Too Close for Comfort!

You know your wedding is close when the milk in the fridge expires 3 days after you have left on your honeymoon!! AHHHHH!

Sorry!

For everyone who reads my blog regularly (um if there is anyone) I am sorry for not updating you on things for the past several days. Here is a quick summery of what has been happening.

I am done with school! I have a bacherlor's degree in Communication with a minor in general studies emphasis in Italian. Woohoo! I guess I won't feel much about it until I march in May though. Then it will really hit me. Maybe.

I had another bridal shower! This is my thrid one and each one was very different and fun. I loved them all! Thank you to everyone who took the time to put them together for me! I was searching for a picture of a slumber party because that is what my bridal shower was when I came across the plate and napkin pattern that my mom used to decorate! Ha!

I am now home and am crazy busy trying to get everything done for the wedding. You can't blame me much for not posting can you? Well, hopefully I will find the time to post again before I am a Mrs.

I like movies...

Last night we all went to see "Chronicles of Narnia". I have never read the book "The lion, the witch and the wardrobe" but I remember listening to it on audio tape at a daycare I went ot when I was about 4. Of course I didn't remember anything about it but I do remember hearing it once. ANYWAY.

It was a very good movie. It truly was a kids movie. I don't think I saw any blood. Except on some of the characters faces but just drip here and there. There are some people who put this movie in the same category with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I really don't know what they are thinking. This movie is so obviously an allegory that it can't really be called anything else.

The lion represents Jesus. For some reason, this movie made more of an impression on me than "The Passion of the Christ". It is odd, but it is easier for me to believe that a lion is loving and forgiving than to beleive that a human is. There was such power in that lion and yet so much love. I know that is what the Bible says God/Jesus is but I can't imagine a more appropriate figure to represent him than a lion.

Well, sorry this review has been so disjointed and rambling. I would go see this movie if I were you.

Snowing and sliding

It is snowing here in [town I live]. I like snow sometimes but mostly I am just scared of what snow means. No, I am not scared that snow means that water vapor is crystalizing. I am scared that snow means slippery roads and slippery roads mean death, destruction, misery, and chaos. Whenever anyone is late for something nowadays, you can't just automatically get annoyed. The first thought that comes to your mind is that they got in a car accident.

I went two doors down from Jason's house for my [second] bridal shower. It has a steep driveway and I couldn't make it up. It was quite disconcerting to turn the steering wheel and not have the tires follow. What was even more disconcerting was the way the car just stopped halfway up the hill even though I hadn't changed the pressure on the gas pedal. I backed up and tried again to no avail. Then my friends dad came down and towed me up the driveway. which I am eternally grateful for but it does seem kind of silly to be towed by a car that is not that much bigger than mine. The weird thing is that I went up the hill no problem when I was being towed by the other little car. Humph. Well at least one other person had to be towed up too. I just loved the way that I walked in the door and people said, "Really? Well, my car made it up just fine."

yeah yeah

Today, interrupted....

I just got back from TAing A&P lab. It was my job today to teach and quiz people over the structure of the eye. I thought I would get sick of it fast but the students caught on with surprising adeptness. I say surprising not because they aren't smart but because it was like pulling teeth to get them to learn the bones of the skull.

Most of lab consited of me pointing and repeating over and over "superior rectus, sclera, retina, anterior chamber filled with aqueous humor..." and so on and so forth. Soon they started chanting along with me. I have to admit, it really did boost my self-esteem to have 7 people at a time standing around me, following my lead in such a loud manner, and actually learning something at the end of everything!

You know what is cool about being a TA? You get to learn a whole bunch of stuff all over again that you have totally forgotten . I was sitting in the lab chair when the head TA said announced to the class "Larissa will be teaching you all the structures of the eye and then quizing you over them. I haven't told her yet, (looks at me) but she will be back there with the eye model". I smiled "sure" and then desperately grabbed a nearby book to refresh my memory on eye parts. It was quite humbling to be back with the tumbling eye model with my first 2 pupils, looking through their book with them and pretending like I was just looking at it for some other reason than trying to figure out what that black squiggly shape was. But by the end of the evening, I could have named those structure blinfolded. I doubt I will ever forget them again! (knock on wood)

I need to go to sleep, I have been at the computer too long and my eyes hurt. I think my choroid must be kinked.

