November happened, and some other stuff

- I originally started writing this post like two weeks ago. It was a Friday night, mere seconds after I'd finished NaNoWriMo, which was supposed to be this really great moment and I had all these plans as to how I was going to celebrate (i.e. I bought a box of brownie mix) (like, quality brownie mix. Ghiradelli double chocolate brownie mix)..  aaaaand I got about 15 words with my Caps Lock on into this blog post before falling asleep on my sofa at 8 pm. #woooo #lastfridaynight

SO, I slept a solid 13 hours and woke up on Saturday not feeling lame at all. Maybe I felt a little bit lame, but to be honest witchu, a good night's sleep is what I've spent the last 4 years fantasizing about throughout college.

I'd wanted to write about Nanowrimo, but that train lost steam a loooong time ago. Suffice it to say, Nano'12 was a trillion times better than Nano'11, probably because I went into it this year with something vaguely sort of similar to a plot. Having something like a plot made this year's writing a lot more fun and significantly less terrible, but the terrible started to show towards the end of the month. That much is evident in this screenshot:

the not-so-glamorous writing process

Needless to say, I took a much-needed break after this really painful paragraph. It feels pretty to good to be done with the whole thing, mainly so I can spend all of my free time playing Song Pop again.

- Speaking of "literally".. I recently saw this tragic/hilarious Presidential Barbie at Toys R Us.

Barbie 2012 stands on her own. (literally)

I saw this and wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Just kidding, the only thing I could possibly do was laugh. A lot.

- Another hilarious thing I saw:

Annakeira Knightlenina.. how Uptown Theatre says "'Anna Karenina', starring Keira Knightley."

- I took this picture during my first night back in Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, it was like a sign from the gods of the Midwest. "Welcome home Paulina. Have some awkward wordplay." 

Anna Karenina was a book that I really, really wanted to like. And I did like it, but it was sort of like reading The Jungle in American Studies (the real ending happens about a hundred pages before the author keeps going on about idealistic social theories). It took me like four years to actually finish it because I kept starting and stopping, but once I got to the end (IN NOVEMBER! This month was full of defining moments for me), I could safely say that I like it enough to endure 2 hours of Keira Knightley. Side note: Jude Law plays Karenin in the movie, soooo maybe he's the real reason I want to watch it on the big screen. All I want for Christmas is to live-tweet this movie, and for Jude Law to retweet everything I write. 

- I am physically incapable of talking about Keira Knightley without mentioning "Love Actually," the movie that I watch by myself every December in a locked room so that no one can hear me crying the entire time. Is this movie the worst kind of emotional pornography known to mankind? Yes. Is that going to stop me from continuing the tradition this weekend? No.

- MY BROOKHAVEN MATH FINAL WAS CANCELLED! BOOYAH! ChRiStMaS mIrAcLe! I didn't even know something like that could happen. Take note, Carleton College. 

After celebrating the fact that I never have to divide anything in different bases again, I started thinking about what finals time was like in Carleton, and most of what I could remember was:

1. not sleeping

2. not showering

3. eating Basil's pizza for a week

4. hating everyone in the library for getting up earlier than I had to find a decent desk

In conclusion..  Oppa Brookhaven Style!

- I recently found out that my phone hasn't been sending all of the texts I write, so that's inconvenient. 

- Daniel freaking Handler was on NPR the other day while Ernesto was in the car and I wasn't even there to geek out about it auuuuuuugh. Talk about pearls before swine.. he didn't even read TSOUE. Fun fact: Jude Law plays Lemony Snicket in the weird movie version of TSOUE. That and GATTACA should be enough to justify how much I like this guy.

- I really don't have that much more to say on here. I just spent an hour in the kitchen deciding whether or not I wanted to bake cookies for some staff dessert potluck tomorrow. I looked up how to tell whether baking soda is still good or not and I tested mine (no worries, our baking soda is working fine).. so yeah. That's how much I value my time. Obviously, it was all for naught because I'm sitting on my bed writing on here instead of licking cookie dough off my spoon. One day, I'll learn to make good choices. 

Deep Fried Democracy

As I'm writing this post, the people of this nation are on the verge of receiving the results of the most important election they've witnessed to date. Folks around the entire country are nervously biting their fingers, furiously posting pseudo-political Facebook posts and constantly refreshing their internet browsers to see this year's winner.

I say to these people: Wait no more! Clip those fingernails! Log off all of your social networking sites! Get ready to be showered with the rewards of freedom!

I'm pleased to present you the results of the Texas State Fair Fried Food Election.

But first, let me remind you of this year's candidates*:

Deep Fried Picnic-on-a-Stick (P) : A safe, well-rounded contender that presents itself as a shish-kebab of chicken, tater tots and pickles dipped in batter and fried to perfection, this candidate promised to please a variety of taste buds.

Deep Fried Tres Leches Cake (T) :  Perhaps the only candidate that bothered appealing to Hispanic voters, the fried tres leches cake offered a totally new perspective on the tradition of fair foods.

Fried Bacon Cinnamon Roll (B) : This progressive, unrelenting candidate wasn't afraid to boldly blur the boundaries between sweet and savory.

Deep Fried Jambalaya (J) : Proudly hailing from the South, this candidate's flavorful reputation preceeds it; some voters might have been turned off by its strong Cajun background, but many more seemed willing to give it a fair chance.

* A fifth candidate, Fried Cactus Bites, unexpectedly dropped out of the race due to my deciding I wouldn't actually want to spend money on it.

Aaaaaaand, the moment you've been waiting for: whowunnit?!

There you have it, folks! It was pretty contested during some of the different voting methods (lookin atchu, Bored-a Count), but I think we can all agree that there was a clear winner, and that winner was DEEP FRIED JAMBALAYA!

