UPDATE: Victory is mine! (sort of)

Good news:  I have found the perfect combination of food that give me horrible smelling gas.

Bad news: I have horrible stomach pains and explosive diarrhea.

More bad news:  AJ has a cold and can't smell anything.

So what is the secret to my success???  Here is what I ate today, although I'm pretty sure it's only the food that I ate tonight that sealed the deal.

Breakfast:  10 a.m. I had a bacon, egg and cheese from Panera on an Asiago bagel with a medium coffee (cream and sugar)

Lunch: 3:15 p.m.  AJ gave me half of a ham and swiss sandwich from Panera

Dinner:  5:30 ish    Here is where I went for the kill.  I had about 5 or 6 small green peppers left over from Duke's garden and about 5 large white mushrooms.  I chopped up the mushrooms and sautéed them in olive oil and sprinkled on some garlic and seasoned salt.  It was enough to fill an entire plate and I finished all of them.  We all know how much I love mushrooms.  I chopped up the peppers into slices and roasted them in the oven.  They were also doused in olive oil with garlic sprinkled on them.  I ate ALL of the peppers.  Combine that with 2 bites of chicken and 2 glasses of apple cider.

About 20 minutes ago, I had some serious stomach pains and some serious gas to go along with that.  It is rancid!  It's ok that AJ can't smell anything, I now have the recipe and that's all that matters!

This is going to be me one day

Revenge is a dish best served with sulfur

For the past few days I have been trying to cook up some smelly ass farts.  Farts that are stinky enough to clear a room.  In order to accomplish this task, I have been doing some research about what makes farts smell.  Here are some of the tidbits that I found.


The gas in our intestines comes from several sources:

• air that we swallow
• gas that seeps into our intestines from our blood
• gas that is produced from chemical reactions in our guts
• gas that is produced from bacteria that lives in our guts

The gases that are produced by the bacteria are the ones that smell the most (which are the ones that I am particularly interested in producing).

So what makes farts stink??
The odor of farts come from small amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas and some other things that I have no idea about.  The point is that all of these beautiful smells contain sulfur.  The more sulfur rich your diet is, the more bacteria in your gut, the more smelly your farts are going to be.

What can you eat to give you smelly gas?

• cauliflower
• eggs
• meat
• onions
• garlic
• brussel sprouts
• broccoli
• kale
• wheat germ

Hmmmm.....now I know why my mother is notorious for her anal acoustics.  Anyways, is anyone surprised that beans aren't on the list?  Beans have been given a bad wrap for years for giving people smelly gas.  Beans will make your farts loud, not smelly.  So for some fun times eat beans!  For revenge, don't eat beans!

Whose farts smell worse?  Men or women?

There have been SCIENTIFIC STUDIES that prove that women's farts smell worse then men's.  But men's farts are louder than women's.  Fantastic!

Finally, what is the point of this blog?


I have been victimized one too many times by AJ's farts.  He farts on me, he farts near me, he farts in my general direction.  He farts in the grocery store and makes lettuce wilt.  While I am unable to prevent these things from happening, I can concoct some of my own to get even, maybe even surpass his gas.  My first real attempt was tonight.  I ate 4 eggs and washed it down with a big glass of milk and the only thing that has come out of my ass has been little whisps of air.  BULLSHIT!  I need to get serious here.

Here is the plan:

1. I'm going to concoct the ultimate fart food.  I don't have the details panned out yet since I just decided this 5 minutes ago, but rest assured I will keep you posted.  
2. I will eat this food on Friday night followed by consuming a lot of beer. 
3. I'm going to eat the food for breakfast again on saturday morning.  So now I have the food from Friday night, the beer, and the saturday morning breakfast.  Don't ask me how beer is going to help in the fart making process.  I just have a feeling that it's going to work.  
4. After breakfast on Saturday, I'm going to WV with AJ to go to something called the buckwheat festival.  I'll be in the car with him for 2 hours where he has no where to escape from my horrific gas.  This brings new meaning to the term "hot box". 