Pride & Prejudice

Tonight Jason's dad and step-mom took the family to see this movie. I was very excited to see it as I am in the middle of reading the book for the 3rd time now (it is my favorite). I was expecting it not to be very good for a four reasons. First, I couldn't imagine anyone but Colin Firth playing Mr. Darcy, second because I saw Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy kiss in the preview and was SURE that they were going to try to put sex in the movie even though it wasn't in the book, third because it is a feature length movie and I couldn't imagine that they could fit everything important in that amount of time (the BBC version is like 4 VHS tapes long), and fourth because Kiera Knightley seemed subdued in all the scenes in the previews and Elizabeth Bennet is supposed to be a feisty, fun, laughing girl.

Here are all the reasons I was wrong and then some.
1. Matthew MacFadyen (I am not a nerd, I had to look his name up)actually played quite a good Darcy. He had intense eyes (which is critical to the character) and good smile. Which the audience only gets to see twice for very brief moments. One thing that was good with this Mr. Darcy is that you could see earlier on that he actually has feelings. I think you have to wait longer in other films.
2. The kissing scene actually is realistic because it is after they get married. The book doesn't visit that part but it was a nice scene to finish up with I think.
3. Since I am reading the book right now, I noticed that all of the important dialogue is there. Pretty much verbatim. You never get the sense that a scene is missing even though I know some were missing. There were a couple minor scenes added which were there to make up for the scenes they took away but really, it was an excellent adaptation! I didn't feel like anything was missing.
4. I don't know why they only showed a subdued Lizzie in the previews. She was quite the opposite in the film. Kiera Knightley did a very good job. Very believable and I think I like her better than the Elizabeth in the BBC version. (although it is VERY close)

This movie was different than other period films becuase it felt far more real. In other films, everything is perfect and proper and clean and no hair is out of place. In this film, they live in a great house but you can actually tell that they are in a different class than Darcy. They have girl stuff spread around in the drawing room, the girls aren't always perfect and the hair was messy sometimes. I think people nowadays can identify with it more when it is like that.

I give this movie four stars! Go see it.
Happy Thanksgiving by the way!

Oprah's Favorite Things & America's Next Top Model

Well, I sat in front of the TV for a couple hours today. I watched two back to back episodes of Americas Next Top Model and then an episode of Oprah. Yes that is three hours of television, yes I feel silly admitting it.

All of the girls on Top Model are gorgeous. There is one girl though that I am absolutely surprised everytime I see her posing. In everyday life, she is an average girl with long wavy brown hair and freckles. When they do her up in make-up however, she is crazy beautiful supermodel! She doesn't even look like the same girl to me. This is her before make-up:
















and this is after!

















It is weird what watching this show does to an average, sane girl. I found myself making "magnum" faces while I was sitting on the couch watching. And I am sure that when I got up, I walked to a beat that only I could hear and swung my hips with extra gusto.

Then Oprah was on. She had a whole bunch of people who helped out with the Hurricane Katrina disaster come on the show as audience members. Then she gave them all each of her favorite things. Now these aren't just everyday favorite things like comfy socks, these were things like the new iPod, a watch with 50 diamonds on it, Ugg boots, cashmere seaters, burberry jackets, etc. Here is the link if you care to look at the full list along with the pictures of everything. http://www.oprah.com/presents/2005/holiday/gifts/gifts_oft.jhtml I don't know why you would want to look. But hey, I would. Maybe you guys aren't as big of dorks as I am. Well anyway, its up to you.

An Update

The main reason that I am updating my blog right now is because I am sick of my adsense displaying ads about microbiology. I am pretty excited because I know what a lot of the words in the ads mean. But I mean, I am already in school enough. Here, I am going to put some key words in this post so that adsense will put up some nice feel good ads. Feel good huh? hmmm. Flowers, babies, puppies, pictures, weddings, financial security, family, Bible, books, movies, friends, nature.... heh.
That's better huh?

