I'm back, baby

Just an update to let everybody know that I'm alive, things are going great and I'll be posting more soon!

In which Captain Crunch gets me drunk and I finally get my visa

Earlier I talked about my dad's pizza, right?  Well these past two weekends I've gotten the chance to sell them at the Auburn Farmer's Market.  That was a total blast!  The only thing I don't like is how early we had to get up and get to Auburn.  The market starts at 8 but it takes about an hour and a half to get dad's oven up to temperature and you can't really drive with a fire.  So we set out before dawn.

The person taking the picture is high on Monster and not awake otherwise

The first week was fantastic.  The weather was great, we completely sold out of pizza, the market people were friendly, I got a smoothie from the local coffee shop and I got to hang out with my brother.

 

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Tucker is a music geek and a hipster.  He tries to deny the hipster part, but then he dons these horn rimmed sunglasses, pours into skinny jeans and talks about how he already knows about all the music I like.  But he's a great kid and I definitely miss having him around.  I love all my siblings but I feel like I can geek out with Tuck a bit more.

The second weekend of pizza it was just me, dad and my stepmom, Mel.  The market wasn't as busy, but it was still cool for the three of us to hang out.  Mel and I spent a lot of time sitting behind the stand in the sun, she read a magazine and I feasted on these ABSOLUTELY AMAZING strawberries.  Like.... I can't even describe them but these were the best strawberries I have ever tasted in the history of ever.

After pizza was done, the parents decided to take my on my first wine-tasting!  They're members of a wine club at C.G. Di Arie.  The man who runs C. G. Di Arie, Chaim, is a food scientist and a pretty famous one!  Apparently he invented Cap'n Crunch, Power Bars, wine coolers and Hidden Valley ranch dressing.  The coolest part?  When we walked into the building, Chaim's wife (an energetic, wonderful woman by the name Elisheva) greeted my parents by name and

 

This is a terrible picture, but here's part of the winery

Now he makes wine, and BOY does he know how to do it!  I tried 11 wines and I loved every single one, which is odd because I'm not a wine drinker.  I was feeling a little tipsy by the time we left (not drunk by any means but let's say that I'm glad I didn't have to drive) but there was more to come!  We went to a small liquor store and had a wine tasting there with another one of their friends and that was it for me.  So now I've been drunk with all of my parents.  Awesome!

That night they put in a terrible movie (I think it was Renee Zellwiger and Paul Rudd but I can't remember what it was) and I just collapsed into bed.

Monday we went to San Fransisco to get my Visa.  The office opened at 9, so we set out incredibly early (dammit!) to get there on time.  We figured it was better to get there at nine and turn the paperwork in by 9.15, giving us five hours to kill, than to show up late and end up standing in a long line and not making it.

Well, we almost didn't make it.  Because of traffic we weren't able to get to the Consulate until 9.30.  By that time there was a line out the door and down the block.  Once we got through that line, we had to pull a number and wait for it to call.  We didn't get out of there until about 11.30.  The office closes again at noon, so it was a bit of a close call.

We wandered around, visited a book store, ate lunch at Max's Opera Cafe and bummed the city until 1.  Then we got back in line, picked up the visa and rushed back out onto open road, hoping to get there before traffic hit.

Let me tell you something about California traffic- it's a completely different animal than Minnesota traffic.  It took us an hour to get a little over 15 miles.  There's a toll before the bridge and it seems like nobody knows how to pick the right lane and stay there.  We had trucks weaving in front of us, people trying to merge into lanes when nobody's going over 5mph, some jerk honking like that's going to help anything... it's crazy. 

However we got the visa and I'm all ready to leave on Thursday.  Day after tomorrow, baby!  This'll be my last stateside transmission, stay tuned for when I turn into a real-live expat!

Woo hoo!

In which I almost hug Marvel and realize that I'm damn poor

So the weather here in California has taken a turn for the worse.  We've gotten rain, hail, wind and it's actually been COLD!  The difference between 30 below in Minnesota and 40 above in California is that absolutely nobody is prepared in California.  It drops to 40 degrees and nobody has winter clothes, the houses don't insulate against cold quite as well, the beach is a completely miserable experience and people generally freak out.  Up near the mountains they got an inch of snow and you should have SEEN the chaos and trauma it caused.  They actually shut down the roads and apparently forbid everybody from driving over the mountains except for people with chains on their car.  Chains which they sold for $40 a tire right next to the stop point.  (clever girl...)

