happy moments that just happen.

And they are very, very wonderful.

Way Back Wednesday

I think I'm going to start making a tradition of this :) Just because I like to reminisce and there really are a few stories that might never get told otherwise! ANYWAY, Once upon a time, the Roomz and I were in a sorority. I don't know why we ever thought this was a good idea for us since we had a hard enough time getting along with girls as it was and we weren't really into the frat boy scene but, we decided we wanted to give it a try.

One of the really great things about sororities is that they're always giving you a bunch of reasons to get dressed up all fancy and take nice pictures :) Since then, we've quit but before we did that, we were able to attend one last semi-formal.

We took lots of silly pictures...

J and I were our naturally adorable selves... (Can you believe we'd only been dating like, 6 months here?? So crazy)

The dance wasn't really what we expected and by that I mean it was on a lawn with maybe one spotlight for the whole place, it was very cold, the food was gone by the time we got there and the DJ had gone AWOL. So of course we did what any college kid would do and went to Wendy's where we proceeded to order a feast and take some more ridiculous pictures

Do I ever regret not staying at that dance? No. No, I don't.

Happy Wednesday, people :)

Term Paper Week

It's term paper week!

Wish us luck!!

We are DEFINITELY going to need it.

MOAS

This past weekend, I participated in the San Antonio Model of the Organization of American States. What is that? most normal people would ask. WELL, the OAS is like the UN of the Western hemisphere and the model means we dress up, pretend we're delegates representing different countries and discuss ideas, debate and pass resolutions and compete for awards. This year, my school represented Uruguay and this great country:

We ended up winning plenty of speaker awards, including best delegation! It's always so much fun but so, so stressful at the same time. Because there are awards, people go to win and not so much to compete fairly and diplomatically. In other words: people be runnin' games. Especially certain schools that have openly expressed their distaste for ours. Runnin' games so hard that we actually felt like simultaneously punching things/crying/storming out and never coming back.

Therefore, winning took a lot more than it should have. From Thursday morning to Saturday night, I got 5 hours of sleep, ate one meal and ingested what probably totals to over 1000 mg of caffeine. I don't know how I survived to be honest, but I did! Now that I'm sleep deprived like nobody's business, you can bet that there are two term papers and a thesis chapter due, too!

Wish me luck on surviving :)

J, the Snake Charmer

I mentioned before that when we went to the San Diego zoo, there was this little poisonous green snake that took a strange liking to J. It was one of the strangest things I had ever witnessed and I feel it's only right to share it with the world!



Normally, I avoid uploading YouTube videos like the plague because it just takes so dang long! And I basically have no patience as is but this video is just so ridiculous, it was worth the 5 minutes it took to upload haha

Happy Thursday everyone!

That Time I Went to El Salvador

I suck at blog updating, I know. It seems that I have a lot of time to write during certain periods and absolutely none during others. Such is the college life, I guess but I'm going to make an effort to try to be more regular, or at least schedule the posts to come out at different times so I don't become THAT blogger. ANYWAY, in May (I know, it's been so long) I was able to go to San Salvador, El Salvador on a school trip to represent the United States. Some highlights:

I got to experience the Party Bus. It picked us up at the airport, and it was a refurbished old school bus with a black ceiling, strobe lights INSIDE, some crazy painting outside and it blasted music the entire time it went 90 mph down a winding mountain. In the rain. Yeah.

Our hotel was beautiful and had a breathtaking view.

Much like the nearby architecture.

I got to scale a volcano, tiptoe the Honduran border and see a crater that used to be a lake :) Look at that orange flower growing there all by itself. Individuality, folks.

I got to see the whole town of San Salvador (not featured. This is obviously only one part of it)

And then all of El Salvador in a tiny scale model the government had built!

I met new people...

and gave a very, VERY rough speech in Spanish in front of a bunch of native speakers. It was so much harder than you would believe.

Of course, I ate some DELICIOUS food. Please don't let the green tamale fool you. It was all unbelievably good. I am still on the hunt for popusas.

