Uncle's House

I spent the weekend at my uncle's house and did so much! I watched a movie with my two-year-old cousin Patrick, borrowed my cousin's bike to go biking, read Alice in Wonderland, and learned American Sign Language. Then I learned how to cook beef noodle soup from my grandmother and my cousin Cathy and I made a chocolate swirl cake for her father's birthday. What a day!

Now, to break it down.

Movie: Meh. Wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Amusing at some parts, but I suppose it's not my kind of kid's movie.
Biking: I have not ridden a bike in ten years and so I was worn out so easily! I swear, I was only biking for about ten minutes before I was huffing and puffing and trying to catch my breath. Goodness, I'm out of shape. On the other hand, I forgot how fun biking can be! It made me want to go out and buy a bike of my own. Of course, I don't have the money for it, but if I get to move to New York City and get a job, I'm definitely saving up for a bike!
Alice in Wonderland: I thought the book was okay, honestly. The book had some funny bits here and there and it read very much like an extended dream sequence. I did like the chapter where Alice goes to court for the trial of the strawberry tarts, however. That was amusing. "I'm just a poor man," the Mad Hatter said, dropping his hat again in his nervousness. "You are a very poor speaker," said the King. Hah! Classic.
Learning American Sign Language: This was so much fun! My cousin had checked out a sign language book from the library and so I started reading it. I taught myself the alphabet, how to count to twenty, common household pets, and the days of the week. I have yet to learn other terms. Maybe I could find the book in my own local library and keep learning since I was always fascinated by sign language.
Learning how to cook beef noodle soup: This wasn't that informative since it wasn't much different from how I saw other people cooking it. My grandmother boiled onions for a few hours, then she took all these spices and put them into some cheese cloth before she soaked them into the broth. Pretty basic stuff. Also, even though I had heard rave reviews of my grandmother's beef noodle soup, I thought the soup itself was just okay, about as good as restaurant fare, but definitely not the best beef noodle soup I've had.
Baking a cake: My cousin originally wanted to bake two different cakes, but she only had one giant cake pan so we ended up mixing butter yellow cake mix in with triple chocolate fudge cake mix. At one point, I accidentally poured the butter into the wrong cake batter and cursed in front of my ten-year-old cousin. Her eyes grew really wide, but she didn't say anything about it so I just let it go. After we combined the two cake mixes, I told her to take a fork and run it through the cake batter in circles to make chocolate swirl cake. She loved it! So did everyone else in the house apparently. I didn't eat any cake because of my Lenten sacrifice and so my uncle, ever the jocular one of the family, ate his cake slice right in front of me and kept saying, "Yum! This is so good! I'm going to have another slice!" Everyone had a good laugh. I just smiled. 

Full Moon

The moon was so beautiful the other night, fat and full and singing. I was walking from my night class to my car when I saw it. I was so taken by the sight of the full moon amidst the stars and clouds that I started to skip down the street and hum "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp. What a beautiful night. I wished that Matt and I were together then because it was the perfect night for a romantic stroll. *dreamy sigh*

Then I realized that my blog posts were often repetitive and said the same things over and over again--complaining about parents, doubts about grad school and the future, blurbs about cooking and/or baking food, dreams about an idealized life, and waxing poetic about nature. Maybe I can find something new to talk about soon. Let's find out.

Pi Day

I made an apple pie today completely unaware that it was Pi Day. After I made the pie, I even saw a few of my friends post about how it was pi day and they were geeking out about it. It wasn't until five o'clock when my roommate came home that she told me I had made a pie on Pi Day. "I didn't even think about that!" I told her. I've been planning to make this pie for almost a week now and I was too busy studying for a midterm to make it yesterday, but maybe it all worked out for the best. Now I have delicious apple pie to eat on Pi Day. Also thanks to my friend Chris, who mimicked the Rebecca Black song "Friday": "It's Pi Day! Pi Day! Everybody get down on Pi Day!" To Pi Day indeed.