Pictured: The weather. Ruining pool parties like always.

Since our weekend up here was completely ruined, we decided to migrate south for my sister's birthday.  She and my brother are going to college in Irvine so visiting them is like a real-live vacation!    Maybe down in LA we'd find a beach and some sun to lie in.  We packed the car and embarked on the 6 hour trip from one end of the valley to the other.

And there I learned that it's the most BORING trip in the world.  Seriously, there is nothing to look at.  The most interesting part of the trip was, "Look, there's the canal in Stockton.  They pulled, like, a hundred cars out there and they're not done yet."  Oh, there was also, "That place sells pea soup.  Don't eat it."

Granted the landscape is beautiful.  If I felt like putting on a flowy cotton dress and a sunhat, I could run around those hills all day and be pleased as punch.  But 6 hours of rolling green hills and grape crops gets damn old damn fast.

 Boooooooriiiiiiiiing

Finally we get down to the Grapevine, which is the mountain pass leading to LA.  It's the only way to get to LA from the north unless you take the famous, winding road that goes along the ocean, which I have affectionately named 'The Vomit Express'.  It makes you as dizzy and nervous as a rollercoaster, except in your heart you know that wearing the seatbelt is only going to ensure that you go down with the ship. 

So through the Grapevine we went.  And about 500 yards into it we saw someone who just couldn't handle it.  Their car had exploded.  There weren't any other cars around that they could have hit, there wasn't a guard rail to hit and somehow make your gas tank spark and yet somehow they managed to find a way.

If I wasn't so worried for their safety, I would have to applaud their ingenuity.

And then it started to snow.

I know what you're thinking.  "So close to Los Angeles?  Certainly you jest, there Can't BE snow there!"  Well I'm not jesting and I take offense that you think I am.  The blizzard that we hit coming over the mountains was SO BAD that we could hardly see the cars in front of us.  

Proof.  Because even I have a hard time believing it.

I missed seeing Disneyland right off the highway, I missed the LA skyline, I didn't see hide nor hair of the ocean... it was terrible.  My dad, the seasoned Minnesotan, got us south of LA safely and we hunkered down in the hotel.  Which was warm.  And quiet until night #2 when the 20 or 30 teenagers in the room next to us started to have a drunken techno rave.  I stepped into the hallway to tell them to STFU (at about 1 in the morning), it smelled like SOOOO MUCH POT that I just turned around and went back in my room.  Crazy kids.

The day after we arrived, the sky decided to sweep the whole rain and snow incident under the rug and pretend like it never happened.  The weather was beautiful, the birds were singing and the day was ripe for a trip to Manhattan Beach.

Ahhhhh... finally

It was such a fun day, we just walked around and hung out as a family.  We were hoping to meet my stepmom's uncle for dinner, ended up meeting a friend of theirs from college and ate dinner across the street from this beauty.

Let's just say that as long as it was in view, I didn't pay attention to conversation

I had no idea that Marvel even HAD headquarters, but the family wasn't willing to let me pop in and start hugging people so I just had to speculate from afar what wondrous deeds went on inside.  I bet they all dress up like superheroes every day and discuss how to kill Iron Man.  My dream job.

The trip ended and we headed back to the land of real life.  The weather is much better up here, but then I get a notice from my bank account that since somehow the last dvd I rented from Netflix wasn't returned, they charged me for it and one more month of service.  So my bank account is in the negatives right now and isn't that special?  Ah well... hopefully next week I'll be getting the check from BSU that I've been waiting on since October.  Until then, I've turned my phone on silent and decided to actively ignore all calls from Wells Fargo.  Look at me, dodging bill collectors like a real adult!

Say, if you've read this far then leave a comment!  I'm always curious if my blog is worth reading or not.  Comments or criticisms are always welcome.

In which I REALLY get my diploma

It's been a tough week, I gotta say.  I've been calling the records office every other day since about a week before I got on the plane, just to be sure my plans are going through and I'm graduated.  Well, I called again on Monday last week to see how long until my diploma gets here and they tell me, "Diploma?  You've got six credits to finish!"  Naturally I poop my pants.