I know what you're all thinking.  "This is really fucked up"  The only response I have to that is "I'm a Gatti"  If this blog disgusts you in anyway then you should reconsider our friendship.  I think that people who don't think farts are funny are fucked up.  So there.  As a final thought, someone had suggested to me to buy a can of fart gas.  While this may sound potentially fun and easier than eating all of those nasty ass foods, it's not the answer.  Half of the fun of making smelly farts is smelling them.  I like how my farts smell and you do too, don't lie.

Vote!

Let's discuss this picture.

1. He's wearing a stone cold steve austin shirt with the sleeves cut off.

2. He's holding valvoline in one hand and depends in the other.

3. What's with the hair?

4. He's browsing the hamburger helper

5. Are those spandex shorts?

5. This is in a Walmart in Canada, not somewhere like Mississippi like I expected

This might be one of the best I've seen on people of walmart since the picture has so many added dimensions.  It's not just some lady with no pants on or a kid being dragged around on a leash.  This photo has some serious depth.

Please respond to the poll, do I have an unhealthy obsession with peopleofwalmart.com?

Apprehensive about the G-20

The G-20 is coming to Pittsburgh next week for those who live in a hole and didn't know about it.  My first reaction when I found out about it was a good one.  I was excited that Pittsburgh was chosen out of all of the other cities that were in the running.  Even though I'm not from Pittsburgh, I have a lot of pride in the city because I think it's great.  


However, now that the G-20 is only a week away, I'm pretty anxious about it.  I'm not afraid for my own personal safety because you can't pay me to go downtown next week.  I think I'm pretty safe going from Squirrel Hill to Oakland, if I go to Oakland at all.  I may just work from home.  I'm afraid for the city, the people who work downtown and the law enforcement.  I've heard some pretty crazy things over the past few weeks from the radio, newspapers, word of mouth and websites of people protesting the G-20.  I was confused at first because I thought why are there going to be protesters at the G-20?  I didn't think it was something that was extremely conrtoversial.  But then I realized that since the G-20 is an international stage, people are going to protest anything and everything just so that their voices will be heard.  There are estimates that say 50,000 people are expected to show up and protest. 


I'm afraid that the entire city is going to get trashed from all of these people being here.  Downtown Pittsburgh is 0.64 square miles.  That's nothing!  It's about 1/6 the size of Center City Philadelphia ( I did the math).  Where are all of these people going to fit?  I heard on the radio that since all of the hotel rooms are booked that people are going to try and camp out in Schenley Park or at The Point.  Both of those places are way too nice to have a bunch of dirty squatters mess it up.  Plus, you're not allowed to camp there anyway.  I head that there is going to be a parking lot set up somewhere in the Strip District for them to hang out.  Well what are they going to do at night?  


I'm worried about the people who work downtown because they're going to have to deal with so much bullshit just to get to work.  Traffic, protestors, possibly getting hit with balloons full of raw sewage, etc.  I also feel bad for people who have to commute into downtown or Oakland.  Traffic is going to suck!!!  It sucks anyway and I can't imagine the G-20 making it any better.  


Finally, I'm concerned about the law enforcement officials who have to deal with all of the crazies coming to Pittsburgh.  I hope they're all getting paid some extra scratch for their effort.


I know that the last G-20 that was held in London had only peaceful protests and everything turned out ok.  But I'm still worried because that was London, a huge international city.  This is Pittsburgh, a small city.  Plus a lot of people in this country scare the shit out of me.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be staring at giant posters of dead babies all week from those freaking stupid abortion people.  I haven't seen them yet this year so they're probably waiting until next week. 


Need more spray paint to huff!!!