Invented Cereal

Last night I was hungry, but I didn't want a full meal so I decided to munch on some granola I had in the pantry. Then I thought about trying it with milk. I had a roommate who often ate granola in a bowl milk, much like other people would eat cereal. So I took the last of my soy milk and poured it into a bowl of granola. Crunch, crunch, crunch, went my eating. It's good, I thought. But I wonder what would happen if I put my corn flakes into it too. It can't make it any worse. So I poured some corn flakes into it. Now I was really going, crunching through my granola which contrasted nicely with the bland taste of my bed of corn flakes. Kind of sweet, too, I thought as I noted that I had bought honey oat granola, thereby giving it a slightly sweet but not overpowering flavor. Hmmm, I could make a cereal out of this...Right on the heels of that thought was another thought: There already IS a cereal made from this--Honey Bunches of Oats, which just happened to be my favorite cereal. Somehow, some way, I had unwittingly bought all of the ingredients to make my favorite cereal and ended up combining all of them in concocting a home-made version of it. Aren't I original?

Ocean Run

I was talking to one of the people at my internship and he told me about something called an "ocean run". He said that when he attended his niece's wedding in the Caribbean, they had horses for people to go horseback riding. Now there were two kinds of horseback riding people could do at that time. One was a mountain run in which people rode horses through the mountains and the other was an ocean run where people rode the horses...OUT TO SEA. He said that all you had to do was climb onto the horse's back, grab its mane, and then ride along as it swam thirty feet out into the ocean. The thought both terrified and entranced me. Being hydrophobic and unable to swim, I had an intense fear of drowning and of deep water. On the other hand, the idea of riding a horse out to sea was one of the most thrilling things I could think of and frankly, I couldn't wait to try it. I would probably have a panic attack if I did try it, but the adventurous part of me was dying to get out there and do it anyway. I'll put that as a tentative item on my bucket list: Do an ocean run.

Insecure as an adult

Someone at internship last week asked me what I had learned so far. I told him that meeting with clients had surprised me because most of them were twice my age with all this wisdom and life experience...yet they still seemed insecure. He asked me what I meant by that, and I said that all these "adults" still had trouble with relationships just like I did. They still had trouble with self-esteem, with trust. They acted needy, clingy, codependent, insecure. I told him that I had always thought once someone became a "real" adult, they would outgrow all of that. He asked me how old I was, and when I told him my age, he gave me this strange look, like he was surprised I didn't consider myself an adult.

"I don't consider myself an adult," I told him. And it was true. I really didn't consider myself to be an adult yet. I mean, sure I was in grad school. I paid my bills, paid my taxes. I knew how to drive and shop and cook. I used money responsibly and I took care of myself. Yet I didn't feel like an adult. I felt like I was just in a preparatory phase of life, like I was waiting for life to begin instead of actually living it. I felt like an emerging adult.

I always imagined that I would be an adult the day I started my career, got my first paycheck, and was financially independent, especially from my parents. I suppose everyone's view of adulthood is different but I considered my complete financial dependence on others as a mark of, well, dependence. Not being able to make my own living or pay my own way meant that I had to rely on others and that was just another part of childhood.

What's more, I didn't think I acted very adult-like. I mean, I was becoming more responsible and assertive, but I still felt like I was very immature in some ways. I still had trouble saying no to people. I still had trouble voicing my opinions. I saw myself as meek and insecure and passive, not very adult-like at all. I always thought real adults had it together. I thought they shed that awkwardness of early youth and came into themselves. I suppose I had always thought of adults as confident, assured, self-actualized people. But a lot of them weren't like that at all. A lot of them were just as insecure (or more so) than I was most of the time. Many of them were still immature, others were still needy. It just astounded me that these "adults", people two or three times my age, still had to keep fighting themselves and working things out.

Maybe adults don't have it all together. Maybe they're just as lost as I am. And suddenly, when I had that thought, everyone around me looked more...human. Insecure and vulnerable. Lost and wandering. Confused and unsure. Maybe they had just as many questions and uncertainties, as many regrets and many "what-ifs". Sure, some of them were very mature and all of them definitely had more life experience, but I realized that it doesn't automatically translate to being secure. Maybe we are insecure all our lives without realizing we don't need to be.

"Twas more than I could take
Pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake
I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realize
That you don't even have to try any longer
Do what you want to..."
~"Put Your Records On" by Corrinne Bailey Rae