Exciting 3-D Microbiology Experience!

I am sitting in microbiology right now and I thought I would give you a little peek into my life. I am going to type exactly what I hear the teacher saying. This probably won’t be too interesting….

“The FC portion of the molecule is really quite important because cells like the macrophage have FC receptors on its surface. What that means is that the immunoglobulin molecule can attach by it’s FC tail”…..”also on basophiles and mast cells which are responsible for the allergies that we face from time to time. Now what I would like to do next, and we have touched on this before, I would like for us to go over the various isotypes that we talked about before. Let’s talk about them, just in a little more detail. Remember these are five istotypes that are based on the constant region on the heavy chain. “

“So if you want to protect the person against diphtheria you would give that person anti serum, or diphtheria anti-serum for that antigen. So anti-serum always refers to serum that has antibodies. The other thing that I want to mention is this term titer. What does that mean? It refers to the concentration of immunoglobulin, of antibodies in the serum. Let me ask you this, is a higher titer a better situation than a low titer? Yes or no? The answer is yes.”

Here are two paragraphs I was able to type down. You guys should try that. It is harder to type exactly what a person says that I thought it would be. Then again, I don’t type the fastest.

New side bar thing

I just want to direct everyone's attention to my new section on the sidebar. It is my quote of the week section. This is actually the second week I have had it there but I wasn't sure if anyone noticed. So just to make sure...

I am turning really html savvy. I had to copy and paste and puzzle together alot of things to get that section to look so pretty.

Sorry if you guys don't hear from me in awhile. I have a really busy week ahead of me. I love to read your comments though!

Wedding Music

Ok, this post is for music lovers and non-music lovers alike. What are some of your favorite wedding songs you have heard? Either during the ceremony or at the reception? Or, if you don't know, what are some songs that you think would make good wedding songs?

A Leahy Concert for us!

Jason's dad called us from his cell phone during intermission and told us we had to get over to the concert hall because these people were amazing. So Jason and I, deciding to be spontaneous (more likely just avoiding homework), hopped in the car and went. Luckily his dad had extra tickets.

And they were amazing. They are from Canada but I thought at first they were from Ireland because of the type of music they play and because they almost sounded like they had an Irish accent.

They are a group of brothers and sisters. There are 8 of them! But those are only the ones who play in the group. They have 3 other siblings besides. Anyway, they all play the fiddle like you wouldn't believe and the curly haired girl played incredible piano! For their encore, they kept switching their different instruments back and forth and they could all play them a million miles per hour. THEN, they broke out into sycronized step-dancing while still playing their instruments! They all knew how to step dance like crazy and their music was perfect for it.

It was weird. I was sitting in the concert hall watching them and I "took a step back" and looked at myself sitting there. I was sitting in a plush chair, hands folded in my lap, a somber quasi frown on my face with no toe tapping or anything. But I realized that if I was in my own house listening to a CD of these people at that same moment, I would be dancing and jumping my head off! But really, their music does make one happy and I reccomend it to everyone! I think I will even have to buy their CD, and I don't ever do crazy stuff like that.

A walk in the woods

Today we went for a walk in the woods. The woods are beautiful here! Here are some pictures from our adventure:

I couldn't help but collect pretty leaves as I walked. Can you blame me?

Danelle and Jason walk across the new bridge. Ok, one last picture.

Old Italy Pictures

I was feeling nostalgic so I thought I would reminisce with some picture from my year studying abroad in Italy. These are some pictures that some of my friends sent me. They are lucky because they had a digital camera and I had a film one. That is why I am putting their pictures up here and not mine.

This is Lisa, Gilbert and I waiting for a train. McDonald's ice cream was only 50 cents a cone!

This is Bonnie and I on a beach in England. Miranda, Bonnie and I went on a road trip for spring break!! Woohoo!