The weather has changed

Okay everybody, the weather has changed because I am having some serious sinus issues. This happens every year and that's how I know it's fall.  The day started out with sneezing, runny nose and a pressure headache which turned into an afternoon nap and a fever.  AJ made me some grilled cheese with tomato soup and I went to rite aid to buy some sinus medicine.  I just took it and it's supposed to make me drowsy, so I hope that I drift off soon and don't wake up until tomorrow.  




Funny foreigner moment:  As most of you know, I spend day in and day out with people from countries all over the world and I love them all very much.  However, sometimes things happen that make me laugh my ass off and reaffirm my belief that the English language is deceiving and convoluted. 


 My advisor told one of my colleagues:  "hey do me a favor and see if this floppy disk works and if it doesn't toss it"    


The disk didn't work, so what does my colleague do? Take a guess.  Does he:


a) throw the floppy disk away
b) toss it into the air


Ofcourse the answer is b.  I saw him tossing a floppy disk into the air and he told me the whole story and I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  Yay for foreigners!

Look at this nugget!

Biggest loser starts tonight!

This is a very exciting week to be sitting on the couch and watching tv.

Monday: First Monday night football games of the season and the premiere of the Jay Leno show (which was hilarious)

Tuesday: Biggest loser!!! I fucking love that show. If I ever have a Tuesday night where I don't have to wake up on Wednesday morning and be somewhere I have a really good drinking game planned for the show. I think that if you took a shot every time someone shed some tears you would be annihilated by the time the show was over.

Wednesday: I don't think anything exciting is on Wednesday that I'm interested in, but I guess Jay Leno is always on, score!

Thursday: The office and It's always sunny in Philadelphia. I'm not sure which I like more, It's always sunny or the biggest loser. I guess both tap different emotions in me so it's not really fair to compare them. But rest assured my eyes will be glued to the screen for both shows. I'm also considering watching the show called Community only because it has Chevy Chase and I love everything else that he's done.

Friday: What ever happened to TGIF?

I'm still laughing my ass off at this one.  I'm kind of curious what it looks like from the front.

Major decisions

Does anyone still read this thing? Probably not since I haven't posted since April. I want to say that I am going to start blogging again, but I can't make any promises. Major events have happened since the last time I blogged and other things are coming up fast and I can't wait for them to happen.

1. AJ moved in with me
2. We got a kitten and named him Hank
3. We bought a brand new bed

Hmmm...seems like things are getting pretty serious! So far none of those decisions have come back to bite me in the ass (except that Hank sometimes actually bites me in the ass) so I will call all of my life changes a success. Here's a picture of our Hanky



He loves yarn! He also likes getting his asshole licked by Tico.


Ok that one is kind of scary, so here is one that will make you go awwww

Awwwwww

Some events that are quickly approaching:

1. My graduation date is actually in sight right now and it is April 2010.
2. I am moving back to Holland, Pa to live in my parents house. I plan on rennovating the basement and making it my own apartment. I have no plans to leave :)
3. I have to start looking for a job! This scares the shit out of me, but I think I'll be ok since my resume after grad school is pretty bitchin. So I hope to make some serious bank.
4. I signed up to take the FE Exam in October and I've been studying my balls off for that.

Some current projects that I am working on:

1. Nick and I built a bed frame yesterday and now I have to sand and stain it to finish it up. Nick was the brains and muscle behind the operation and I'm going to be the one who makes it look pretty.
2. Along with that I need to get a bed skirt and some matching sheets so that it doesn't look stupid. I already made a duvet cover so I'll just match it to that.
3. Finish my yarn scraps blanket. I've been making some serious progress lately so hopefully that will get wrapped up.
4. I'm actually going to finish those goddamn stockings that I've been working on for almost 3 years. The goal (as it was last year) is to finish them and get them up by Christmas.
5. Make matching pillow cases for my duvet cover.


Since People of Walmart is my new favorite site, I am going to start putting up some favorites.