Long story short, everything got figured out.  There was a math error, and one of my classes was able to count for missing credits and both my adviser and the records office were AMAZING help.  I should get my diploma tomorrow, it's being overnighted out here to sunny CA and I'm all sorts of excited to see it!  And then send it to my boss in China and be like, "SEE?  I'M A GOOD PERSON"

I finally figured out how to get videos up here (PROtip: it's not hard) and here's a gem from back in MN.  It's two nights before I left, down at the BEST place to chillax in bemidji- Brigid's Cross Irish Pub.  I asked the bartender that everybody has a friendcrush on to make me a drink that would commemorate my adventure to China.  He poured me three glasses of PBR and told me it was tradition in Shenyang (turns out he went there!) to say 'gongbei' and chug the hell out of them.  Like a champ, I did.

Video is unable to upload for some

reason... I'll try to figure out how to

fix it.  :)
 

Making my parents proud, right there

After that I was QUITE smashed because I'd spent the previous 5 hours making friends with Whiskey 7's and the karaoke mic.  It was the best send-off a girl could ask for.

Here in California my dad's got a pretty awesome job.  Well, normally he manages a bunch of Rebox kiosks and employees.  But his AWESOME job is wood-fired pizza catering.  He's got two wood-fired ovens, one that he built from scratch in the backyard and one that he ordered on a trailer so he can take his food from place to place.

 

There are a few other people in the area who also do pizza like this, and it's probably the most delicious thing in the world.  Seriously, I could eat pizza every damn day and NEVER get sick of it.  Best part is that you can have completely new, weird pizzas that you'd never find at Papa John's.  My favorite is alfredo sauce instead of red sauce, gorgonzola cheese, thinly sliced potatoes and chicken if there's room.  Muy delicioso.

Last Saturday we went antiquing in Sacramento.  (Don't worry, this ties in.)  There's this really cool spot under a highway where people just show up and peddle their expensive looking wares.  It looks a lot like a really classy hobo village.

They had all kinds of weird stuff!  I spent the day looking through the jewelry and comic books (found someone who had the first 5 issues of Xmen.. awesome...) but if I was still in the steampunk mood, I would have hit a TREASURE TROVE.  Pocketwatches, gears, springs, old cloxks just begging to be taken apart and glued onto tank goggles... it was wonderful.

Anyways, one of the food vendors there was a guy that my dad knows- also in the pizza catering business.  We got some delicious pizza and chit chatted with this super-hot (and super-pretty) oven just feet away.  I ordered a gorgonzola and carmelized onion pizza, which only took about 90 seconds to cook (that's how hot the oven was) and I ended up with this beauty.

It was delicious.

In which I've travelled 2000 miles and earned my degree

Firstly I want to thank Jeremiah back in Bemidji for taking the initiative to talk to the President of the university.  It seems that theatre might not be dead and contrary to popular belief, the guy is willing to find solutions.  Fingers crossed that it ends up doing well.

Then some news... I'm in California!  Flew in last Saturday and MAN I LOVE IT.  The weather is warm- 75 degrees.  I took a walk today to the local grocery store and I didn't need a sweater!  Wore one anyways because I don't like putting things in my pants pockets and my purse is small and unfashionable BUT I DIDN'T NEED THE HOODIE FOR WEATHER'S SAKE.  Just pocket's sake.

My dad runs this sweet pizza business out of his home, catering wood-fired pizza.  It's not called wood-fired just to sound cool, this guy has two brick ovens (one he made by hand) where he'll build a fire and slide some pizza in right next to it.  Takes about 20-30 seconds to cook and out comes the most delicious thing the world's tasted.  I'm not saying this just because he's my dad, but this guy is the best cook that I've ever met and I've been craving some of this pizza hardcore since I last saw him two summers ago.  In short: I really want him to either get a job catering for someone or have a pizza night here because it's delicious and I'm definitely going to miss his cooking.

Since there isn't much to do around here, I decided to have a responsible morning and called the school to keep tabs on my grad plans.  It still freaks me out that I haven't gotten the diploma yet, but the lady at the records office assured me that my plans were all processed and as far as she could tell from looking at my stuff, I was graduated and my diploma should be coming to me soon.  Rock on!  I'm going to freak when I get my diploma.  Maybe staple it to a shirt and run around town whooping in joy.  (I'm just really happy that I don't have to take another class again ever.)

I also hoofed it to the bank to see if I could use Wells Fargo in China, but apparently they're not international so I'll have to figure something out.  Oh well, least of my worries.  :P

So yeah, that's the update I have so far.

