how many people can live on planet earth?

this bbc documentary is incredible and terrifying all at the same time. i highly recommend this foray into a huge issue that is easy to push to the back of our privileged minds but will certainly arrive at the forefront in no time flat.

for my part, i support women's access to affordable birth control and only wash my hair once or twice a week.

what can you do to help?

[if you have questions about the hair washing - just ask. dry shampoo has changed my life]

more soon. my effervescent brother benjamin came here for thanksgiving and we had a lovely time. 

the christmas decorations are also now up. tis the season!

excuse me while i go study more and listen to some jolly tunes - prolly my go-to: sufjan stevens

xoxo,

k

slow news day

yesterday while doing my cleaning thang i decided to put the rascal in a pappose [due to her behaving like a rascal]. she fell right asleep! i'm not sure if there has ever been a funnier or cuter thing!

oh wait, there is a cuter thing: my bff kitty cat's engagement photos taken by the talented lacey crough! i am so excited to be a part of kitty and eric's big day in september. they are a wonderful couple and wonderful friends and that is an understatement.

making things

we're all young and naive still

we require certain skill

the motive changes like the wind

hard to control when it begins

-the naked and famous

i'm coming to you from the other side of some modestly successful cooking/baking endeavors. last week i was starving and i only had some frozen old bananas so a lightbulb went off and i decided to make cranberry banana muffins from scratch. yeah, that happened. i modified the recipe a little [i don't even know what shortening really is. vegan buttery spread worked just fine. also, craisins do the trick in place of real cranberries. and, cinnamon makes anything better, right?]. anyway, point is, they turned out like something i actually wanted to eat every morning for the next two weeks which i had to because i made a full batch. 


that upped my confidence, so the other day i made veggie fried rice with some peanut sauce. i have to give a shout out to michelle though, she showed me how first. then the leftovers were looking unappetizing so i threw in some onion and a smashed up black bean burger and some soy sauce and voila - i had the weirdest tasting concoction ever. maybe black bean burgers don't belong in fried rice. i ate it anyway being the pauper that i am. 


this is all to illustrate that i'm not ready to be on my own yet. i could still use a caretaker - you know, someone to take care of my budget and clean the toilet and cook me meals because heaven knows i am really quite bad at it. this is not a pity party - it's true. there is a very real reason i can't be a homemaker, and it's not because i'm some sort of feminist [that's a completely separate thing - i think modern feminism supports the choice to be a homemaker as long as it's actually your deliberate choice]. it's because i don't have the desire to learn to make yummy food and keep the house looking clean. i strongly dislike doing it. i feel like life is passing me by as i do dishes and prepare food that can be purchased premade in the freezer section [or that can be thrown together within 30 seconds as a sandwich]. these activities make me want to cry and i don't know what to do about it. 


HELP.

. . . look at the funny squirrel i saw coming home last week. i think he's pretending to be a statue so that i don't notice him. silly little rodent [is it a rodent?].

i feel the earth move

[under my feet]

i was finally doing my piles of neglected dishes and then there was an earthquake.

maybe i shouldn't mess with the natural order of things???

i have no excuse

hi y'all. i have absolutely no excuse for being mia for so long via interwebs, phone, text, mail, etc, except that i am lazy. and that is not an excuse, so i don't have an excuse. this is a placeholder for until i get my act together. probably tomorrow!

xoxo,

kate and the dog

another, yay

as requested, another vlog. what was i thinking? i always start out with such high hopes for vlogs, but then i always just end up talking about a lot of nothing. i meant to talk more about how i got to go sailing on saturday, and how awesome the conference was, and how interesting and confusing the brain is. OH WELL. goes to show i can't think on my toes. (think on my feet? what is that expression?) i think the take home message from this post is that i appreciate everyone who reads my blog. even the people i don't know personally. thank you for listing to me blabber on and on in an often lame fashion!

xoxo,

k and e

***clarification: i just listened to my vlog and it sounds like i call strangers who read my blog lame, but i don't. i actually meant lame in relationship to my blog posts and my vlogs [because let's be honest, those are typically lame]. i greatly value all of the strangers that read my blog and you are absolutely not lame! in fact you're the opposite of lame. you're aweeeesome.***

ha ha ha

i always have some laughs when this happens. hopefully you too. this is michelle + me at babber's public policy school graduation last weekend. more pictures to come :)

help me not spend my $$, please.

