11-Layer Dip
Posted: December 17, 2008 Filed under: All's Well That Ends Well 6 CommentsI don’t really have anything new or interesting to write about, so…here’s me again, courtesy of a survey clearly meant for single high school students or something:
11 Layers of Me
Me in my outer shell.
Layer 1 – On the Outside
Name: Roni
Birthday: July 20
Current Location: Happy Valley
Eye Color: brown
Hair Color: blonde? strawberry blonde? It is back to natural, but I’m not sure what to call it…
Righty or Lefty: righty
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
Layer 2 – On the Inside
Your Heritage: quite Southern. Before that, Welsh and German, mostly.
Your Fears: barfing, someone hiding in the car, having my sternum cracked. Also childbirth.
Your Weakness: sweet things for breakfast – donuts, cake, cookies, Count Chocula, etc.
Goal: read 100 books next year.
Layer 3 – Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Your thoughts first waking up: No. Leave me alone. I’m sleeping. (Can you tell the Romgi was trying to wake me up?)
Your bedtime: getting earlier, since I have less energy, but usually sometime between 11 and 12.
Your most missed memory: I wish I could re-live that time the Romgi proposed. It was pretty awesome.
Layer 4 – Your Pick
Pepsi or Coke: meh. Neither. How about lingonberry juice & Sprite from Ikea?
McDonald’s or Burger King: Burger King, no question.
Single or group dates: dates! Ha. I can see how a group date would be fun. Or really a date at all. Somehow we just haven’t gotten around to planning a lot of dates. We watch 30 Rock together, though, does that count?
Adidas or Nike: sorry, I have never owned either.
Chocolate or Vanilla: chocolate. Obviously. What does vanilla have to offer?
Layer 5 – Do You?
Smoke: nope.
Have a crush: a crush does seem awfully superficial and fleeting. Hmm.
Think you’ve been in love: pretty sure. Oh wait yes. Definitely.
Want to get married: if the opportunity presents itself, sure.
Believe in yourself: sporadically.
Think you’re a health freak: I’m eating 3 donuts for breakfast today. What do you think?
Layer 6 – In the Past Month
Gone to the mall: yes. Christmas shopping. And again today. Bleh!
Eaten Sushi: no, still haven’t wanted any since July when I ate too much.
Gone skating: sadly, no. I wanted to go ice skating, but…it did seem a bit unsafe, given my clumsiness at the moment, and the fact that I might fall and squish the Bwun into oblivion. That would be bad.
Dyed your hair: no! Are you shocked? I gave it up. I also haven’t cut my hair since last November.
Layer 7 – Have Your Ever?
Played a drinking game: …no. Not with anything other than water.
Gotten beaten up: I’m extremely likeable. Who would beat me up? Kendy bit me and gave me a blood blister once. But that’s about it.
Changed who you were to fit in: yes, I believe that was high school.
Layer 8 – Getting Old
Age you’re hoping to be married: 23? 22? How old was I? Hm. This is an awfully short layer…
Layer 9 – Perfect Mate
Best Eye Color: green with a random black dot.
Best Hair Color: brown.
Short or Long Hair: short. But not too short.
Layer 10 – What were you doing…
1 minute ago: typing my answers?
1 hour ago: waking up, reluctantly.
1 day ago: visiting the optometrist.
1 month ago: thinking about Thanksgiving turkey.
1 year ago: studying for finals, ha!
Layer 11 – Finish the Sentence
I LOVE: donuts from the BYU Creamery.
I FEEL: a little bit sick because I may have eaten one too many.
I HATE: that “I wanna start a fight” song.
I HIDE: half-eaten bags of Mother’s Cookies so the Romgi won’t know how many I’ve gone through. (I only eat 2 of the 4 types of cookies, hence the bags are half-eaten.)
I MISS: warm weather. It suddenly became winter this week.
I NEED: some milk. So thirsty after those donuts.
Things Fall Apart
Posted: December 15, 2008 Filed under: Book of Sand 2 Commentsby Chinua Achebe
You may be surprised that I’ve never had to read this book for a class. Most people I know were assigned to read it at some point. I guess in all my linguistics/family history/English/sociology majors, we never got around to it – which, I’ll say now, is too bad. I would have liked discussing it with a big group of people.