I met my first ever black sand beach,

stuck my toes in the Pacific and consequently, fell onto these rocks,

shopped at a Mayan market,

danced the night away the night the world was supposed to end to an odd mix of Spanish and English music on a club with an open bar and an entire wall that was actually a balcony and overlooked the entire city,

and met this guy. We were running late to the airport because the school we were supposed to be sharing a bus with was running late. This MILITARY ESCORT pops up (his truck says: Division for the Protection of Important Peoples. YEAH. Important people) and starts blocking off roads so that we don't have to stop for traffic. There are about three of these trucks on all of our sides and we're running red lights, hitting cars (!!! One of the police trucks pulled aside to console the shocked owner) and escorted our bus (THAT WAS PUSHING 100 MPH. A SCHOOL. BUS.) on the same windy mountain until we, not surprisingly, got to the airport on time. Did I mention they were waving massive guns at people who didn't get out of our way? Very cool. Very scary. Probably won't ever happen to me again.

And that, in a nutshell, was my time in El Sal :) It was a gorgeous country and when I get the chance, I will be back. I am a sucker for traveling and now, for black sand beaches.

Spring Break: The Last Day

I promise this insane photo dump is coming to an end and ending with, you guessed it! more pictures of food.

M came by to grab her things and we bid her a sad farewell. One thing that sucks about one of your best friends being in the Navy and stationed in WASHINGTON STATE is that you never really get to see them unless they're on emergency family leave or it's a holiday. Since neither of those things have really happened, this is actually the last picture I have with her (Until Christmas of course!)

We took in more of California and J really came to appreciate palm trees, leading him to wonder why we don't plant some in College Town, Texas.

We ate. Of course. But can you blame me? How delicious does this look?

I had my second ever banana split! (!!!)

And then some frozen yogurt though I wasn't the least bit hungry. But, sadly, there's not a Pinkberry anywhere close to where I live and it seemed like such a waste to pass up this opportunity. Across the street, J was getting a mojito and ran into the waiter we had had the night before (remember the crab-stuffed shrimp? He was the guy who recommended that). We were glad we had tipped him well and assured him that we weren't stalking him. I'm not sure if he believed us but he seemed cool about it and commented that we were the only customers who had ever found him at both of his jobs. STILL, it was PURELY incidental. Maybe I tried to find him on Facebook later but it was only because he was that cool.

And that wrapped up our Californian adventures :) While it satisfied by wanderlust for a while, I wouldn't mind going back sometime soon. Especially when the weather is a teensy bit warmer so J can really get a taste of the wonderfulness that is California.

Spring Break Day 3

And here we go!

Day 3, we woke up to beautiful, warm weather! (Finally) And I was glad J was finally getting to experience the California I know and love.

We ate at the most delicious little cafe by some railroad tracks. The food was perfect, the lemonade was fresh, the sun was shining and we had a gorgeous view. I really couldn't have asked for anything more.

J occasionally likes to point out that I am obsessed with photographing my food. This is true.

Then we headed off to the zoo! Coincidentally, I am in love with zoos and was prepared to spend the ENTIRE day there. My compatriots, unfortunately, were not.

Regardless, we went to the reptile house first, where I was sufficiently creeped out. (PS- I HAVE TO upload the video of J as the Snake Whisperer. I know it sounds like it can't possibly be true but the video will blow your mind. Keep an eye out for it.)

We waited in line to see the pandas which J absolutely fell in love with :) You can see it if you squint and look REALLY closely.

I was a fan of this camera-shy bonobo...

And this giraffe

And this boy :)

And this peacock that was accosting people on the sidewalk.

Then we said bye to M, who was going to spend the night on a friend's sailboat, and J and I headed back to the island for dinner.

J had never been to the beach at sunset and I had never been to the beach at sunset wit a boyfriend and it was as romantic as everyone would have you believe. It was incredible :)

And of course, because I'm that food photographying obsessed girl, we ate an UNBELIEVABLE dinner of crabbed stuffed, bacon-wrapped shrimp which
A) revealed the fact that I am NOT allergic to shellfish, like I had previously believed and
B) it is possible to become addicted to mashed potatoes.