This is us on our road trip being obvious tourists... And one last picture:

Bonnie and I on a scooter 1 minute (literally) before we crashed into that mini wall you see in the background. Bonnie still bears scars down her leg. I had jeans so I escaped with just a haunted memory! :]

An Onion Trick!

Are you sick of tears running down your face every time you prepare a nice meal containing onions? Do the old wives tales that have never worked get you down? Do you want to retire your onion cutting paraphernalia? Here is a picture of me before I found out the onion cutting trick.
Once you know the trick, all you need is a knife, onion and a smile!

The Trick:

• Cut the onion in half (quickly as to not let the venomous gases reach your eyes).
• Place onion halves in the refrigerator for 30 min. to an hour.
• Remove and chop!

No more goggles, no more handkerchiefs, no more slobbery matchsticks!

Fall is in the air

Just so you know, fall here is BEAUTIFUL! The air is crisp, the sweater inviting, the leaves falling, and the couples are snuggling! In fall here, the leaves all change color and you can't help but go on a quest for the perfect leaf. You can press it but it will never be the same as the first day when you find it on the ground and can spend half an hour just staring and exclaiming "wow".

Here is a picture of some leaves in Jason's yard. Behold beauty:

You know what would be a perfect living arrangement for me? Simply this: I would have not just a summer house but a fall, winter and spring house as well. Not that I have a summer house right now but anyway...

I could travel all over and find just the place I love the most in spring and live there every spring in house that was built to best represent spring. For fall, maybe I would buy a house in Vermont or Massachusettes where I could live in a small town where people still make their own maple syrup (do places like that still exist?).

That would be the life eh?

Oh, by the way. If you want to comment but you don't have a login or password, just click on comment and go to the bottom of the page and fill in the other circle. Then you can just write something, enter your name, publish the post and go on your merry way! Hope to hear from you all. Don't forget to click on my ads! Actually, I have found that I have been clicking on my ads a lot because they relate to the things I write about. "Cheap bridesmaid dresses"? I'll click away!!!

Interesting?..... I'll show you interesting!

Today I gave a speech on the first female physcian. Elizabeth Blackwell. How come I never knew that before? I mean, I am going into medicine. Kind of. And I am a woman. Ya know, there aren't that many things that you can say "The first male..." about and that is really too bad. No body thought anything of it when men did something like become a blacksmith (unless he invented blacksmithing or something). That is really too bad. People just expected men to do stuff so they never recorded it. When women, or other minorities do something, it is well documented. I suppose their are always exceptions to that. Anyway...

Elizabeth Blackwell is an intensely interesting character. I wouldn't reccomend using her as an informative speech topic though because there is SO much information to cover. And you want to include most of it because it is all so interesting. You could write a very good paper on her though. I would reccomend her autobiographies. She has a very interesting writing style and kept extensive journals. This is a picture of her late in life.

Speaking of speeches. Argh! I don't mind making speeches, it is writing them that KILLS me! Up until I am actually standing in front of the room speaking, I am convinced that I am going to flunk the stupid speech. Luckily that hasn't happened yet. I actually usually end up doing just fine. I do know that a much better speech can come out of the material I am speaking on and that is why I think I am going to do bad. Oh, well.

What's sensible about adsense?

Ya noticed how I have shamelessly included google ads on my blog? Well.....I get paid everytime someone clicks on them! So, along with commenting, you guys should really click on my ads. It is fun and everybody is doing it!! Really it is all the rage......

More picky about bridesmaid dresses than my own?

I really don't know how it is possible that I could be more picky about my bridesmaid dresses than I was about my own wedding dress. I found my wedding dress the 3rd day I went looking. And I thought that was bad!!! I have been looking for bridesmaid dresses for about, oh, 15. That is just counting the days that I have actually sat down and looked hard on the internet or gone to an actual bridal store to try some on.