On behalf of myself and my future diabetes, I'd like to thank everyone who exercised their right to make my food-related decisions for me. Pictures of the election results in action to come soon.

Aaaaand Minnesota just got called for Obama, so I'm gonna go celebrate the success of my absentee vote! BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING, AMURRICA!

Four Things

Hey blogging world.

1. IT'S HALLOWEEN, and I'm really excited because (brace yourself for a letdown) this will finally be the year I watch 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. TNBC is pretty high up there on my list of things I awkwardly pretend I've seen, so this is going to be a life-changer.

Things I pretend I've Seen:
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- the last episode of LOST
- The Little Rascals
- The Goonies
- The Brave Little Toaster
- Rocko's Modern Life

 Growing up, my mom had a thing against anything that had to do with Tim Burton (why mami? whyyyy?) so all of my contributions to most of the The Nightmare Before Christmas-related conversations (there were more of them than you'd expect. There were enough of them to make me feel like a big fat weirdo for being the only kid in my class who hadn't seen the movie) were based on the 30 second movie previews that came before the feature film on my Thumbelina VHS. Mostly, the conversations went like this:

Friends: Blah blah blah.. like that one part in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'! Have you seen that movie?

Me: (stammers) (sweats a lot) Uh, y-yeah! Haha! Duh. Ha. Who hasn't? Haha. What a great movie. Ha. That guy's white pumpkin head is so cool!

Friends: You mean Jack? He's not a pumpkin. He's a skeleton.

Me: (stammers more) (on the verge of tears) What? Haha. Oh yeah! I absolutely know who Jack is! Ha. And that he's a skeleton! I just love this movie so much and sometimes it's hard to talk about things you love and I think I hear my brother calling me so bye! (runs far away before they realize what a fraud I am and refuse to go trick-or-treating with the loser who hasn't seen The Nightmare Before Christmas)

My childhood Halloweens in a nutshell, people! Enough nervous laughter and lying to last a lifetime.


2. Taking a break to talk about non-seasonal items of business: I'm still ginuwinely (wait for it) upset that I dropped 400 SongPop points on the so-called Modern R&B playlist (geddit?!) (but seriously, I'm upset). I thought it would be all Craig David and Ashanti and Blu Cantrell (those three make up 95% of what I listened to during all of 6th grade, so there was a lot of emotional baggage going into this playlist), but the playlist doesn't have any of them. I don't know who it has. Obviously. Given my abysmal scores every time I play the stupid playlist.

3. I've been doing a really good job of meal-planning for the past two weeks so that my next grocery trip won't be until after Halloween is over so that I can stock up on clearance Count Chocula and fun-sized Kit Kat bars. My. Glamorous. Life.

4. Halloween is all about choosing to be terrified for fun, which is a great segway for me to mention that NaNoWriMo starts in 6ish hours and I still don't have a main character. Any volunteers?

Lose some more respect for me

"There is nothing to blogging. All you do is sit down with your laptop and bleed." - Paulina 'Hemingway' Lopez

You'll be interested to know that my life has been in shambles for the past week, obviously for reasons related to Grey's Anatomy. I don't know why I keep watching that show.. it's like being in an abusive relationship where Shonda Rhimes repeatedly tears my chest open with a jackhammer, rips my heart out with her vicious (and probably manicured) fingernails, mashes it into a bloody pulp with the sole of her foot, and then lets me clean the mess up so I can run back to her with open arms and she can do it to me all over again.

(if you don't wanna read spoilers GTFO this post)

Like most normal people, I wanted to spend last Friday night bawling uncontrollably, so I decided to watch the Season 9 premiere of Grey's Anatomy. Had I sworn to myself that I would never watch the show again after Lexie Grey died in the dumbest, most painfully self-aware and unnecessarily mortifying episode from Season 8 (which, frankly, felt a lot like 'LOST' in blackface)? Yes.  I should have known that this was a terrible idea, given the show's track record for getting rid of all the characters I love the most, like George O'Malley. And Denny Duquette. And Henry. And Lexie freaking Grey.

So when the episode showed the love of my life, Doctor Mark Sloane, lying comatose in a hospital bed, I probably should have turned the TV off and run for my life. But, having already made a number of bad decisions, I just kept on rolling and spent the next 45 minutes on my knees in front of the screen  doing this:

To spare you yet another online recap about what happened (I've read a lot of them just to make sure it wasn't all just a terrible, heart-wrenching nightmare), Dr. Sloane died and the rest of my night went as follows:
    

                   

            

Shockingly enough, Ernesto was a lot less sympathetic IRL than Owen is being to Cristina here (but he was actually wearing scrubs). Maybe he would have been a little more compassionate if I'd limited myself to less than 60 minutes of non-stop crying after the show was over. Or maybe he's a heartless robot who is incapable of recognizing true love or the tragedy that is losing it. (xoxo luv u chico)

WHY CAN'T MEREDITH BE THE ONE THAT DIES FOR ONCE ALL SHE DOES IS BE ANNOYING AND BREAK GEORGE O'MALLEY'S PERFECTLY GOLDEN HEART AND STEAL BABIES AND WHINE ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD WHICH QUITE HONESTLY WASN'T THAT BAD IT WAS PRETTY EFFING PRIVILEGED AND HER MOM WASN'T EVEN THAT MEAN TO HER

I don't know what official stages of grief are, but here are the ones I've gone through so far:

1. Confusion, where I repeatedly asked myself "Is this real life?"
2. Flood of Emotions, where I cried like a baby for longer than I'm willing to admit, even on here
3. Denial, where I walked around saying that the episode was just wrong. It didn't happen. Nothing happened.
4. Flood of Emotions Pt. II
5. Removal, where I lied on the sofa, unwilling to move or breathe or do anything that would remind me of Dr. Sloane
6. Giving Up, where I decided that nothing in this world matters anymore and put lots of junk in my body until I felt gross
7. Flood of Emotions Pt. III
8. Trying to Find The Sliver Lining, where I think that at least this way, he and Lexie can finally be together
9. Fury, which I unleashed at a certain someone who tried reminding me about the definition of "fiction"
10. Searching for Meaning in All This Chaos, which took place on the internet and mostly resulted in more Floods of Emotion as I browsed through Tumblrs until I felt numb

So if you're wondering why I occasionally wipe a Mark Sloan-shaped tear from my cheeks, refer to the following:

Dr. Sloan, if your fictitious ghost is able to hear my tiny screams of pain into the internet, know that I'll never stop adoring you, or laughing at your inappropriate (but charming) remarks about Avery, or believing that yours is the only facial hair I could stand to look at. I can imagine your surprise when no one else seemed to care enough about your life to commemorate it properly, so I've taken a few minutes to make this and dedicate it to you.

What My Life Has Looked Like Recently

I used to be really good about keeping journals up through high school. Then, I got lazy and resorted to 1. writing on here and 2. taking screenshots.

My family's attempt at a Google Hangout

It was my mom's birthday a few weeks ago, and we tried to bridge the distance between Minnesota-Utah-Texas by spending quality face-to-face time with each other's computer screens. Do you see Panino talking on the phone? That's him calling my house on speakerphone so that I could hear what he was saying because his computer's microphone wasn't working. Also, the shot from my house had been frozen for like 5 minutes.. it's hard to tell, so just trust me. In the end, we just used the chat sidebar. It was bogus.

The one good thing Yahoo has to offer.

It's no secret that Yahoo Answers is my all-time favorite source of entertainment. AND HERE'S WHY! At first I genuinely thought this would be a snarky grammar nazi post about commas.. but it turned out to be so much better than that. Also, is Tonia British? "Comma" seems like a really specific way to misspell "Karma," so I'm going to go ahead and imagine that Tonia is actually Edith from Downton Abbey. 

Please sir, I want some ore.

Yes, my ideal Friday night consists of making puns that are also Oliver Twist references while playing Settlers online with Ernesto and Luis. This is what my early twenties are supposed to be like, right?

Hobby: Font Hunting

In case you can't tell from the bazillion tabs I had open in this browser window, this is me trying to find the font from Drive, the movie I'm still obsessed with (which BY THE WAY is currently available on Netflix Instant so you're running out of excuses not to watch it). 

My paper-writing process

The skim milk of essays. 

If I could have someone's voice for a day, it would be Mariah Carey's. 

"Always Be My Baby" will always be my jam. 

I'm so sorry, I hate when people say things are their jam. That's the worst. "Always Be My Baby" will always be a song that I sing at the top of my lungs every time I'm alone in the apartment. 

There are probably better ways to use my time.

You guys. I have a lot of lame hobbies. Among these, there's looking at calendars online (not shopping for them, not printing them out and USING them.. just looking at them in awe), e-stalking this person, freaking out when I recognize actors that play secondary characters across different shows*

*TIME OUT FOR A RELEVANT EXAMPLE

In my last post I posted a clip of Glee where Sandy Ryerson yells at someone for not knowing who Josh Groban is. Last weekend, I watched Groundhog Day with Ernesto and was super excited to see a young, less pastel-covered Sandy (whose name is Stephen Toboloswky IRL) hanging out with Bill Murray.

  

    

 While I was looking for relevant pictures to put on this blog, I found THIS ONE..

.. and then it took like 20 seconds to find Stephen Tobolowsky's AMA and his podcast. Which I am listening to right now. He's talking about yogurt and heart surgery and being a terrible bowler. (!!!!)

Okay, so that unprecedented detour does a pretty good job of depicting how I spend an alarming amount of my free time. It's an even more alarming amount now that I'm in this awkward space before school and work start again. Since Ernesto already has a life, I spend most of the day alone in our apartment trying to ignore the 3 boxes that have been halfway unpacked for the past 3 weeks and dividing my time between the hobbies previously discussed and watching old episodes of Project Runway. 

At first, I was like, "Why is this the first time I'm watching this show? I should've listened to Person From High School Who Recommended It. This show is incredible. Omg Tim Gunn." And thennn I realized that what I love about this show is that it's exactly like watching episodes of people working on art projects at Carleton until 4 in the morning, had those episodes ever been filmed. It took 3 years of being in Boliou the night before (or morning of) a deadline, running on no sleep and being surrounded by 11-15 people who are freaking out, followed by a 2-hour critique where everyone tells you all the different ways they hate your piece and one part they liked about it to appreciate what goes on in Project Runway. Granted, Michael Kors is a little bit more creative with the insults he hands out, but you get the picture. So yeah, I've felt sort of like a veteran who can't stop watching war movies. 

In an attempt to feel less gross about myself after finishing Season 8, I started looking for new books for my Kindle. Ernesto got me The Firm and well.. okay, I thought I'd lost all respect for John Grisham when I learned he was responsible for Christmas with the Kranks. WRONG. It turns out that I still had a light at the end of my John Grisham tunnel, and that light disappeared with The Firm. I don't think I'm even ready to talk about this yet. I'm definitely not one against trashy novels (remember sophomore fall term at Carleton, when I read like 4 Princess Diary Books AND the entire Queen of Babble series AND both of the Bridget Jones' Diary books? If it sounds super lonely and pitiful, it's cause it was. But at least it was enjoyable), but The Firm made me want to sue John Grisham for allowing himself to accept a spot on the bestseller list.