100% should not be bloging right now

It's been so long!!!!!!!!! As soon as this semester is over, a.k.a. this week, I will be blogging once more. I just have to share this one story which I'm considering posting on fmylife.com Here goes:

I put jellybeans down my boyfriends underwear the other night and today I accidentally ate them. FML.

hot mess

Last night was a huge fucking mess. Why? Because I'm a huge fucking mess. Here is what happened. My computer was delivered to my house on Wednesday and Thursday and I wasn't there because I am in school...duh. So my plan was to go and pick it up Thursday night because I had a night class on Wednesday. So last night I made plans to go running with my sister. I left Benedum and walked to her place, got changed in all of my running clothes, left all of my stuff there (cellphone, wallet, etc.) because my plan was to run to my house on darlington, then drive Meghan back to her place and go get my computer from the FedEx place in the strip that closes at 8:30. Everything was going according to plan up until the point where I get my keys and drive meghan back to her dorm. We ate dinner, watched some tv and around 7:15 I go and try to find my keys. I can't find my keys for the second time in a month. I figured that they were in my school bag in Meghan's room. Crisis begins. I start freaking out because if I didn't go and get my computer by that night, they were going to ship my computer back to HP and then I wasn't going to see my computer for at least another week. None of my roommates are home and I don't have my phone to call anyone. effffffff!!!!!! I break in to Kari Cooper's room and go on her computer, log onto facebook and frantically try to find someone who has a car that has their number posted. No one does...except for sumter and that dipshit was working at telefact so he couldn't help me out. But I got Nick's number from sumter and gave him a call using meghan's phone only to get his voicemail. By this time it was about 7:45 and I was starting to have a panic attack. Luckily he called back and I told him my dilemma and he said that he would be there in 15 min. I love him. While I'm waiting for Nick, I realize that these people are going to ask for my ID when I pick up my computer and my ID is in Meghan's room and there's not enough time to make 2 stops. After putting on my thinking cap while sitting in my thinking chair I realized that I have a passport and that would be good. Right as nick gets there I'm running out the door with my passport and Meghan and the three of us are in the front seat of his truck riding around like a bunch of hillbillies going hunting for FedEx. We get to FedEx at 8:17. Yes!!!!!! My ass is saved all thanks to Nick Andes and that manly ass truck of his. He drops off Meghan and takes me back to my house. I look at my computer and turn it on. What do I see?? The picture of my sisters and I totally shit faced on their 19th birthday. Do you know what that means? My hard drive was completely intact!!!! All of that bullshit with ordering the external hard drive enclosures was a total fucking waste of time and money. But at least I have my stuff.

Now for the worst part of everything. My keys were not in my schoolbag. I told nick that they were there. They are in my house somewhere. And that is why I am a hot mess. The shit that I've been pulling recently is out of control and totally out of my character. So stay tuned for the next asshole move that I pull.

Good news: Nicole popped a baby boy named Cole, Kole? Something like that.

Fuck you AJ

Finally Fixed!

My computer is fixed and I'm getting it back tomorrow!!!!!!! I'm so excited! I can finally feel comfortable looking at porn again since I won't be using my professor's computer. In all seriousness though, I am fucking excited!!!!

Good News: I've already showered twice this week!
Bad News: I have to do about 9000 runs of that stupid pavement design guide program over spring break. Each runs takes about 1 minute to set up, 15 minutes to run, and 1 minute to extract the data. Do that math. That's 106 hours!!!!!! FML.



nataliedee.com

I showered twice this whole week

I just wanted to share with you all that I only showered twice in the past 7 days. I know what you're thinking. Kerri is a disgusting piece of shit. I know.

the hair cutting fiasco

My hair is significantly shorter than it was this past weekend because I'm an impatient dumbass. My hair was getting straggly and I decided that it was time for a trim. The last time I got my hair cut, it was by the lovely Megan Boerio and she did a fantastic job. I asked her to do it again and she was busy and wasn't able to be at my beckoning call. So instead of waiting for her to be free, or hell, actually going to get my hair cut at a salon, I took it upon myself to cut my hair. This may seem like a crazy idea to some, but I am actually quite a good haircutter. I've cut my mom's hair, both of my sisters, my friends and my own. I cut my own hair when it was much much longer and involved cutting in a straight line. Now that my hair is shorter it's a lot harder to manage. I forgot to take this into account and decided to cut anyway.

