The Munchies

You know those days when you wander around your kitchen, opening every cupboard and every drawer trying to find something that sounds appetizing? Every once in a while something delicious is discovered in round one, however, more often than not you don't get that lucky. Usually you get stuck in a vicious cycle that goes a little like this: fridge, cupboard, pantry, fridge, go sit on the couch/sit in your room/fix your hair/etc. Wait five minutes. Repeat.

Sometimes you'll eventually find something and sometimes you'll have to wait until dinner or make a quick Wendy's run. But, every so often, after pacing the kitchen from anywhere between 5-30 minutes you'll finally remember that thing that once it's in your mind you don't stop craving it. For some it's something normal like a sandwich or cereal. For others it could be something a little less orthodox. Such as, I don't know, peas? Crazy, I know. I'm not proud of it, but suddenly this school year I have developed this weird love of those little green balls. The weird thing is that peas aren't even a vegetable that most people like. For example, everyone loves carrots, and celery, and potatoes, but the fans of peas are few and far between. I don't understand it, but for some reason on the days when I am moseying around my kitchen like a fat kid on a race track I end up craving those and nothing else.

Someone help me. I can't have the full college experience if I'm wanting vegetables (much less that vegetable) instead of pizza, diet Coke, or Twinkies.

Autumn

Utah is the most awful place on earth. One, It is cold-ish for 6-7 months out of the year, Two,... that's actually the only complaint I have. I love living here in the summer, but any time the temperature drops below fifty-fife degrees I wonder why anyone would voluntarily live here between November and May. But today I experienced an unusual moment when I was actually glad I'm here in the middle of November.

I was walking home from a friend's apartment this afternoon. This friend lives at the Branbury where there are lots and lots of trees. I was walking home with my hands deep in my pockets, hood up, and headphones in with the wind continually trying to push me off the sidewalk and rather than being miserable and angry at the current climate like I am every other cold day, I could only marvel at the brilliant colors of the orange, yellow and red trees with a bright blue sky behind them. I felt like a seven year old as I dragged my shoes through the build up of leaves in the gutters and it was all I could do to not pick up a big pile of leaves and toss them in the air. For those brief fifteen minutes I was 100 percent happy. Not even the sporadic flurries of snow could dampen my mood.

When I got to my own apartment which has 10 trees at the most and at least 60 percent of them are pine trees--which by the way only shed brown pine needles everywhere--my euphoria started to wear off, but I was glad I had a brief escape from from the dull gray existence which we Utahns call winter.

Disconnect

Utah Valley University is not the college of choice for most young adults in Utah. However there are a few positives of going to the state cop-out school.

1. The chicken fingers in the cafeteria are life changing

2. Almost every building is connected therefore you hardly ever have to go outside if the weather is undesirable.

One of the negatives of UVU is the fact that some of the buildings aren't connected to the main campus. And by not connected I mean pack your wagon and saddle up the horse, it'll take a couple days to get there. With some buildings it doesn't matter that they're so far away. The McKay Education Building for example (A)--A very small percentage of UVU students actually go to that building so it's no big deal that it's way across campus. The problem arises when a building that is pivotal to a student's success is .58 miles away from the center of campus (B) (For the record that is not an exaggeration. I Googled it). The building I refer to is none other than the testing center (C).

Sometimes the hike is marginally OK. On the days when the leaves are beautiful, the temperature is perfect, and the sun is shining but not so brightly that it blinds you. This blissful period of time is a 3-8 day block that can occur any time between mid of September to the end of November (welcome to Utah). Any other time the weather is either so hot you're sweating bullets or so cold and windy your nose starts running the second you step outside.

I had a particularly amazing experience on my way to the testing center today. It was pouring rain AND bitter cold. Oh, and my headphones were broken. How did I get so lucky? By the time I got back to school my hair was windblown, wet and tangled, my shoes were soaked through and my pants were wet up to mid-calf even after I painstakingly avoided all puddles.

I do try to find the positives in life though so two nice things about today? I wore waterproof mascara so my make up still looked alright when I got back to school, and my backpack shielded my back from the pouring rain. It's all about the silver lining right?... right?...