After that debacle, I was browsing r/kindlefreebies and THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD I found this website that has a hundred free e-books.. Oh man. Oh. Man. I don't even have the words to convey how terrible/awesome it was, so I've picked out a few of the most memorable titles (accompanied by the original cover art and a brief description by the author):

My favorite cover is definitely Plankton We Have Heard on High, but it's tough to choose. Part of me sort of wants to download some of these and see if the inside is as entertaining as the outside, but I don't want to spoil the illusion.

State of the Paulina Pt. 2

Paulina is melting - The weather forecast in Dallas has been 108 degrees for the past two weeks, which hasn't been too bad since I decided the other day to never go outside for the rest of the summer. The best part of not having any air conditioning in my car is that I've spent a lot of time bonding with random strangers on the road when I see them with all four windows down, just like me. One guy actually gave us a thumbs-up when Ernesto and I pulled up next to him at a red light. The good news is that next Friday we're supposed to hit a refreshing 97 degrees!

Paulina can't stop watching Breaking Bad - UM I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START. I don't think I've been this simultaneously horrified and enthralled by a teledrama since LOST, which is saying a lot considering that Breaking Bad is zero parts magical realism and all parts meth/Mexican drug dealers. And fantastic music, like this scene where they play Tamacun. Also, does Walt look familiar to you? You might have seen him in Malcolm in the Middle..

OR IN DRIVE COSTARRING ALONGSIDE RYAN GOSLING!

Bryan Cranston plays Shannon in Drive, and he worked on the movie in the middle of playing Walt in Breaking Bad. I like to think that there's a missing Breaking Bad episode out there somewhere that highlights the strained relationship between Walt and Jesse as the former is forced to choose partners. 

Rough storyboard:

 "He's leaving me for Ryan, isn't he?"

It's a character development jackpot. Besides the fabulous connections this show has with Ryan Gozlin', it also constantly refers to places/names that have been a part of my life for a long time like Tampico and Salamanca. Hearing them tossed around in dialogue while referring to meth and murder is slightly offputting, but I'll take what I can get. ALSO, Jesse Pinkman's character and I are both allergic to erythromycin! If that isn't enough to justify my unhealthy addiction to this show, I don't know what will. 

Paulina is shocked and appalled- Given that the chances of the Red Sox getting their faces out of their butts in time to make the play-offs are slim to none, Ernesto and I finally admitted that we probably are not going to see a Rangers vs. BoSox baseball game this fall. Then I got really excited about maybe getting tickets to see the girls 2012 gymnastics team perform alongside Nastia Liukin in Dallas. Aaaaaand that's when I learned that Ernesto doesn't know who Nastia Liukin is. Um. Our exchange was something like this:

Paulina miraculously hasn't run out of tears yet - The amount of crying I do for anything Olympics-related is disgusting. It doesn't even have to be an athletic event, it could just be a Fruit of the Loom commercial with a vague allusion to gymnastics and I guarantee that I will be mopping bucketfuls of my tears away. The amount of crying I did at the opening ceremony ALONE easily quadruples the amount of crying I did when one of my family's dogs died this year (sorry Buddy.. nothing personal). THE BEST (and by 'best' I mean 'worst') part of the 3 hour+ opening ceremony was that my family and I spent all of it at Buffalo Wild Wings, where the waitress kept politely asking if everything was alright and I had to pretend to be super interested in my spinach-artichoke dip so she wouldn't see how red my eyes were from bawling at the tv screens.

The Boutique Cupcake

Not even Nostradamus could have warned us about the cupcake, that miniature dessert dressed in layer upon layer of frosting rosettes that has seduced the country with its hollow decadence. Bit by extravagantly decorated bit, the twenty-first century’s All-American Boutique Cupcake has invaded every possible venue with unnecessarily polka-dotted, pink or curlycued cupcake services, erasing from the nation’s memory such once-beloved delicacies as the Apple Pie or the S’More. The following instructions indicate how, with just a handful of ingredients, you too can contribute to this cream cheese-frosted, sprinkle-covered skid mark in the nation’s culinary history.


Prep time: Varies
Baking Time: 0 minutes
Yield: Three-dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

Old family recipe for fairy cakes

15 ½ ounces all-purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

3 eggs

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 cup water

1 episode of Sex and the City

5 tablespoons of flour

1 cup of milk

1 dump truck filled with confectioner’s sugar

Assorted buckets of food coloring

1-3 starving artists (use as needed)

Directions

1. Refer to an old family recipe for fairy cakes, the boutique cupcake’s homely English predecessor. Hold the yellowed, tea-stained piece of paper in your hands as you relish the thought that you are about to make a vintage dessert. Following the instructions that have been passed down for generations, combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Mix well before adding the eggs, vanilla and water. Set the mixture aside.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. As you wait, help yourself to an episode of Sex and the City. Observe as Carrie Bradshaw and her girlfriends buy cupcakes from Magnolia’s Bakery Shop. Notice that the cupcakes these women buy are just as glittery and glamorous as their sequined clutches and sparkly platform heels. Wonder whether the recipe you are using will include instructions for red velvet cake, which is Carrie’s favorite flavor.

3. Return to the old, tea-stained family recipe for vintage fairy cakes. Read the instructions from beginning to end, and frown as you realize that this 1850’s recipe doesn’t tell you how to make red velvet batter. Frown even more as you notice the recipe’s lack of instruction for elaborate frosting methods, proper sprinkle application or marzipan garnish techniques. Deem the old English recipe absolutely useless and stuff it down the garbage disposal along with the flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, vanilla extract and water mixture you prepared earlier.