I get a shower and go to put some mousse in my hair after I comb it out and discover that there is no mousse in my closet. Where could it be? Hmmm.....It took me about 10 seconds to realize that someone in my family stole it. It wouldn't be a family visit if something wasn't broken or missing. I say screw it and start to cut. I started in the back first and then made my way to the front. About halfway through I realized that I fucked up royally and was going to have short ass hair by the time things were said and done. Since I had no mousse and because I wanted to see how bad it really was, I decided to straighten my hair. It took me a freakin hour to straighten my hair! I look at it and it's horrendous. Back to the scissors I go. I thought that I was done chopping after that, but, ofcourse, I was wrong.

Yesterday after I showered I got out and thought that my hair looked great, a little short, but great. AJ comes over and tells me that it's a lot longer in the back than it is in the front. Fuuuuuccckkkkkk... So I hand him the scissors and tell him to just make it even in the back. He didn't comb it or anything, just cut. It was the most unorthodox hair cutting ever. The good news is that my hair is finally even. The bad news is that my hair hasn't been this short since Jessica cut it...yikes!!


Edit as of 2.25.09 8:42 am: I have to edit this blog because of what I discovered last night. AJ fucked up and now my hair is shorter in the back than it is in the front. So what am I going to do? Nothing. If I keep trying to fix it I'll be bald by Friday. The moral of the story is to leave the hair to MB (or professionals, haha).

More good news: my hard drive enclosure things finally came and I'm going to send my computer back today to be fixed finally!!!!!

I'm obsessed with this song. The word that keeps being bleeped out is "ho" ...as in "don't trust a ho"

3oh3 - New Music - More Music Videos

It's under control

I think that I've finally figured out how to deal with this insane semester that I've been having. If I get to school around 7, hours before everyone else, I can get ridiculous amounts of work done. Getting there really early puts me in the zone by 7:30. There is no one around to distract me or talk to me in the office and no one is awake so I don't get phone calls, text messages, emails, or gmail chat messages. By the time everyone else shows up to the office I'm already balls deep into something and my concentration is less likely to be broken. The only problem is that it's 7 in the morning. It's difficult to get up at 6 in order to get here by 7 and even more difficult to stay awake once the morning coffee wears off. Another disadantage is the food situation. I eat breakfast before I leave and then I'm starving again at 9:30. This causes me to eat way too much food. So the kinks are still being worked out.

This leads me to my next topic. Since I will have a little more free time at night, I need to start crafting again. I haven't done anything since Christmas and I got this brand new sewing machine that I haven't even plugged in yet. I have like 3 or 4 crochet projects that are half done, pretty fabric to make pillows and a few other odd jobs. These are all projects that are waiting to be done, i.e. no money needs to be spent in order to finish them. Which one do I do? smells like a poll!!!


by the way still no laptop......i'm waiting for hard drive enclosure #2 to arrive. if this is the wrong one again i'm gonna grab a razor and take a hot bath.

A series of unfortunate events

As most of you know, I have had the semester from hell so far. My only saving grace is my friends and AJ, of course. I still don't know how he puts up with me and my psycho mental episodes. My lack of money, combined with my difficult courses and my demanding research tasks are always there, but these things that have happened to me so far just aren't right. I'm a little afraid to actually vent my frustrations because I'm not 100% positive who actually reads this. But let me say that calling my research "demanding" is more of an understatement than saying that I occasionally consume alcohol. I have had serious anxiety all semester, so much that it's even affected my menstrual cycle.

Let me tell you about the things that have happened in the past week starting with the first.

