A Question of the Universe Answered.

Many of you are probably wondering why my blog is named the way it is.

Just kidding. I'm sure that the thirteen people (and I love you all!) who read this blog have much more important things on their mind, such as who will be the Republican presidential candidate, or why bacon tastes so good yet is so bad for you.

However, I'm going to tell you the story anyway, because I'm on break, it's one in the morning, The Golden Girls has way to many commercials about Viagra and I'm bored out of my mind.

One of my friends, Colleen, has many frequent catchphrases. Some have faded through time, but one has stuck: "It's casual." "It's casual" has basically become the modern day equivalent of "c'est la vie." It's said whenever we realize that there is nothing we can do in a situation, no matter how much we would like to punch somebody in the face. It's also commonly applied in a ridiculous situation were we have no idea what happened or what to do.

Now on to the second part. About a month into the school year, my friends and I were chilling in our dorms common room, watching TV. On the stairs leading to the girls hallway, a boy, Zaire, was talking to a few girls in the hallway. As he continued to chat the up the girls, Zaire leaned on the railing as he started to walk down the stairs.

Not only did Zaire manage to miss the railing entirely, he proceeded to lose his footing and started an almost slow-motion tumble down the stairs. His body flopped like a Raggedy Ann doll as he hilariously continued to fall.

Finally, when his fall ended, he managed to land on the floor like this:

After completing his Iron Man impression (and we rushed over to see if he was ok), Zaire got up and walked boldly away (actually, he sort of limped). He was fine, and though people teased him about it for several weeks, now nobody really talks about it.

So that is the meaning of the name of this blog. Even something as traumatic as falling down stairs is pretty casual in the long run. 

Now excuse me, I have to go erase all memories of Viagra out of my head.

I am not a poet

[The following is a sonnet I had to write for my Writing and Thinking class]

I am not a poet, oh you know it's true,

For rhymes simply don't appear in my head.

Oh those quatrains, they are far and few,

And that couplet simply leaves me dead.

Why do I need to write this sonnet?

All they talk about is love, death and that bright star.

Sometimes their words make me want to throw my bonnet,

Somewhere that is very very far.

However, maybe sonnets aren’t so bad,

For I hope this one has made you laugh.

Shakespeare and Keats really aren't so bad,

And they’re a heck of a lot more fun then doing math.

So after writing this sonnet, I guess it's plain to see,

I'm a poet, and it never even occurred to me.

Update: We had to read our sonnets aloud in class competition style, and I got second place. :)

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas (if you are a poor college student).

Feliz Navidad my fellow readers! Yes, I know it is a bit early to be giving out the Christmas greetings, but I can't help it. Christmas is my absolutely favorite holiday. It's just such a cheerful and beautiful holiday. My favorite part about Christmas? Giving gifts to others and seeing their happy faces light up with joy. 

However, this year, I have realized that it will be much trickier to give gifts and get into the christmas spirit. Instead of being in my house blasting Christmas music all the time, I now live in a dorm where there are certain quiet hours and other people. Also, my monetary funds have to go to more “important” things that getting gifts for my family and friends. However, I have come up with a good way to help you get into the spirit and do your Christmas shopping with ease!

How to get into the spirit:

Blast that music! (during non-quiet hours): Nothing gets people more into the spirit of Christmas then a good Christmas playlist. Just make sure that other people around you aren't bothered by the songs. If your unsure of what songs to chose, here is my personal playlist:

• Hark! The Herald Angles Sing
  All I Want for Christmas is You
  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
  Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer
  Your a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
  Little Saint Nick
  I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause
  Santa Baby
  White Christmas
  Carol of the Bells
  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Decorate Your Room: This can be done quite easily and cheaply. One day my friends and I all sat down simply to cut snowflakes out of paper and hung them everywhere. We all got stockings and hung them outside our door. Hang lights around your room. One of my friends parent's was even generous enough to get us a fake Christmas tree!

Carol around Campus: This is especially fun if it starts to snow. Walk around and belt those songs to your hearts content. Even better, some colleges have programs that allow you to send a Christmasgram (“What's a Christmasgram? I want one!”) to anybody you want for a small fee, usually just $1.


Watch the Classics: If you and your friends are into snuggling and watching movies, grab some old holiday favorites and some hot cocoa for some great fun. My personal favorites for Christmas are A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon version), A Christmas Carol, Elf, and A Year Without a Santa Clause (Snow Miser is the man).