4. Turn off the oven. Buy a red velvet sheet cake. Using a thin knife, carefully cut round, fluted cup shapes out of the sheet cake. Refer to one of your paper liners as a model. After cutting out the first cupcake, briefly consider cutting in straight cylindrical shapes, or even cubes to reduce the leftover cake scraps. Decide that the traditional cup shape is much cuter than any efficient alternative, and continue cutting. As you cut out each cupcake, keep in mind the proper cake-slice-to-cupcake ratio; one hearty, satisfying cake slice should be the equivalent to 1.7 cupcakes. A successful all-American boutique cupcake denies the eater a satisfactory helping of dessert after one serving, but leaves the eater feeling guilty and engorged after a second. Throw the remaining sheet cake scraps down the garbage disposal.

5. In a pink, polka-dotted, or Rachel Ray-endorsed saucepan, prepare the frosting by whisking the flour with the milk and setting over heat. Stir constantly until the mixture is as thick as the fake French accents you’ve heard on Cupcake Wars. Add the confectioner’s sugar to the mixture one bucketful at a time, stirring occasionally. To create batches of colored frosting, add ¼ bucket of food coloring to each bucket of icing at a time and stir briskly, adding more coloring as needed. Summon one or more artists, and put their extensive backgrounds in color theory to use by having them create your frosting palette.

6. When you have made enough icing to create an edible life-size statue of Paula Deen, remove the saucepan from the stovetop and let cool. Divide the frosting among your various artists. Drawing from any number of sources for inspiration, choose several objects and/or scenes that will take each artist at least 2 hours to sculpt or paint using the icing provided. Encourage each artist to incorporate the traditional elements of design (e.g. form, line, value, rhythm, variety, symmetry) as they stack nauseatingly overworked poodles, Hello Kitties, flower arrangements, Muppet characters, Mario Party scenes, ladybugs and lipsticks on top of each cupcake. Carefully measure the icing-to-cake ratio of each cupcake; ideally, the amount of icing on each cupcake should be equal to 1n+4, where n = amount of cake and the units are measured in the average human mouthful.

7. When all of the cupcakes have been adequately frosted, place them delicately inside their respective paper liners. Although you may choose from a variety of these, note that any self-respecting cupcake liner comes in animal print, floral print, plaid or paisley patterns. If the pattern isn’t short-circuiting your retina, select another cupcake liner. Alternatively, you may choose to construct your cupcake liners using hand-made paper made with exotic flower petals or dried fall leaves, depending on the occasion. You may also opt for disposable lace liners cut with butterfly patterns, snowflakes, picket fences, intertwining hearts, family crests or flower silhouettes. Although these can be accomplished with any laser-cutter, it is in the spirit of the all-American boutique cupcake to waste more time, energy and morale by cutting each delicate pattern by hand.

8. Spare no expense when it comes to arranging your cupcakes. Stack tray upon pastel-colored tray of your chocolate-frosting sugar bombs to create faux wedding cakes. For an attempt at classiness, serve cupcakes in expensive wine glasses alongside sparklers, flower arrangements, or any other largesse that will distract from the fact that you are dressing up a child’s dessert in high heels.

9. At no point should you stop to consider the implications of contributing to this current culinary trend. Do not stop to ask yourself why the boutique cupcake so depends on its frosting, its liners, its arrangements and its endless embellishments. Doing so might reveal that the cupcake is not a dessert at all, but just a brightly colored illustration of what “delicious” might look like if it were made with more than sugar and food coloring. Doing so might remind you that while four shades of orange frosting topped with a marzipan sun and a hand-embroidered liner taste like very little, a goopy, half-melted ice cream cone makes up for its lack of aesthetic in Rocky-Road flavored relief from the summer sun. Doing so might remind you that fried Reese’s bars don’t need to dress up in frosting because the experience of battered peanut butter is memorable enough to last an entire year. Doing so might remind you that licking the streams of lemon syrup running from the popsicle stick in your hand down to your elbow does more for your senses than seeing a million perfect pink sugar rosettes.

Missed You

Hey there Internet old buddy old pal! It's been a long, dark and desolate week without you. By 'long, dark and desolate,' I actually mean 'warm and sunny and next to the beach'. And surrounded by Mexico's finest federal police and army personnel! This year, da homeland had the honor of hosting the annual G20, so everyone at Los Cabos cleaned up real nice. We stayed at the same hotel that hosted  the Russian representatives, which meant that we had to walk through metal detectors and let security X-ray our stuff every time we felt like going through the lobby. Although that made it feel like we never really left the airport, the hotel made up for it by very conveniently activating free WiFi in the lobby just as Russia's finance ministers checked in. Clever girl..

We spared no expense. (4 RUSSIA!!!)

That said, the only person who used the free WiFi was my dad, who needed to go online to read his birthday wall posts on FB. AND book us a room in a different hotel so we wouldn't be homeless on Saturday night, since G20 took up all the weekend rooms.

Speaking of Russia messing things up, HOW ABOUT DAT EUROCUP?! Ernesto and I were constantly peeking into bars along the streets in Cabo to get the game scores all week, and the look on his face when Russia lost to Greece was pretty dang satisfying. So satisfying, in fact, that it almost made me forget that Greece > Russia was probably the only upset that I didn't put on my 2012 EurUpset Bracket. I'm happy to see losers come out on top, but it would've been cool if the losers I'd wanted to win would do so. LOOKING ATCHU, THE NETHERLANDS.  What does it feel like to see my predicted 2012 Eurocup Champ get eliminated in the group phase with a grand total of Z E R O points? Sort of like this:

WTH THE NETHERLANDS 

Spending the next few weeks watching my bracket fall into lower and lower percentile rankings won't be so bad as long as Spain doesn't win this thing. I swear to you over all that is dear to me, I'll probably claw my eyes out with soccer cleats if I have to watch Spain carry a Eurocup Trophy out of that stadium.