The Romgi has been recommending Things Fall Apart for a while. He told me it’s really sad. I mentioned the book to a friend recently who said it’s depressing. Naturally, I was prepared for a horrifically sad, depressing story; but with only 10 pages left to go, I hadn’t come across anything of the sort and wondered if the Romgi was thinking of another book or if the last few pages were going to be extra intense (and sad).
Actually, the book made me angry. Not sad or depressed. Just angry that there is so much tendency to force our ideologies on others whenever we feel that their ways are inferior to ours. (I will not get into politics here.) A combination of the way I was raised, my religious views, and my excellent sociological training has shaped the way I perceive the world, and I really think that for the structures of society, economics, and culture, there isn’t one “right” way of doing things. Capitalism works well in the U.S. (more or less), but that doesn’t mean it’s the only acceptable economic system or that it’s right for everyone else. Same with the type of government we have. Same with western culture. Just because it’s what We do (and, sadly, usually We = Europeans and their descendants) does not mean it’s what They should do.
Ok, that being said, Things Fall Apart is also an incredibly interesting book to read because of the writing style. Very different from anything I’ve read before. And definitely enjoyable.
I didn’t mean to suggest that I disliked the book at all – just that it made me angry. Especially because so many people have read the book, become sad or angry or depressed because of the mindset of the colonial powers, and still today are convinced that in many ways We are superior to Them and They need our help to be brought out of their backwards culture/economy/society. Wrong.
Mysterious Meat
Posted: December 13, 2008 Filed under: War and Peace 2 CommentsI love ham. It should have gone on my list of favorite things, but…somehow it slipped my mind. Ham is especially good because I have it so rarely that it’s always a treat. I’d be overjoyed if we got to eat ham and turkey on Thanksgiving, ham on Christmas, and ham and lamb on Easter. I kind of think that would be perfect. You know what else is great about ham? Leftovers. Thick-cut ham sandwiches are rivaled only by thick-cut leftover turkey sandwiches. Ahh.
That being said, last night I experienced something new. It was called ham. But it was an impostor.
Dramatization.
The Romgi and I went to the ward Christmas party, which promised lots of food and a nativity program by the kids. We got there on time and waited patiently for things to get started so we could eat. Sign-ups had been going around the past few weeks, and I knew there’d be many types of salads and potatoes; sure enough, when we finally got in line to get our food, there were easily 8 different types of mashed and funeral potatoes. (Luckily I sampled the best funeral potatoes. Some of the others looked iffy.)
We made it down to the far end of the serving table, where three platters of ham had been set out. The first two were too thick for my taste (yes, it is possible) and had the yucky skin-stuff on them (bleh), but the third looked beautiful. Slightly thin-cut, but the pieces were big and looked to be glazed with some sort of delicious glaze. I grabbed an extra large serving and headed back to our table.
When I have a plate full of holiday-type food, I start by eating a bite of potatoes, then some salad, stuffing, roll, fruit, potato, and finally meat. So it took a while to get to the “ham.”
It was not pleasant.
The problem wasn’t the pineapple sludge poured on top of it. That part I could mostly handle, and mostly scrape off. The problem was the texture of the meat itself.
This will probably sound disgusting, and it really was: imagine if you had some perfect ham, and for some reason you kept chewing it until the cows came home, and at that point you decided to spit it out, add a little something to make it creamy, turn it into a paste, and shape the paste into ham-shaped pieces.
I can’t think of any other way ham could be ruined so badly.
Ham is not creamy. It’s meat. Ham should not scrape off like liverwurst. It’s not canned.
Ham should not make me cry.
(It’s ok, I didn’t cry until around 1am when I wanted to barf. And that was mostly because I was really tired and grouchy and ill. Plus, I did eventually go back for a slice of the thick ham, which was a nice normal ham texture.)
And there you have it. That is the story of the pineapple ham paste.
P.S. We are beginning to consider the possibility that it was tofu or soy ham. What an abomination.
Jarom
Mika
hilleries 