I am in fact so picky that the two bridesmaids that I had around to shop with have now told me they won't go shopping with me anymore. So now, I am shuttleing Jason along with me until he gets bored (won't be long, might have already happened). Today I even had my mom drive to a bridal shop on her side of the country to sift through their shelves. I had her call me on the phone and tell me what the dresses looked like hoping that maybe, just maybe I would find the elusive dress that wasn't on the internet (I have looked at all of those, trust me) or at other bridal salons I have visited.

All the dresses just look the same to me!! They either look like this:






OR like this
-->










Can't tell the difference? Yeah, me niether.

They are either too plain, too hip ripple displaying, too strapless, too expensive, too fire engine red, too sparkely, or too cleavage revealing.

What is a bride to do I ask you? Anybody have any suggestions besides "stop being so picky?"

Photo tour?

Today my fiance and I went on a photo tour. We are on break for a couple days and we have a nice new camera. We also sell our photos online at istockphoto.com. I have already made $4.30!!! wooohoo!

Anyway, what was supposed to be a 'photo tour' turned into a 'drive along Lake Michigan looking for streets that are on our map' tour. I had printed out a driving route from the internet that was supposed to be good but mostly it was just small towns that used to be something but are now overrun by sculptors. I like small towns though so we had some good times! We stopped at a Swedish Bakery and bought a cranberry muffin and some apple strudel. So that we wouldn't get powdered sugar everywhere, we stopped at the beach to eat.

Here is me biting into the Swedish treat. Yummy! For those of you who haven't seen Lake Michigan, here is a picture of me on the shore of it.

It is actually quite beautiful! I never would have expected this in Michigan but I really think there are a lot of parts of Michigan that are extremely unique and scenic. Lake Michigan is cool because it is a beach with sand and waves but no salt!! And it freezes over in the winter! Crazy!

Well, I didn't really get any pictures to sell on istock but I got some to put on my blog! All in all it was a good experience. I would suggest exploring an area near you that has always been there but you just never made the time to go. It is especially fulfilling if you get lost a couple times!

Its official, I beat my last online record of three posts. Congratulations are in order.

By the way, when I spellchecking my post, it wanted me to replace 'blog' with 'bloc'. How is it possible that this blog site doesn't know its own name?

Whenever I open this page....

My mind goes blank. I think of all the things that I want to write while I am logging in and such but then when I get to the page where I am going to write, my mind goes blank. Blogging anxiety?

This is my second post. One more until I will have matched my previous record.

My fiance and I watched Madagascar last night. Yes it was at the dollar theater, yes we are cheap. By the way, does anyone know why the dollar theater costs $2? I mean, they should just call it "Cheap theater". Maybe I can get them on false advertising....

Oh, Madagascar. We decided we should see this movie because we are going to be spending a bit of time in Madagascar for our honeymoon. Turns out, the only thing that signifies the island as being Madagascar is the existence of Lemurs in the movie. People who don't know that Lemurs only live in Madagascar were probably wondering where the name came from.

It was an ok movie. I guess I have gotten used to animated movies that are advertised for kids but are really funny for adults as well. There were funny parts but most of the humor ran pre-adolescent. Ah well. It was only 2 bucks.

Blogs and Tachycardia

So, I have tried to do an online type journal thing before. I posted about 3 times. Let's see if I can at least beat my previous record.

A week ago, my fiance` Jason got a call from Loma Linda School of Medicine. "The admissions committee would like to offer you a spot in the medical class of..." Etc. This was quite the exciting moment. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to experience it with him. But I hugged him directly afterward and let me tell you his heart was beating quite profusely. Or as they will encourage him to say in med school, "The patient had severe tachycardia..."

Today, Jason sent his $100 dollar deposit to the school along with a "data sheet" asking him all kinds of questions like his age and address and other such redundancies which they asked in his application. As we were walking out of the post office, Jason turned to me and said "You realize I just sold my soul to Loma Linda..."

I am grateful that other people of a more menacing type haven't found out that all his soul costs is $100.

I am feeling pretty sick today. I wish I could post a picture that showed a picture of a very sick looking person so you could see the degree of sorriness that you should feel for me, but I think I will save the carazzzzy technical stuff for my second post.