This whole rant about my complicated feelings regarding the Eurocup was supposed to be a tweet, but well. Obviously 140 characters wasn't going to cut it. Why do I even have a twitter? All I do is go past the character limit and creep on Amelie Gillette. No less than half of the tweets I start to type are Young Money lyrics, but I've managed to self-censor myself in time for each one (you're welcome, world). 

I can tell that this is very quickly going to turn into a ranty rant, so here's a summary of what it was like to get back in touch with the Internet after a week of webstinence (GEDDIT): 

1. Go on ESPN.com and hate own bracket 

2. Go on Twitter and hate own twitterature 

3. Go on Gmail and be shocked at lack of new emails since last log-in. Realize this is mostly due to the end of Carleton.

4. Go on here to see someone else articulate my feelings about graduating better than I can.

5. Go on Youtube to listen to Selena sing "Amor Prohibido" as I entertain my sadness while mourning the late and great Chicana supastar.

6. Go on Selena's wiki and learn that George W. Bush made April 16th "Selena Day" in Texas. Gain the first inkling of sincere appreciation for the former president. Get more excited to move to Texas in a week and a half. 

Hurray! and so forth

WELL 36 sleepless hours, 1852 words and one visual aid later, I'm done with finals. AND WITH CARLETON COLLEGE? Apparently? It's 10:26 p.m. on June 3rd and I've been up since 10:30 a.m. June 2nd, so everything's looking p r e t t y hazy, but I can say with like ninety percent confidence that this is real life and I actually turned in my last assignment and actually went to my last final and am about to actually close the last chapter of what has been a remarkable story in a remarkable place. It's getting reaaaal sentimental up in hurr, and it doesn't help that Prof. Appleman gave the entire EDUC344 class ACTUAL CDs with "Fast Car" on them.

Obviously, I'm listening to it on repeat and trying not to drown in my own sea of tears*. (not joking) (seriously though, this song should come with a warning from the Surgeon General)

* <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 

'       '     '     '      '

'   '   '       '    '   ' 

  '   '    ' '    ' '     '

'     ' '     '     '    ' 

I made this Love Storm emoticon the other day, it just seems so relevant for this moment. The heart clouds are raining a storm of tears over everything, and well you know. Feeling a lot of feels right now. 

gunna go 2 sl33p now,

sorry for this post.

Who Wants to Write My Essay for Me?

Fact: The last day of classes was on Wednesday.
Fact: I still have finals until Sunday.
Fact: It is gorgeous out. The kind of gorgeous that makes Carleton's board of admissions say, "Quick, get a camera and take some pictures of townies on the Bald Spot so that unsuspecting prospective students will get tricked into thinking that going to school here involves enjoying the cool breeze and the green grass and soaking up the sun!"

As a spring term senior, I've managed to have my share of rest and relaxation for the past 10 weeks. I took sixteen credits instead of the usual eighteen, and only six of these were graded on something other than a S/Cr/NC basis. Should I be complaining? Probably not.

BUT here I am, and I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime! (!!!) While I go eat freezie pops and watch ARTech students breakdance on Division Street, I'm giving you the chance to help me graduate and perfect your writing skills and reinvent high school at the same time.

The golden ticket to your exciting adventure is just a click away. Just click here and type to your heart's content.

I know what you're thinking. Does Paulina really expect me to spend my weekend writing her essay instead of enjoying the perfect summer weather that surrounds me? Pff. I expect no such thing, which is why I've provided the following picture for you to print in 36x48in. Just hang it up in your workspace, and you'll forget all about the beauty that surrounds you on this lovely first of June.

So, just write a little ditty about a high school that is a positive site for adolescence, facilitates the successful construction of identity, makes learning relevant, does not ignore the important influences of popular culture and provides a just and equitable site of learning for all students regardless of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, native language and country of origin. GO!

State of the Paulina, Pt. 1

Paulina spots a look-alike:

1D logic: Zayn, you don't know you're Uncle Jesse! That's what makes you Uncle Jesse!  

OneDirection/FullHouse are straight-laced, wholesome boy bands/families that have ONE black sheep. As you can tell from this GIF I found on a 1D tumblr, the interchangeable black sheep is Zayn Malik/Uncle Jesse. THEY ARE IDENTICAL. I keep waiting for Mary-Kate or Ashley to come out from the water on this beach scene. 

Paulina is disappointed: Following the extraordinarily sexy 30-second "preview" (<- notice the quotation marks dipped in sarcasm, they're important) of JustinBieber's Boyfriend video, I spent over a week in eager, eager anticipation for Youtube to release the complete version of JB music video gold. After all, if the remaining 2 minutes and 23 seconds of the video were remotely related to the first 30 seconds of blue-filtered, icy-hot tantalizing scenery, Boyfriend was shaping up to be the most seductive coming-of-age video since Jesse McCartney came out with Leavin'. When fifty gazillion JB followers started announcing that the video was finally up, I jumped around, politely asked/ordered Ernesto to turn off whatever he was watching, clicked on the link on Twitter and took a deep breath before pressing play.  Things seemed like they were off to a good start when the video started with the scenes from the preview; the slightly frozen gears were turning (I can only assume they're a metaphor for the love machine within JB starting to awake), the two dozen hands were reaching from nowhere to grab JB's chest, the MJ silhouette was looking fine as ever, and THEN THE VIDEO STARTED OVER. It didn't smoothly merge with the next part, it just started over from the Orca mating calls. And a 2:53 minute long, warm-filtered, rooftop summer days story that has NOTHING TO DO with the so-called SNEAK PEAK took over. What?!! Do you know what "sneak-peak" means?!! You don't promise someone an ice cream cone and then give them a chili dog.


