Snowy Day...Part 4

I called this post "Snowy Day" instead of "Snow Day", because since I never have classes on Friday I can't technically call this a snow day, despite the fact that SMU is closed once again (in fact, they went ahead and closed campus for Saturday and Sunday too).  And this time, there's actually legitimate snow...seven inches of it came down from the sky overnight...

Circa 1:30am

Circa 12:30pm

 As I was going crazy in my apartment, I decided to take a trip to the dumpster as an opportunity to explore the general scene.  For example, I walked up to the main road.  It's right there, behind that tree in the foreground.

That's the road.  Can't you see it?

 Again, demonstrating the lack of snow plows in Texas.  It is a considerable amount of snow though...it was reaching almost up to the top of my boots.

Seven Inches.

For those of you analyzing my wardrobe, yes I am wearing my pea coat with my Santa Cruz sweat pants and my rainbow polka dot rain boots.  Thank you for asking.  (Even better, I didn't actually get dressed for this venture, I just put the aforementioned items on over my pajamas).

Needless to say, the continuing weather marked Day 4 of my confinement to my 636 sq. ft. apartment.  

I'm starting to go a little bit crazy.

As usual, I spent the day working (emailing several professional and important emails to people while wearing cupcake pajama pants and an AOII intramural t-shirt imploring people to "Play Like a Panda"...oh, the irony), doing class reading, vaguely contemplating writing my New Testament Paper, watching random TV and movies.  Oh, speaking of movies, I watched "The Social Network" last night.  It was good.  If you have 2 hours and a Facebook, go watch it.  I'm not going to run out and add it to my personal collection, but you know.  Worth the watch.  I also set up the iPod speaker I got for Christmas.  It wasn't complicated or anything, I just couldn't decide where to put it, so I kept putting it off.  It has now found its home on my kitchen pass-through counter, and is super awesome.  It drowns out bass guy well.

Also, and this is really exciting: I made homemade chicken fried rice today.  YES.  This might not excite all of you readers, but it was super exciting for me, for several reasons: 1) It let me eat something other than sauteed chicken and vegetables for dinner without having to go to the store, 2) It was a pretty healthy recipe and super easy to make, and 3) It tasted JUST like take-out Chinese, and was way cheaper.  And it was all kinds of tasty.  Keeping in mind that food never looks as good in pictures as it does in real life, behold the following photo:

 I'm telling you.  Delicious.  SO delicious.  General process: cook some rice in a boiling mixture of water and a splash of soy sauce, sautee chicken with chopped onions and fresh green beans, scramble an egg among everything else in the pan, and add the rice.  Magical.

The only other significant event of the day was that the Wii Fit kicked my butt.  I ventured out of the games into the strength training and yoga sections, and it was WAY more intense...which, really, is a good thing.

I hope that this blog isn't boring all you faithful readers (all 7 or 8 of you)...things will be less redundant once I'm free of my apartment again.  Cross your fingers that tomorrow's the day!!

Snow Day, Round Two

Yes, the chicken-buyers have another point in their favor....this was the second day that SMU cancelled classes due to "inclement weather."  Word on the street is that the university will be open for business as usual tomorrow (much to the chagrin of practically everyone, students and professors alike).  Let me tell you, no one can make a Facebook fuss the way that seminary students can.  Every status I've seen from Dallas-ites has contained three key elements:  1) OMG there's so much ice!!, 2) OMG SMU is stupid for being open tomorrow!!, and 3) OMG I'm praying for your safety!!!  Now don't get me wrong...there IS a lot of ice, SMU MIGHT be making the wrong decisions, and praying is always a good option...I'm just saying all the Facebook statuses are getting redundant.

That being said, of my two classes scheduled for tomorrow, one professor has emailed to cancel class, and the other has sent out a vague email implying that it's okay for us to skip class if we want to, but that we're having class anyway, but since the lectures are recorded there's no real point in coming in.  So we'll see...it's possible that SMU will email out a retraction email of their statement that classes resume tomorrow - every area school district is closed, as well as all the other universities in the city.  I ventured outside briefly today in a test-walk to the mail room (a grand 30 feet or so away from my apartment), and while the sidewalks and grass were still covered with ice, the parking lot itself didn't look so bad.  The thing about living with ice in Dallas is that the city experiences real "winter" so little that it's hard to tell if people are saying the roads are bad because they're ACTUALLY bad, or if they're saying the roads are bad because they've only seen ice in snow cones.  My plan for tomorrow is to hang about (productively, hopefully) in the morning, and around 3:00 or so walk up to the road and look at it, and judge if it looks drive-able, and then decide about going to my 4:30 class.

And now you know all about the snow and ice in my life.  Congratulations.

Now on to what I did today: nothing.  Absolutely nothing...at least, in the way of academic productivity.  When I went to do my class reading for tomorrow (before knowing they were cancelled), I discovered that I'd already done it.  Since I have three day weekends anyway, I didn't feel a great motivation to work ahead for other classes.