1. I went skiing about 3 weeks ago and haven't found my car keys since then. My dad tried to send me the spare and that apparently got lost in the mail.

2. My lovely sister totally bails on me for our fuel and fuddle night when I was having a really bad day. She said that she was sick, but I found out that she was planning her spring break trip with her friends. BITCH!!!

3. My brand new, sexy computer, that I bought in December, broke last Saturday morning. I called hp technical support and the guy said that I need to send it in to get it fixed. Luckily it didn't seem to be a problem with my hard drive so I should take it out so that it doesn't get wiped when I send it in.

4. I spend the entire weekend in Benedum redoing all of my work from the previous week because ALL of my research is on that thing and if a certain someone found out that I lost an entire week of work, I would probably be screamed at until my ears bleed in the most degrading manor possible.

5. I come home on saturday night around 10 and attempt to remove my hard drive once AJ provided me with the proper screwdriver. I take the panel off, I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at and decide to call HP again for them to help me. To make a long story short. The first guy that I talked to told me all of the wrong things and that I absolutely need to send in my hard drive and there is a 99.9% chance that it will be completely erased. After almost having a breakdown I told this guy on the phone, who was really nice, that there had to be something I could do to get the data off of my hard drive. He told me about this website that I could go to and buy an enclosure to put my hard drive in and then hook it up to a computer and everything will be ok.

6. I order a hard drive enclosure from this website after spending over an hour trying to figure out the right one to buy. The hard drive enclosure comes, and it's the wrong one. Fuuuucckkk.

7. The day that my hard drive came (wednesday), I was in school all day, from 7am to 8pm. All I kept hearing all day was how nice and sunny it was. I didn't go outside the entire time and so I wasn't able to appreciate the nice weather. I leave at 8 and not only is it pouring rain, not only did I leave my umbrella at home, but....the wind was out of control and it was blowing the rain in places that I didn't even know could get wet. I got on a bus, soaking wet, with other soaking wet people who smelled like total balls. Then I got off of the bus and started my 0.5 mile walk in wet jeans. By the time I got home, I had that oh so sexy inner thigh rash. Fast forward an hour later and I realized that I had ordered the wrong hard drive thingy.

8. Yesterday I had the absolute worst morning ever. To sum things up, Somayeh and I were screamed at like we were dogs from multiple people and nothing that we did was our fault. I had an exam yesterday and I had planned on studying for it all day. But because of the events that unfolded in the morning, I didn't have a chance to. The only great thing that's happened to me in a while happened yesterday when I was at the end of my ropes. I almost had a breakdown in school yesterday. My exam was at 5:30 and the power went off in Benedum at around 4:50. It didn't come on again until around 6:30 which was the perfect amount of time to turn my exam into a take home exam.

And the tides turn...........

I looked at the exam and I would have totally tanked it so the power outage had to be a sign from God that he still loves me and feels bad that life sucks for me on a regular basis.

Then as I was leaving the house to go to AJ's contemporary ensemble, the conductor and composer of the concert (who happens to live next door to me) walks out and offers me a ride. The show was great and I went out for a couple beers afterwards.

Yesterday was the best and worst day ever. It started out horrible and it ended great. Hopefully the tides are turning and next week will be better.

Also, manik just told me that Titanic was the most beautiful movie that he's ever seen and that made my day.

25

I've decided to jump on the bandwagon and do a 25 random things list. I've given this some serious thought because I feel like most people I know are already aware of my quirks and embarassing traits. So I tried to think of things that people don't know. This shouldn't be a surprise, but a lot of them are about bodily functions. Apparently it's all I think about.

1 One year for halloween, I dressed up like Drew Carey because I was obsessed with his show. I even convinced Korynn to dress up like mimi.

