21 Questions: THE 21 questions you should ask when playing this ridiculous game.

21 questions is a great game. It is THE way to get to know someone without being awkward; actually carrying a conversation with someone in order to learn about them might be harmful to your person. Back in the day, smalltalk and pleasantries were the fashion. You got to know other people as time went on. But today? Heck no! We don’t have time to let things happen on there own! We’re gonna force things! So to aid you in your quest in learning everything you would ever need to know about one person within an hour, I will provide you with THE 21 questions to ask when playing this fabulous but extremely immature game!

1. What are your top two favorite colors? (This is a great opening question. It’s an easy question to ask for both the asker and answerer. The asker will also seem more interested, paying attention to the number of favorite colors you may have. Nobody only has one…and if you do, you’re lame. Two is safe. Three would take too much time/ take away from the importance of the first two.)

2. What is your favorite food group? (Favorite food GROUPS say a lot about a person. For example: Breads=traditional, comfortable, wholesome. Meats=possibly aggressive, masculine, watches too much football. Fruits=sweet, can be a little tangy at times…and probably wears too much pink. Vegetables=a true intellectual, likes Starwars, and might get jaundice due to high carrot intake. You get the picture!)

3. Favorite basic academic subject? (English, Math, Science, Music/Performing Arts/Fine arts–e.g. all those crazy Drama kids…. Once again, says a lot about a person)

vs.

vs.

4. Favorite book. (If the person doesn’t have an answer for this one, bolt for the door.)

5. Top three favorite movies. (Now you can use three because we are in America and we watch entirely too much television. This one should be easy. If they have no favorite movies, check for their Green Card.)

Now it’s time to start getting into the NITTY-GRITTY!

6. What are you obsessive-compulsive about?

^^^ I know about 5 different people who can’t stand messy toothpaste bottles.

7. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Speeding doesn’t count…Unless…How fast WERE you going?

^^^ Is it just me or is that Bill Gates?

8. What is the ONE physical feature you would change about yourself. (If the person goes off on a tangent, naming 17 different things they would want to change, not a good sign; this person hates themselves. If they claim they are perfect the way they are, they’re either lying or overly confident.)

9. Speaking of Bill Gates, Mac or PC?

10. How do you get along with your parents? (e.g.- Are you bringing as much childhood baggage to the table as I am? Good.)

11. If you could have ONE supernatural power, what would it be? (Response- “Being invisible” = possibly a creeper.)

12. How do you eat Reese’s cups?

13. Do you prefer cats or dogs? (This is my mother’s question.)

14. What is the thread count in your sheets? (Ladies, if you are talking to a male love interest and he answers confidently, “One thousand, girl-friend!”, you may safely count him out of your list for possible husbands.)

15. (ok here comes the big one!) How many partners have you had? (#15 is a great time to ask this question because you have already become more comfortable with the other person but you still have 6 questions left to diffuse the tension.)

16. What was your most embarrassing moment? (This question is from a friend of mine whom I shall call James…Once again, a name from Cher’s blog.)

17. Black, blue, or brown?

18. What genre of music can you absolutely not stand AT ALL. (If it happens to be the askers favorite genre of music, not good.)

19. Sun or moon?

20. What is your favorite continent? (Europe=traditional, romantic. Asia=eclectic, complex, notices the difference between Japanese and Chinese people. South America=adventurous. Scandinavia= likes sweaters, snow, and saunas…..)

21. How do you like your steak prepared? (As long as the answer isn’t “Well,” you’re in the clear.)

Don’t kill your mother…Earth.

This past Tuesday was Earth day and I celebrated all week. So in light of my celebration drawing to a close, I would like to give a shout out to all my “readers” (aka, my roommates and family) that we should make a belated new year’s resolution to GO GREEN! The scientific evidence that our globe is undergoing drastic climate changes is no longer a debate; it is a FACT. Effects of carbon dioxide emissions into the environment are astounding. Ice cores extracted from glaciers in Antarctica reveal that carbon dioxide levels today are freakishly higher than they EVER have been in the past 650,000 years (yes, scientists can date this stuff). In three decades, we have lost two Greenlands worth of ice caps in the North Pole. Desertification is occurring closer to the equator due to higher temperatures that extract water from the atmosphere.

So, off my soap box, I would like to offer a few pointers to you all on how you can decrease your “carbon footprint” on our Mother Earth…because we love her!