Here's a quick re-cap of what I did while doing nothing:
-Woke Up
-Checked Email...discovered school closing
-Went back to bed for 4 hours
-Woke up to phone call from Jessica, the high school best friend.
-Talked to Jessica
-Lunch: Lime Chicken Taco with Red Peppers and Onions, and homemade taco shell (yeah, I'm fancy)
-Watched an episode of "Friends"
-Phone call with mom
-CCFOF research, of the event planning and people profile variety
-Facebooked excessively
-Watched "The Swan Princess" in French during the previous two activities
-Exercised with the Wii Fit
-Facebooked excessively while watching television
-Watched "Practical Magic", which I recorded on DVR in October at my mother's suggestion
-Paused "Practical Magic to make dinner: grilled chicken and swiss sandwich, perfectly hardboiled eggs (I was proud), and cheese and crackers
-Resumed "Practical Magic" over dinner; quite enjoyed the movie
-Facebooked excessively
-Called Brandi (the Transy best friend) to complain about silly things
-Talked to Brandi forever
-Facebooked some more, while watching "I Used to be Fat" on MTV
-Watched "Pretty in Pink" while writing this blog post

And there you have it.  My day of nothing.  Tomorrow, I'm planning on hitting the books again...now that I've had ample time to be bored of NOT hitting the books.

By the way, did you know that the expression "You can't have your cake and eat it too" is a corruption of the original proverb, which actually says "Would you eat your cake, and still have it?", which makes a lot more sense if you think about it.  I just thought I'd let you know that I managed to learn something even while doing nothing.

As for goals for February: I've decided to focus on the following: Get Fit, Eat Healthy, Build Self-Confidence, Improve Study Skills, and Rejuvenate Relationship with God...as well as Explore Dallas, as time allows.  More specific goal steps to follow...

Snow! And Monthly Goal Check-Up

So even though I still don't think all those people were justified in buying out all the chicken...Dallas did get hit with somewhat treacherous conditions today.  After freezing rain throughout the night, I woke up to the following sights:

(That's Ice.)

I treated my snow day in the proper way:  laying about in panda pajamas all day, watching movies, and drinking hot chocolate.  As a rule of thumb, I don't use snow days to try and get ahead on schoolwork; I'll do whatever necessary amount of work I would usually do, but treat the rest of the day as a vacation day from God.  If the weather forces me to relax, who am I to disagree? :)

In other news, it's February 1st: we are officially a twelfth of the way through 2011.  Can you believe it?  It seems like the month went by really fast.  Anyway, I've decided to take the first of every month to do a goal-check up, and see how I'm doing in accomplishing things.

As perhaps you recall (but I don't expect you to), I chose 5 big goals to focus on for January: Rejuvenate my Relationship with God, Make CCFOF Work a Priority, Create a Budget, Exercise 2x Per Week, and Read for Fun.  Well, I'm happy to report that I've made good progress on all of these things!

First: Rejuvenate Relationship with God.  This one still needs work, unfortunately (though, to an extent, it will always need work...).  Happily, I've made steps towards getting involved in a church: most importantly I've found one to attend, and second most importantly, I've gotten involved with a women's small group that meets every week.  So I'm not only GOING to church (something that I was barely doing at all last semester), but have started to make connections with people there.  Good stuff.  For this month: I need to make personal quiet times a priority...choose a specific time to read the Bible every day, and then DO it.  One of my professors has us meditating for 10 minutes every day (you get odd homework in seminary), so hopefully I can build quiet times around that.

Second: Make CCFOF Work a Priority.  This has been QUITE well achieved; my paycheck was at its maximum level this pay period, meaning that I actually worked every day (or went back and made up hours I missed).  I've started working first thing in the morning, after breakfast.  This keeps me from falling into that laziness and procrastination that comes with working from home.  For this month: Plan out weekly tasks in advance, for better productivity.  Our annual prayer campaign is coming up and that means lots of translating, and lots of organizing lots of small groups across the country and around the world.  Yeah.  Productivity in work is important right now.

www.ccfof.org.  Check it, yo.

Third: Create a Budget.  Well, budget is created.  In a few days I'm going to take my bank statement and see how well I lived up to it.  For this month: Keep track of expenses.  I created the budget mid-January, so last month I didn't really get to LIVE by the budget, I just made it up.  My first expense of the month: the soundtrack to "500 Days of Summer."  Write it down.

Fourth: Exercise 2 Times Per Week.  HECK YES!  I've actually been exercising for half an hour a day, 5-6 days per week.  I've also lost about 5 pounds since the beginning of January, and lowered my BMI a bit.  Woot!  For this month: Keep doing things like that...

Fifth: Read for Fun.  This goal is still in progress.  I was doing really well with it over winter break, but back in the world of academia, it's kind of fallen to the wayside.  I'm still reading "The Man in the Iron Mask," and quite enjoying it when I actually read it.  It's quite long, so I'll be enjoying it for quite some time :)

So I'm making good progress!  Looking back at that intense planner (which I haven't been using day to day, but where I've been listing mini-tasks to accomplish monthly goals), I've marked "Yes" on more goals than "No" in terms of their completion (I actually just realized that that's not what that column is for, but it's my planner so whatever).  And, I think there's something to be said for keeping my New Year's Resolutions up for an entire month :)

Hopefully tomorrow I'll devise the plan of attack for February.