2 I blow my nose in the shower because I think the heat and moisture help clear me out -sorry meg :)

3 For years I tried to suppress my farts, and now that I don't care anymore, no sound ever comes out.

4 I love mushrooms!!!!!!!

5 I had a pair of black pleather pants in junior high and wore them frequently

6 I hate showering and unless I'm trying to look good (which is rare). I usually only shower 5-6 times a week.

7 I also hate shaving my legs. Maybe if I had darker hair it would be an issue. I probably go through 4 or 5 blades a year.

8 I'm really obsessive about being organized in all aspects of my life

9 I've been a smart ass since I learned to talk

10 I clench my butt cheeks to the tunes of songs.

11 When I was a kid, I thought that braces and glasses were so cool and I wanted to have both, but it turned out that I didn't need either.

12 I love babies and want a lot of them.

13 It bothers me that I don't care about meeting my birth parents.

14 I flew on a plane by myself at the age of 5

15 I really love to sing and I wish I was good at it.

16 When I walk down stairs and no one is around, I hold my boobs so they don't bounce. I like to think they won't get as saggy if I do that.

17 I can't wait to graduate and move back home and mooch off of my parents for a few years.

18 I have the coolest grandparents ever!!!

19 In the past couple of months I changed my diet and started eating really healthy and now it hurts every time I shit.

20 I want to start smoking weed more

21 Whenever I find a food that I like, I eat it over and over again until I get burned out. Like when i discovered pierogies, I ate them multiple times a week for an entire year and then didn't eat them again for months.

22 I need to get 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night.

23 I've never been more stressed in my entire life than I have been over the past couple of months

24 I have an entire closet full of pants that don't fit me and I can't bring myself to get rid of them incase I loose 10 pounds

25 I stole some gum from Kmart when I was 7 and my mom caught me and made me go back in the store and tell them what I did.

TRB Conference

I'm in washington d.c. right now laying in my bed at the Days Inn Connecticut Hotel. These beds are real comfy, i'm not sure why i'm still awake. I've been awake since 6am because I got up to take a leak and then I couldn't fall back asleep. bummer. So I left this afternoon at around 12:30 for d.c. and the weather was absolutely shitty. There was freezing rain, snow and regular rain for the entire trip. Everyone else in my car was sleeping so I was basically by myself navigating the treacherous roads. It was one of those trips where both of my hands were glued to the wheel the entire time and my eyes were bugging out of my head trying to see the road.

So we finally arrived and then we checked in to the conference and then we hopped on the metro and went to chinatown. I've been to d.c. 5 or 6 times and I've never been to chinatown before. I'm not sure if I saw the full extent of it or now, but if I did, then it wasn't very exciting. What I saw just consisted of a giant arch and a bunch of restaurants. After that we walked to the mall to see the washington monument and capitol at night. I've never seen it at night before so that was pretty cool.

Then we came back to the hotel. I stopped at the CVS first because I had to buy some new mousse. Let me rant about this for a little bit. So I usually use suave mousse or tresseme if it's on sale. Suave is one of the cheapest ones that you can buy and it works great on my hair. So I ran out last week and I went to the rite aid on murray to get some and they had this got2b stuff on sale buy one get one free. One bottle was $7 and so i thought, since its more expensive, it has to be better. So I bought 2 bottles of this shit and I absolutely hate it!! It makes my hair crunchy for the entire day and it looks like total shit. The suave mousse makes my hair crunchy when it's wet, but then it dries and the crunch goes away and I'm left with good curls. This got2b shit is the absolute worst. So it just goes to show you that just because something costs more doesn't mean it's better. So I am pledging my loyalty to suave mousse.

I'm absolutely exhausted so I think i'm going to pass out. But first, here is a picture of our nation's capitol.

Nothing says america like a giant penis in the sky

2009 already sucks

I only made it to day 7 of christmas break before I stopped blogging. I think this is because that is around the time when the white russians started being made 3x a day and family gatherings started to happen. This picture of my sisters and I sums it up quite nicely.