Paulina travels time: Apparently my house has Boomerang now? (It's not a question, but I'm just so stunned that I'm questioning everything now.) Natalia and I watched a solid hour of Cartoon Network shows from way-back-when, like Dexter's LaBOREatory and Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel. Oh man. Do you guys remember how NOTHING LOOKED GOOD IN THE 90s? I thought I had fond, fond memories of Cartoon Network, but it turns out there were just a bunch of shiny butts and gross-looking noses all over the place. 

Paulina is proud to be an American: Last Wednesday, President Obama became the first standing U.S. president to announce his support for same-sex marriage. AND I GLADLY STAND UP! NEXT TO YOU!  #lezbehonest #thatsprettyneat (p.s. did you know there's a groovy Beyonce version of Proud to be an American?! There ain't no doubt, I love that woman. )

Paulina is not trendy: What the heck does 'yolo' mean??

Paulina hasn't graduated yet: I'm going to just stop going on Facebook until June 9th because all I ever see are statuses and pictures of CONGRATS Class of 2012 at Anywhere But Carleton College and it's the most depressing thing. akfjlsjdlkfjdlsdkj whyyyyyy are there still 3 weeks left of school?! why why why why why? But the bigger question is how are 400+ students and their families going to fit in the grassy spot behind Olin?! I expect a miracle, Carleton.

Overall state: B/B+

Another Fangirl Post

It feels SO GOOD not having to post that hideous 22b422 logo, oh man. That was one joke that got more than enough stage time. To help my eyes heal from the Wordart, I've been playing around with some versions of this week's SUMO poster. For Drive. The movie that I'm in love with. NBD (but actually..).

Here's the one that's actually going up around campus:

And here are the ones I am going to use to paper my living room:

My personal favorite.

I know.. but I couldn't not make this joke.

Can you spot the subliminal love note?

GEDDIT GLOVE  

Oh man I love my job. 

22B422 Pt. 22: TOO SOON

Things on my TOO SOON list (for which the pain is much too fresh for me to spend more than two seconds thinking about before locking myself in a room and playing Someone Like You on repeat)

-Titanic in 3-D
-"Fast Car", seriously
-My lack of an Ed Studies concentration
-The ruuuude Pepsi Max ads at Target Field today
- Pan-Pan going out of business
- Anything related to comps
- The last chapter of "The Women of Brewster Place"
- THE RAPE OF MOTHER EFFING NAN KING
- RIP Greg Sellnow
- The Quarry Hill murder
- Kony graffiti on Spoonbridge and Cherry
- Jason Varitek's retirement
- Manny Ramirez's comeback
- every single thing I've turned in so far for Creative Non-Fiction

22B422 Pt. 21: Things I Might Miss When I Move Out Of Minnesota

Things I Might Miss When I Move Out Of Minnesota
1. HyVee
2. CARIBOU COFFEE
3. Perkins Restaurant, Bakery and All-Day Breakfast Paradise
4. Kwik Trip
5. Basil's Pizza
6. The Carleton College Security Blotter
7. The Paperbook Palace
8. the guy on Minnesota Public Radio with the New Zealand accent
9. 507
10. Panakuken
11. "You bet."

22B422 Pt. 20: Notebook Excerpts

LIFE WRITING AT ITS BEST! Beat this, Anne Frank.
The first lines of each page in my school notebook:

- a model
- Do I know George well enough to write about this?
- turned into a commentary on effects of
- 4/10 is timeline invasion day on Facebook
- leaves with new understanding of people, generally normalizes them
- INVESTIGATIVE
- Autobiography/Personal/Psychology
- general journalism lecture: solve problem of SCENE first
- farm stand in high school (high school or old woman?)
- he wants to win the lottery/rob a bank/ change his name/ donate to charity
- ... therefore becomes a hero to win BUT
- ... therefore he successfully frames liked hero to take his spot, BUT
- Sotheby's, appraisal orgs
- antiques capital of Connecticut?
- rituals and benchmarks
- structure of schooling and the boundaries of adolescence
- (Rousseau) assumes people are innately good
- make every working man a scholar and every scholar a working man
- Milner: status determined by beauty/physique
- Erikson/Marcia's so-called universal theories don't consider the implications of race
- Louder Than A Bomb questions : poetry in curriculum?
- 2000 writers' collaborative
- Personal Narrative: what's the purpose of telling a story?
- Doug Foxgrover and posters
-The role of social networks on adolescent identity development
- retain the inalienability of status because status is located in other people's minds
- in high school could explore the two identities by creating
- Last weekend, Ernesto and I visited Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Oliver Sachs and how to approach life writing
- Salem's Lot 4:23:21 at 59:45
- scholars and leaders in professionalism
- low scoop/arms side/ knees low/ cries low
- legs take it out in stride

22B422 Pt. 19: Things Currently On My Coffee Table

- A thing of nail polish in "Spring Fling," which looks peach-colored in the bottle but gold and tacky on my fingernails.