1. Take cooler, shorter showers (ladies, this is better for your skin anyway!) Or shower with a friend!

2. Turn off lights as much as possible. Heck, burn candles, just be careful. It’s more romantic! ; )

3. Eat less red meat. (when cows fart, they release methane which is a greenhouse gas and America has A LOT of cattle. If we didn’t demand so much cattle, this would not be such a problem!)

4. Recycle and buy recycled products. Your recycling efforts are no good if you don’t support what comes back out the other end!

5. Buy local produce! Think of all the transport that goes into getting you strawberries in December! Eat local fruits and vegetables that are seasonal and BETTER FOR YOU!

6. Drive less and drive better. Avoiding 30 miles of driving every week would reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 10%! WHOA!

7. Follow the directions on your fertilizer. Using more is not going to make the grass grow! Trust the experts. There is nitrogen in that fertilizer and when it gets into waterways (which it definitely does) it causes algae to overgrow, blocking sunlight from other aquatic plants, causing them to die, which then takes up the oxygen in the water, killing fish!!! ::deep breath:: And nitrogen is a greenhouse gas that is 300x more effective at trapping heat in our Earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

None of this stuff is good for the environment in excess.

8. Beware of biofuels! You know that corn/ethanol method you keep hearing about? Not so much, folks! Think of all the corn we would have to grow! That means burning gas and clearing forests/natural habitats. Basically, we would be using a lot more energy than we would be saving. Just drive less and buy a fuel-efficient car!

9. VOTE for leaders who take steps to reduce carbon emissions.

10. Smile because you are helping the world become a better place for your kids! : )

“How long must I hold this pose, Signor Da Vinci?”

Have you ever wondered what those poor people in works of art are thinking about as they stood there getting immortalized by genius artists? Or perhaps what the artists were thinking about their subjects? I have. All the time. As an art history minor, I get many opportunities to ponder artwork, analyzing and studying different pieces. But sometimes analysis becomes mundane so to cure this, I think up what the subjects and artists are REALLY thinking, minus all the scholarly perspective.

So for today, I decided to share a few of my personal favorites and give you my take on what is REALLY happening.

Napoleon in His Study by Jacques-Louis David

“I farted.”

Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures by Angelica Kauffmann

(this is Cher’s interpretation) “Would you like to eat my children?”

The Suitor’s Visit by Gerard ter Borch II

“Is this guy for real? %&$# betrothal! I’m running away with Ricky Martin.”

Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

“Whew! These stains are going to be horrific in the wash!”

Portrait of a Youth by Boticelli

“West-side.”

(I stole this quote from Lafonda’s boy-friend whom I shall call Captain Scarlett, so named by Cher)

Et in Arcadia Ego by Nicolas Poussin

“Men. They will never ask for directions.”

At Pere Lathuille’s by Edouard Manet

“I promise, it’s not as small as it seems.”

Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci

::chuckle:: “You’ll never guess what I just thought of!”

And there you have it. The true story.

Life is happening to me. Oh no.

I got a call this morning from my future landlord. I have a future landlord. When the heck did all this happen? When did I grow up? When did I start worrying about things like renters insurance? Life is happening to me all at once at the end of this semester and I have a sneaky suspicion that it’s not going to stop happening after this point…ever. In fact, it’s going to get worse, I am certain.

For my entire life, I have always felt SO READY for the next step, in everything: in school, in relationships, in my personal responsibility, blah blah blah. But for some reason, at this point I feel like I am roped down to railroad tracks and a big black block of metal (mostly iron) is hurtling in my direction; I’m trapped.

^^^ “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

Here’s the scoop. The lease for my apartment which I will share with Lafonda and Cher begins in May…that’s in like, three weeks. I won’t even have a chance to move in because we all have exams and then I leave for China soon after that. I will be out of the country for three weeks and once I get home, I am picking up an art internship. Along with all this, I will be doing some insect research with a fellow student in my hometown. Come August, I will begin the process of moving myself into the apartment with Lafona and Cher. From that point on, that will be our permanent residence. I will most likely only go home for holidays and weekends and perhaps a month during the summer. But truly, for all intents and purposes, I will be MOVED OUT! On my own. Our friends are getting married, going to grad school, and being adults. What’s next? Flying elephants?!

