ZOH-TER-ROH

Hello! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a nice little break from school! This long weekend was indeed filled with good food, great people, and lots of reminders to be thankful for what I have. Yep!

So, let me see if I can remember what I actually did this week...joking! Okay, because it was a short week, there really weren't any "highlights" in my classes besides the fact that I TOTES ACED MY ECON MIDTERM #2 WHOOO!!!! *happy dance left and right with me guys* Sorry, I have to celebrate because you guys have no idea how much I've been struggling with myself and the content for the past several weeks. I did not do so well on Midterm #1, but this is definitely not only going to get me on track for the rest of the semester but it's also a great confidence booster! I finally did it so hah! Take that you Econ Deities! Seeing the score on my EconPortal account was really great because now I have proof to myself, after weeks of doubt and frustration, that I can really do this. Whew! I'm still nervous for the final exam the week after next but at least I know that it is not at all impossible to do well! 

In addition, Rebecca and I, I think, are going to start this new thing together where we go to The Curb on Tuesdays after work. Oh, The Curb. Thank you for providing us with reasons to be glad to be in school on this beautiful island. That's all I'm gonna say for now.

Moving on to Thanksgiving, this was the first year that my mom let Shayne, Josh, and I have free reign on the food. So the three of us planned the lunch menu which was fun but it was kind of hectic pre-meal. Our family eats non-traditional Thanksgiving lunches without turkey. If there is turkey, it's defs not the start of the meal. You're welcome, turkeys. (What? We're Filipinos, we don't really eat turkey...they used to walk around freely in my backyard and I used to be scared of them...). So I went grocery shopping with my dad on Wednesday afternoon/night to get everything that we needed. Because this Friday also just happened to be what would have been my grandmother's 89th birthday, we decided to celebrate her 40 Days, her birthday, and Thanksgiving all at once, together as a family with aunts and uncles and our one other cousin on the island. It was nice remembering her on the same day that we give thanks for the lives we lead now because none of us would be here without her. So, yes, good thoughts, good people. And don't forget the amazing (if I do say so myself) food! We didn't want to go with a specific cuisine so we just did everything. Shayne made baked penne with roasted vegetables, sweet fire chicken, and shrimp scampi with asparagus. Josh baked some yummy mushrooms au gratin and I made herb roasted potatoes and onions and jambalaya. Ok, not to brag or anything (which means that I am bragging right now) but that jambalaya was no-words delicious. Just saying haha! And then Shirley Temples all around. I think I'm getting into the whole mocktail (virgin cocktails) thing, for some reason. I don't really know why. But I'm definitely planning on doing one or two (or three??) of them for our family Christmas meals next month. Maybe margaritas. Or mojitos. Mai tais and lava flows anyone? So yes, food was great!

Black Friday was...Black Friday. Usually, I feel bad about spending money on clothes. If it's food, like when I go grocery shopping or when I eat out, I have no problem paying whatever it costs, however expensive it may be. But clothes? Come on, $95 for jeans? $80 for a top? $70 for shoes? Yeah, call me cheap or something, but it just doesn't make sense in my head to fork over that much money for a piece of clothing (but maybe it doesn't make sense either that I don't have a problem spending that much money on food...). BUT. I don't know what came over me. I spent way too much money on just clothes this Friday. For the record, however, Barnes and Noble was the first store that I hit so you can’t really say that I was a complete materialistic teenage girl on Friday. So no more splurges for me until the end of freshman year. I can spend, but no more splurges, Jen!

And then Saturday was Kendall Day! It was a good day because we kind of just took it as it came along and drove to places semi-spontaneously. Although we did have a hard time coming up with places and things to do. Anyway, I will let Kendall talk about that because I’m sure he’ll blog about his Home Adventures as a whole!

This weekend was fun and I hope that this week will be even more fun, especially because it’s the last stretch for NaNo. I’m really going to try for about 5,000 words per day in the next five days. Which is why I’m working on a paper that is due on Wednesday right now (I already finished the paper due on Tuesday) so that I can just focus on noveling the whole week. And Kendall’s close to actually finishing a full-fledged novel guys! So yes, wish us luck and send us some positive vibes por favs.

And that’s about it for now. I have to go back to my Zotero (which, I now believe, should be a staple in every student’s laptop because it makes research so much easier and it AUTOMATICALLY creates your citations and bibliography/works cited for you as you write your paper!) so that I can finish the first two pages of one of my final papers by tonight!

Bye guys! Until next time? Yep, we’ll be here, and you guys can always count on that.

Risks: 34 (Mmyeah, I think I'd count Kendall Day as a risk.)
Hugs: 0 
Current food obsessions/cravings: NO MORE FOOD
Playlists on Repeat: Split
Books Read Since Graduation: 6