How to Give Gifts (if you are poor):

Secret Santa's are your friend: So you've arrived at college and have made at least 15 great new friends right? That's all fine and dandy till you realize you have to get a gift for every single one of them. But fear not my friends. Suggest to your group to have a Secret Santa, where you only have to get one gift for someone, and agree to a maximum low cost. Believe me, nobody will try to stop you.

5 Below is the greatest store in existence: 5 Below has great, fun items that never go above $5 in price! What poor college student doesn't want to here that? They have everything from movies to t-shirts to lava lamps, so if your stuck on what to get them. If you have a little more cash on you and have a girl as your gift receiver, Bath and Body Works is always a great place as well during the holiday season. They have the most amazing lotion infused peppermint scented socks.

Still want to give everyone else a gift? Candy Canes!: Candy Canes are always a great Christmas gift. If your short on funds, get the packs of the kind you would hang on a Christmas tree, tie a little note with a ribbon around it and voila! Instant Christmas gift. If your feeling a little more generous, try to find the awesome large hand pulled candy canes (carful though: They break easily).

I hope that this was able to help you get into the spirit of Christmas. God bless us everyone!

Uncle Lili Goes to Jail.

There was once a boy called Uncle Lili. This wasn't his real name, but his friends called him that just to annoy him. Uncle Lili was friends with several boys and several girls, and everybody was happy. That was, until the boys played a horrible, nasty trick on the girls.

It was Sam and Jess's first recital for the Dance Team. They had to dance at the basketball game that night, and were very nervous. They made everybody promise that they would be there to support them, which everyone agreed to.

A few hours before the game, around lunch time, Uncle Lili and his friends Corbin and James decided to go to Target. You see, Uncle Lili and his friends liked to play a card game called Magic.

If you have never heard of the game Magic, you may have never met a teenage nerd boy. Some show their Magic love loud and proud. Other's hide it a little better, looking cool on the outside but secretly wishing they were holed up in their room playing Magic or Skyrim.

The problem with Magic cards is that they are expensive, especially to a broke college student. So Uncle Lili and his friends tended to come by them in, ahem, other ways.

So while Sam and Jess were getting ready for their performance, three other girls in the friends group, Rachel, Colleen and Liz, got a phone call from Corbin.

Corbin, James and Uncle Lili couldn't come to the game. Why, may you ask? Uncle Lili had been caught shoplifting, and was in jail.

Uncle Lili was in jail. For stealing cards. Magic cards.

Corbin and James had to go and bail him out, so they wouldn't be able to make it to the game. Colleen, Liz and Rachel banged on James's door, thinking the boys had to be playing a joke on them. They searched the room, but Uncle Lili was nowhere to be found. It had to be true.

Then, poor Sam and Jess heard about what happened, five minutes before they had to go out and dance.

All the girls were freaked out and panicking, but poor Sam and Jess even more so, since they had to perform. They went out and dance, and they danced awesomely, but they couldn't enjoy it. They were to worried about Uncle Lili.

The dancing was over, but the girls were still panicking. Rachel was even about to cry. Unable to see the girls in distress any more, Jacob, Uncle Lili's roommate, came over and told the girls the truth.

Uncle Lili wasn't in jail. The boys had made it up to pull a prank on the girls. He had been hiding under James's bed the entire time.

And that is how Uncle Lili had the living shit beat out of him by five teenage girls.

The Lousy, Terrible Day.

Today was a lousy day in general, but what started it was an event so terrible, so awful that it makes me want to hide in a corner just thinking about it.

I wrote a terrible story. And by terrible I mean "why-does-this-story-exist-and-why-did-I-show-it-to-fifteen-other-people-when-it-should-burn-in-a-pit-of-fire" kind of terrible.

Somehow, I came up with an idea for a futuristic, totalitarian short story in my head. It involved a world were nobody read, so nobody really understands emotions and love, ect. There was also a love triangle.

The prose was fine, but the plot? Dreck. Rotten eggs. Dog poo. Yet I sent it off anyway to be critiqued by my classmates, thinking at the time I had written a piece that was good.

The whole week before my critique day, my classmates kept coming up to me telling me how much they liked my previous story, and how they couldn't wait to read my next one. They could only think of one nice thing to say about this story.