So the first day of 2009 consisted of me waking up on a couch in my basement with no pants or underwear on. I blacked out the night before, pissed the bed and woke up not knowing where I was. I spent half the day at sear's auto repair at the willow grove mall because the night before somayeh hit a curb and popped her two front tires. Fantastic. I felt like total ass the entire time. The rest of the day I spent on the couch watching shows about people who weigh over 1,000 pounds. Yikes. That night I got an email from my lovely advisor saying that the University is officially open on the 2nd and she wants to have a meeting. Really??!!?! I didn't reply or show up.

The past week has been total hell. I have 4 very real and very difficult classes this semester (as opposed to my 3 bullshit classes last semester) and I have more research and more responsibility. It's only week one and I already feel like I'm about 2 months deep into the semester. I had go to out today and get Matlab and MathCAD because I'm going to need it for my geotechnical analysis class. Later on today I'm going to a review session for Linear Algebra and Differential Equations because my finite element class requires me to relearn that crap. Well...I guess it's not crap, I'm just frustrated because all of the things that I learned freshman year, that I haven't used since then, are all coming back to bite me in the ass. I have 4 homework assignments due next week which presents my next issue.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for the Transportation Research Board Conference. It's in Washington D.C. and 10,000 people are expected to go. I'm really excited to go to the conference. It should be a lot of fun and it will be a great networking opportunity. All of my research group buddies are going and we're all sharing a hotel together. But the bad thing is that it's 5 days long!!!

1. when am I supposed to get my homework done?
2. the dress is business casual and I have absolutely zero clothes that fall into that category....fuuuuuuccccckkk!!
3. there is supposed to be a huge snow storm tomorrow right around the time that I am leaving to drive to washington

So to wrap things up, 2009 has already sucked balls and I don't see the end in sight. The good news is that my 2 new years resolutions have already made my life a little better. They are:

1. Stop eating out so much
2. limit drinking to once a week

Both of these resolutions will help with my monetary problems and fitting into clothes problem. I lost 3 pounds since I've been back in pittsburgh and I haven't wasted my money at a bar or chipotle!!

Christmas Break - Day 7

there is no blog for day 7 because it was lost due a series of drunken incidents, but here's a comic.


nataliedee.com

Christmas Break - Day 6

I left the house today!!!! I went to the mall with my mom and we almost got a picture with santa, but 1 5x7 was $15! Total rip-off! We went to 4 different stores trying to find some dark colored underwear for my dad so that the shit stains won't be noticeable when he has accidents. Other than that, the mall trip was pretty uneventful. I did some more work for school and then I got the lovely privilege of picking up Korynn from the train station! I was so excited to see her, I love my korynny!! Then she came over and we ate dinner, larry and samantha finally came home from school, we decorated the christmas tree. Within one hour of being home, larry managed to be a little bitch and throw a shit fit. He said that he was never bringing home jordan (the non-jew) because we're all assholes. While this may be true, I think that my family rocks so he can go fuck himself. Then Korynn finally got to meet A.J. through video chatting via gmail. Then Korynn went home because we're getting up real early tomorrow to go to rice's and go shopping.

The highlight of my day today (sorry korynn) was that my mom bought me all of the ingredients to make white russians! My favorite drink! So that's it for today. Here is a video snapshot of me and juliet to cap off the day.

Christmas Break - Day 5

Ah!! I forgot to blog last night. So here is what happened yesterday. I finished my work in record time (2 days). I thought it was going to take me an entire week to do. I continued with the trend of eating meals, showering, working out. I've develeoped quite a nice little routine. I find that when ever I have a routine that I stick to, time goes by so much faster. That's the plan because I want it to be Christmas!!!!!

Highlights of my day yesterday:

1. I ordered a lock for my laptop off of amazon

2. I recorded amazing videos on people's facebook walls. If you haven't gotten one yet, stay tuned. You could be next.

3. We baked 6" diameter snicker doodles.

4. I wore pajamas for the 5th day in a row

5. I watched the grinch!!!


nataliedee.com