Things packed: Suitcase Status: Beat to hell.  Got it from the airport with a rip and stains on the front, a wheel bent in, my nail polish taken OUT of my makeup bag and smashed (good luck getting that out of my clothes) and missing my Zune charger, DS charger and some expensive lotion.  I'm not one to point fingers at the TSA.... but the TSA can go screw themselves.

In which I eat chicken nuggets and lament the chaos at my school.

Six followers?  Hot diggity, I must be the most popular person in the 'verse!  It's kind of exciting to think that there are at least six people in the world who are going to read this, no matter what I put in it.  It's just like having friends!

Soooo update on life... BSU cut Theatre and Art History, and Visual Arts are soon on their way out from the way people talk.  So yesterday we staged a protest in front of the administration building, complete with signs, chants and honking horns.  We're so special!  It was a great start, but now we need to get everybody who protested and supported us to write letters to the legislature, maybe even carpool down to the capital to let those government people know that the students demand education!

So a HUGE thanks to everybody who participate!  I feel really bad that I won't be able to help out any more, but I'm confident that they'll ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH just fine.

Another thing BSU has done to seriously screw up?  They forgot about my grad plans.  I went over a couple days ago to see if I was graduated, since I never heard anything back from them after handing in those plans, and turns out that they've been sitting on some dude's desk for the past couple months, paperwork piled up and he just hasn't gotten to them.

So I went to talk to him and impress him with the gravity of the situation (Big words, look at me!) and he told me they would get done this week.  Then asked my name, probably so he could do them first and make it look like he was working hard or I don't know.  But he was nice about it, so I had a hard time being frustrated to his face and it wasn't until I got home that I realized that I should tell him that I HAVE A JOB THAT REQUIRES ME TO HAVE THAT DIPLOMA RIGHT NOOOOW.

I'm just worried that they're going to process my plans and tell me, "Oh hey, you need 100 more credits in liberal arts" or "Sorry, but that thing you did doesn't count as a senior project SORRY TRY AGAIN AND DON'T PASS GO".  It's just me being paranoid but until I'm holding that impersonal piece of paper with my name and BSU's phone number on it, I'm going to worry that I'm not graduated at all and everything is a lie.

Things packed: absolutely everything.  Well, almost.  I have all my clothes (except the ones that need washing) and all my shoes (which is only 25% of the shoes I had two weeks ago.... this is a hard process that requires heartbreaking sacrifice) and I've told myself that anything not in the suitcase or storage box by the end of tomorrow is getting thrown away.

In which I'm thrown at an airplane

Second update, good for me!  I don't have too much information yet on the China front... I'm waiting for some papers from them so I can finish applying for a Visa.  The thing that sucks about all this bureaucratic nonsense is that I need the papers to apply for a visa, need the visa to get the plane ticket and need to get the plane ticket before it's insanely expensive.

On the other hand.... EEEEEEEEEE I'm going to China!  (Grandma's a little on my case that I'm not more excited)

My dad wants me to come out and live with him for the remainder of my stay in the US, and it's totally a good idea.  Living in the same state as the consulate I need to visit, living there for FREE (if we can/are allowed to find a subleaser) and also getting to have my dad's cooking for the last time.  Seriously, you've never had Italian pizza as good as this Norwegian guy's.

The problem is that I'll be leaving for California within the week.  I'm not entirely sure of the date, but I'll find out tomorrow and I know it's really soon.  "Don't buy any green bananas" he tells me.  Little does he know that I LOVE green bananas and bought one to eat just to spite that advice.  It was delicious, even if it made me incredibly thirsty.

WOW, tangents.  Anyways, I'm planning a going away party at the American Legion in town.  They do karaoke on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so I'm going to sing it up with my friends and hopefully drink myself blind.  Probably not drink myself blind.  Sing myself blind?

Currently I'm browsing different teaching websites to try and glean some ideas.  I've got some great ones and am kind of excited about implementing them.  I'm going to be trying to get the creative juices flowing, writing assignments, this cool comic book idea thingy that I don't feel like explaining...it'll rock.  I'll be the MOST AWESOME SUPERFANTASTIC TEACHER EVER!

Items packed: Nothing now, except some sand that I found at the bottom of the suitcase and have a hard time shaking out.

Items donated/tossed: All of my cosplaying outfits and about 5 trash bags full of clothes.  Life is full of difficult decisions and the one I made takes me away from Assassin's Creed II Booberella.