I'm fine with criticism. What I'm embarrassed about is the fact that I wrote this horrible story in the first place, that I messed up so drastically it made me want to go hide in the corner and never come out.

Bleck.

My Writing Process. With pictures!

Every writer goes about their writing process differently. Some have a certain number of hours in the day in which they must write. Others only can write when inspiration strikes them. Others even move into nude hippie communes so that the creative flow can fly through the air.

My writing process is a little bit of everything (Except the nude hippie part. That's just weird). To give you a good idea on how my process goes, I will provide you with some visual samples.

This is me:

And this is me when I begin to write a story or a paper:

After a few minutes of furious typing, random thoughts start to pop into my head, such as wondering who invented tampons, or why Tasty Kakes don't exist in Rhode Island.

Naturally, this leads to a Google search, and then to Wikipedia, and before long I have learned about the fascinating history of salt water taffy.

Eventually, all this strenuous research makes me yearn for something amusing, and eventually this happens:

This leads to frequent trips to Youtube, Facebook, or inspiration for another blog post (ahem).

Finally, it's one o'clock in the morning, and suddenly full on inspiration hits me like a fully loaded garbage truck.

Then I type a ten page masterpiece, and fall asleep.

When I wake up the next morning, I feel like I can put my bad writing habits behind me, and start to work on another paper. Then I start to wonder how rubber bands were invented. 

If You Need a Girl to Jump, Scare Her With a Chainsaw.

Here in good old Central Pennsylvania, we pride ourselves on three things: Pierogis, Whoopie Pies (Don't ever believe that Maine invented that glorious treat), and Haunted Attractions.

Field of Screams, The Bates Motel, Eastern State Penitentiary... the list goes on.

So of course, my friends and I jumped at the chance to go to Jason's Woods for the mere price of five dollars.

Now what you need to understand about Central PA is that most of it is farmland. So take miles of empty farmland in Lancaster, with no streetlights and dirt roads, and your already halfway through your own version of an horror movie (In this one, the blond with the huge boobs dies first).

The first site that we got to go through was this small maze. It wasn't that scary, since the only things that happened was this huge fireball that would blow up every once and a while and Freddy Kruger would sneak up on you. The problem with this maze was that it was extremely small, the the Jason's wood staff didn't regulate how many people could go in at once. So when a very large group of thirteen year old teenage girls decide that something is so scary that they need to stampede the place to get out of the maze, you'll most likely end up squished against the wall.

The nest attraction we got to go on was the Haunted Hayride. The problem with Haunted Hayrides is that you can't just run away if somethings scary. You're stuck on that sucker till it starts to move again. Because the universe is just and fair, my group of friends ended up on the same hayride as the terrified thirteen year old girls.

Here is the foolproof way to not be terrorized on a hayride: Laugh your ass off. The performers will aways go for the people who actually show how scared they are. My friend Sam and I, who were sitting next to each other, were never terrorized because we were laughing so hard at everybody else.

For example, while on the Hayride, at one point the actors bring out chainsaws (with the blades removed) and shake them at people. I saw a girl literally leap six feet in the air in an attempt to get away from the man. It was pretty impressive.

After the Hayride, we got to go through two haunted houses (Sadly, because of our amazing discount, we weren't able to go in the actual Jason's Woods), and somehow got split into two groups.

While dodging terrifying clowns and pirates, I learned three things:

1. There are some parts of the haunted houses that are pitch black.
2. The actors are allowed to touch you.
3. The actors are freaking allowed to touch you.

At one point, we were debating who was to go first in a very narrow and dark hallway, when somebody grabbed Sam and tried to pull her into the dark hallway. She, naturally, freaked out and pushed everybody into the wall in an attempt to escape. 

At another point, we entered a white room full of dots that glowed brightly. As we walked through it, we were scared out of our wits by an actor that blended perfectly against the wall. However, as scared as most of us were, nothing could top Jess, who as she saw the person, slowly started to scream:

"That's. a. PERSON!!!"

She then proceeded to push everyone out of the way and onto the floor as she bolted from the room.

Luckily, we all came out in one piece. We calmed ourselves down with soft pretzels, hot chocolate, and homemade vanilla Coke.

We then all gathered back onto the bus, everyone happy from a great night. Then, as we started to drive away, the bus driver made an announcement over the loudspeaker:

"Good evening everyone. I hope you had a fun evening tonight, and I hope you enjoy the movie. By the way, does anyone know the way back to your college?"