- A milkglass vase with flowers from last summer's wedding

- A Swingline stapler

- One green mug with a sad little puddle of Coke Zero at the bottom

- One compostable plastic cup 1/3 filled with trail mix I took from the junior art show opening

- One unwrapped box of chocolate-covered macadamias

- Ernesto's unused Lagniappe

- One Glade candle that smells like "Clean Linen" or "Fresh Cotton" or something similar to give the illusion that any laundry ever gets done in this apartment

- Half of a chocolate chip cookie from Sayles

- One Energizer battery charger

- One new copy of "A Century of Revolution" by Grendin & Joseph

- One used copy of "Keep it Real" by Lee Gutkind

- One used and battered copy of "The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager" by Thomas Hine

- A teal-colored ceramic Sun/Moon that I haven't found a nail for

- A framed print of Paws/Pause

- One used copy of "The Motorcycle Diaries"

- The Spring/Summer Northfield community ed catalog

- A Victoria's Secret catalog

- One copy of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that is property of John Marshall High School

- One sealed envelope addressed to the Mayo Scholarship Plan

- One printout of a reddit IAMA thread titled, "I transport exotic and unusual shipments for FedEx. AMA"

22B422 Pt. 18: Teen Anthems

Have you ever been in high school? Do you go to Carleton College? You should probably take EDUC 344 with Deborah Appleman, where you get to study high school and teen angst and all the other things that make life worth living. There's a slightly insane number of books that we read per week, but the class makes up for it by starting every day with a teen anthem. Our list so far has included:

- "Baba O'Riley", by The Who

- "No Such Thing," by John Mayer (not his best, but I freaked out enthusiastically regardless)

- "Jack and Diane," by John Mellencamp

- "Fast Car," by Tracy Chapman (I think I've described previously how hard it was not to cry)

- "At Seventeen," by Janis Ian

- "Maria, Maria," by Santana w/ Wyclef and a bunch of other people

- "Waterfalls," by TLC

- "Born This Way," by Lady Gaga

22B422 Pt. 17: Candles

Does it count if I wrote this list way back in November? Here's an excerpt from last year's NaNoWriMo experiment, which takes place in a street market. 


Across this woman's stand was a booth filled with incense and candles that church-going people could burn for specific saints, or for the occasional miracle. There was
- the candle that could cure impotency
- the candle that could turn back time
- the candle that could heal the sick
- the candle that could turn smelly feet odorless 
- the candle that could turn naughty children into angels
- the candle that could make the lover who broke your heart come back on his knees begging for your forgiveness
- the candle that kept  bitter ancestors out of your house
- the candle that stretched money out so that people could make ends meet
- the candle that helped vocalists with no talent sing in tune
- the candle that helped people read faster
- the candle that made a specific person miss you so much their bones ached
- the candle that could burn away all the sins you'd ever committed
- the candle that could burn away all the sins you were considering committing in the next year
- the candle that guaranteed a lasting marriage
- the candle that soothed coughs, sore throats, stomachaches and fevers
- the candle that induced coughs, sore throats, stomachaches and fevers
- the candle that made you into a better poet
- the candle that ensured anything cooked in your kitchen would never burn again
- the candle that incrementally cured diabetes long enough for you to have just one bite of that delicious chocolate donut
- the candle that made arthritis go away
- the candle that erased memories 
- the candle that helped you find lost items
- the candle that made you lose weight
- the candle that engorged your breasts 
- the candle that scared away monsters under the bed and ghosts in the closet
- the candle that made it so you were always on time
- the candle that helped you stop the disgusting habit of biting your nails
- the candle to keep unwanted missionaries away from your doorstep
- the candle that cured alcoholism
- the candle that got you drunk
- the candle that protected houses from bandits and criminals
- the candle that ended world hunger
- the candle that kept away nosy neighbors
- the candle that made lonely people feel a little less alone
- the candle that made everyone in the room fuzzy to the point of near invisibility so that you could be alone if you wanted
- the candle that helped people find the silver lining on the darkest, coal-black thunder clouds 
- the candle that restored faith when faith was needed
- the candle that soothed people in moments of resignation
- the candle that provided shots of extra energy
- the candle that helped lost dogs find their way back home
- the candle that helped people remember birthdays and anniversaries and supposedly important dates like those
- the candle that improved people's driving abilities
- the candle that reduced blood pressure
- the candle that inspired burnt-out lovers to squeeze out one last sonnet before deciding that they are bored with romance
- the candle that could help people forgive the unforgivable
- the candle that kept ants and cockroaches out of the pantry
- the candle that erased fingerprints and smudges from clear glass windows
- the candle that made people run faster
- the candle that helped people sleep sounder
- the candle that could cure snoring
- the candle that could induce nightmares in people who had grown accustomed to too many sweet dreams
- the candle for people who are afraid of the dark
- the candle for people who are afraid of heights
- the candle for people who are afraid of people
- the candle that could make limp celery crunchy again
- the candle that could make lightbulbs glow brighter
- the candle that helped people make difficult decisions
- the candle that increased gamblers' chances at winning
- the candle that allowed people to read other people's minds
- the candle that made everyone agree with you
- the candle that kept it from raining
- the candle that helped your rose bushes grow
- the candle that perpetually blessed the food on your table so that you wouldn't have to say grace at every meal
- the candle that eased pangs of hunger pain
- the candle that helped people speak a foreign language
- the candle that deciphered the Book of Isaiah 
- the candle whose flames foretold the future with shadows on the wall 
- the candle that took back all of the hurtful things you said to the few people you cared about the most
- the candle for aching backs
- the candle for Christmases when there might not be enough presents

22B422 Pt. 16: Now You're Just

Well hey there. A week ago I made the huge mistake of listening to Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," so obviously now I'm super depressed and/or have lost all faith in humanity. A while ago I wrote a list of goodbye songs that aren't really saying goodbye, and this one just tops them all. 

To deal with my all of my complicated feelings regarding this song, I made a bunch of advice animals and took some liberty with Gotye's lyrics.

Alternate Endings to The Chorus for Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know."

Now you're just somebody's lawn I used to mow.

Now you're just some money that I used to owe.

Now you're just a neon sign that used to glow. 

Now you're just the pottery I used to throw. 

Now you're just the sculpture that I used to sew. 

Now you're just the cleavage that I used to show. 

Now you're just the bubbles that I used to blow.

Now you're just the season when it used to snow.  (MN WINTER 2012!)

Now you're just the sea monkeys I used to grow. 

Now you're just the college where I used to go. Seeyuh, Carleton.