This is freakin’ scary. I am trying to decide if I am ready but when it comes down to it, I really have no say. I must bend and adapt. No one ever said that growing up would be easy. But the good news about all this is that I get to branch out and live with my other family consisting of Lafonda and Cher. They are my sisters when we bicker, my best friends when we laugh, my mothers when I accomplish something/do something wrong, and…you get the picture. They’ve got me covered.

And besides, we’re painting the living room green!!!

Torrential rain, corsets, and skyscrapers: The perfect formula for every metal music video.

Here lately, I have gotten into another metal kick. I randomly found this song, via iPod shuffle, that I had no idea I owned. It is EXTREMELY epic (aka, AMAZING)! The song is “Our Solemn Hour” by Within Temptation and the situation was actually kinda funny. I was on my way to the gym, plugged in as usual and suddenly this jam comes on, opening with this Latin chant, “Sanctus Espiritus…”. Right before this song came on, the sun was out and shining, the sky adorned with little cotton clouds. Suddenly, as if directed by God himself, this huge gust of wind came whirling down, black clouds rolled in as I walked alone, and my hair went topsy-turvy everywhere along with various bits of debris that spun around my feet as this song commenced.

Basically, I was a superhero for seventeen seconds.

Unfortunately, the sun came back out and I came back down to Earth. But this occurrence was the catalyst that drove me to watch all these YouTube metal videos by Within Temptation. I was disappointed to find that there are no official videos for “Our Solemn Hour” but I found some others that were pretty cool…if you like consistency in your music videos.

I have discovered the “Rosetta Stone” for creating the ultimate metal music video. There are three key elements, as my title suggests: lots of rain, women in corsets, and having the entire band rock out on the rooftop of a skyscraper. Look at all the examples!

1) March of Mephisto by Kamelot

2) Bring me to Life by Evanescence

3) Stand My Ground by Within Temptation

^^Sorry about the bad video photos…it’s all I could find on Google Images. But see what I mean!

You all can fill in the blanks. I am sure there a tons more who follow this code of metal videos. Keep me updated on your findings. I have a feeling that keeping a log of this stuff might come in handy someday.

I hope I wasn’t singing poorly when caught by random strangers.

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you were alone and you started humming or singing to yourself and then someone caught you? This happens to me all the time because I am one of those obnoxious people who can’t stop humming. It’s like a reflex! Every time I hear a song I know I have to chime in and it’s truly excruciating when I can’t. When I hear other people humming, it can drive me crazy (unless it’s good humming) so I imagine that people aren’t too fond of my serenade.

Shower singing is nice, even when you are the listener. In our apartment, we have this whole bathroom region where there is a counter with two sinks, the shower room, and then the toilet room. It’s all a bit separate. So, sometimes I will be standing at the counter brushing my teeth or powdering my cheeks and then I’ll hear Cher pipe up from the shower room. This is a situation where hearing someone singing randomly can be very soothing. The worst singer in the world could be singing but it would still seem lovely. (Cher, you are a wonderful singer!)

Also, I study a lot with another one of my roommates whom I will refer to as Lafonda (because that is what Cher named this particular roommate on her own blog–> theboredpoetess@wordpress.com). It’s best we keep things consistent for those of you who keep up with the two of us as a pair. So I study with Lafonda a lot; we have complimentary majors and minors. We will both put on our matching headphones (cheesy, and we love it) and hum together. Eventually, we cast aside the shackles of our work and get up for a private dance party. Luckily, we’ve only been caught dancing once by another roommate, Ms. Daisy (another nickname from Cher’s blog). Words cannot describe the look on her face. Ms. Daisy is very calm, cool, and collected so I think seeing me and Lafonda dancing on the sofa at 1:00 a.m. with our headphones on kinda startled her. She opened the door to the living room and Lafonda and I froze like a squirrels being caught in their nut-burial grounds. “S**t!” It didn’t help that there was no background music.

The worst is when you’re walking around outside and you don’t think anyone is around and you totally belt one out…then some guy who could be likened to Hercules rides by on his skateboard. Those are fun. Or when I hang out at the top of the stairwell in one of our academic buildings before my art history class, carrying a light tune, and because my headphones are on, I don’t hear the approaching onslaught of students coming up the stairs…until I see them in front of me. Nice.

^^ Don’t you ever feel the urge to break out into song randomly? Or is that just me?

To close, I will tell a story of the time I actually caught someone red-voice-boxed! In the middle of my organic chemistry lab one evening, I went to take a bathroom break. Upon leaving the restroom, I hear a male voice coming from inside the Men’s restroom. I knew immediately who it was. One of my classmates who lived on my freshman hall was “practicing for an A Capella tryout” that he apparently had later that night. I was presented this reason when I told him back at the lab that I enjoyed his performance from the hall. His mouth dropped. “You heard me?” Haha! Blackmail! Word of advice: don’t sing in the Science Building bathrooms; the tile amplifies your voice.

Please, don’t let my urinating interrupt your phone call.

There is one thing that I have never understood: Why do people make phone calls in public restrooms? Seriously, why the heck? Not that I truly care. I am not easily put off by bodily functions, seeing as I am a scientist, or at least in the process of becoming one. Basically, bodily functions, dirt, and germs don’t frighten me in the least. But when it comes to this conversing in public restrooms thing, it just seems downright odd. The person actually making the phone call is not odd; it’s the idea of someone “x” amount of miles away is probably listening to me pee.

^^ “She wants me to stop talking on my cell phone in the bathroom? As if!”

So here is this person that I have never seen, met, much less spoken too, hearing me urinate via cell phone satellite signal. Odd, right? I will probably never encounter this person on the other end of the line (not like I would know it if I did) so I am not embarrassed. But still! And the person in the bathroom on the phone, stands nonchalantly in front of the paper towel dispenser like it’s “no big,” discussing groceries and her annoying cousin twice removed. “The shoes had glitter on the heels too..!”

Don’t be mistaken readers! I have committed this offense more than once but it was usually in high school when cell phones were not allowed in the classrooms and I had to reach my dearest mother for some reason. But next time you sit down to pee and someone is on the phone, or you are the one making the call in the restroom, chuckle to yourself at the fact that you are sharing a very strange, intimate moment with another person who is not even in the same room as you…

I don’t know what to wear…

Usually I am pretty decisive when it comes to dressing myself. I go to bed the night before thinking, “Hmm, I really want to wear that t-shirt tomorrow,” and with this thought, I am equipped to select my wardrobe in a timely fashion the next day (get it? fashion? Ha!). But sometimes I am not so lucky. Some days, I stare at my closet in complete loss and confusion. Guys don’t really understand this and as a female who does not consider herself “girly,” I am ashamed to admit this to myself. Perhaps this blog entry will help me come to terms with that fact that I do have some feminine tendencies, which, I suppose is a good thing since I am a female. So I stand there staring and even though I have enough clothing to dress an army of dwarves (I am REALLY short), I have no clue what I feel like wearing. I have discussed this with my mother and she formulated a background reason for why I do this. See, my mother was raised in the heart of Georgia, e.g. she’s a Southern Belle, as am I. As little Southern girls, we were taught not to wear your nice clothes on an ordinary day because you will mess them up somehow. You never know when you’re going to have to run through the corn fields from all those farm boys, right? Apparently my grandmother instilled this idea into my mothers mind and then she did it to me. “Don’t wear that! Save that for the weekend!” Alas, the weekend comes and you don’t wear it then because you want to save it for Monday.

^^ She knows EXACTLY what she wants to wear. I am envious.

So we continuously “save” our clothes and wear the same damn things over and over again until they have holes in them, jeans and shirts alike. Because of this, our nice things that actually look good on us never get worn. My mother told me about a pair of white shoes she had as a girl that never got worn for this reason. “You’ll mess them up!” By the time she was allowed to wear those shoes, she had grown out of them.

I faced this dilemma today. I worked for the Admissions office this morning and had on my uniform so before my afternoon lab, I needed to change. Presently, the weather is absolutely beautiful. It’s warm and sunny outside (why am I inside?) and I thought, “I should wear my sun dress.” But then I stopped myself, “Save that for a better day…” Long story short, I said screw it and put on the dress because you know what?! It looks good on me, it makes me feel good, and what better day to feel great than today?

So, ladies, carpe diem and wear whatever the heck you FEEL like wearing! I told my roommate this (who I will go ahead and nickname Cher, short for Scheherazade) and her first response was, “I want to wear nothing…” to which I quickly responded, “Cher, you have to be wearing something.” For all you guys who actually just read this whole entry about clothing, rest assured that I have a more masculine side. Next time I will write about jock itch and beer.

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