someone needs to stop me right now! i should never have set up one-click purchasing on amazon.com. yesterday when bernie sanders was on the jon stewart show, i just popped on over to amazon and bought the book he was promoting (when am i even going to read it? or maybe it'll just make me look smarter sitting on the bookcase or in the bathroom??). tonight, the neuro coloring book i purchased earlier this week on amazon told me i could use colored felt tip pens instead of colored pencils, so i popped on over to amazon and one click purchased twenty dollars worth of paper mate flair pens. in my defense, all the studying and writing has made my right hand hurt. apparently i push really hard when i write and am now getting writing utensil calluses. the pens will alleviate that, because you don't have to use as much pressure with pens, compared to colored pencils. plus you don't have to sharpen them. i can reason my way out of anything, just try me.

i'm at a bit of a crossroads at this instant. do i stay awake and study for 2.5 more hours and then watch the royal wedding? or go to sleep because for real, who actually cares? i will probably end up going to sleep because i'm a crazy monster when i don't stick to my normal sleep schedule (which isn't really normal except to me, but what is normal, really?).

ok, nighty night :)

k (e is already passed out)

tornado watch

hey team! ellie and i are reporting from the tail end of a tornado watch for dc. i'm fairly certain that we won't see tornadoes in our region, but if we do then we are quite prepared since we come from hurricane alley, the heart of 'merica (i'm not super proud to claim missouri today, because of this atrocity. i'm not ready to talk about it yet).

happier news is that i filled out a 5 minute survey on diversity at my school and obtained a $15 itunes gift card as a thank you! love it. but what to purchase? i need your feedback! i don't want to waste my free money. should i get the new florence + the machine album? fleet foxes? death cab for cutie? netters neuroscience flashcards for my ipod? feel free to voice your opinion!

also i just did my obligatory etsy search for cute craft items applicable to my current module. apparently the crafting community greatly enjoys brains. my search yielded many cute results!

(arteries of brain look sort of like a monster)

brain slugs

brain skull cap! ingenious!

soap

anyway, that's all. i'm going to learn things now to try to distract myself from abused puppies and possible tornadic events.

much love,

kate and the princess

ps this is what i did to my toe before the Easter brunch (which is a tale for another post) (my toe bled more and felt way worse than the picture shows) (but we all know that i can be a bit of a whiner)

vlog deux

heyyy friends, check it*:

also,

i took the outdoorsy pictures of the pretty trees while i was biking home. sans helmet. i know, mom. it won't happen again, probably. you'll also notice the princess with her cupcake, some chipotle, as well as my cupcakes (yes, i bought 2. i'm not even embarassed) (also, notice the strawberry one on the left. wouldn't it have looked funny if i had gotten 2 of the strawberry ones? lol). 

xoxo,

kate and pup

*apologies for the artless editing, incoherent political analysis, and the tmi regarding my undergarments.

vliggity vlog

i made a vlog (vlog = video + blog) for your viewing pleasure last night when i was up late and trying to be productive. however, after i recorded this little bit and listened to it, i realized how annoying my voice is and then i was distracted the rest of the night! i am so sorry for anyone who has to hear it on a regular basis. it's kinda high, and squeaky. wow. i suppose i won't be making a vlog a regular occurrence around here. anyway. sorry in advance :)

 

(also i think i meant that "brain is a muscle" was a metaphor, not an analogy . . . i don't even know. who let me out of middle school??)

animals are my friends,
and i don't eat my friends.
-george bernard shaw

(that's a milkbone in her chompers)

awkward family photo and a cute dog

here are a couple old photos to tide you over until i do or think something interesting to blog about

up the poudre river canyon last spring

e playing in the snow, colorado 1 year ago

oh. my. goodness.

the clumsiest person on earth strikes again. during my morning rush to class, i was rocking out to mumford and sons and taking the steps two at a time when - during the bridge of this catchy tune - my feet flew out from under me and my tail-feather slammed into the stairs with alarming impact. straight out of an america's funniest home video. except no one saw, thank goodness. so i got up and waddled through the rest of the {ridiculously long} school day. ouch. i have the lowest pain tolerance out of anyone in the world. basically my butt bones hurt when i'm walking, sitting, lying on my back or stomach, and the worst when i bend over. looks like its a weekend of lying on my side and trying to concentrate on schoolwork while my pup goes nuts over being snow-bound for days. bless our souls.

nighttime in the city here

believe me!

the secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously! -f. Nietzsche

hey hey friends. reporting from the other side of a crazy, crazy weekend. ohmigoodness. i don't even want to tell you all about it because it was pretty embarrassing. but i will, because i'm an open book :)

so friday night i sort of bummed around and watched a movie with e called "easy a" - so cute. then on saturday i was so excited to see my dear friend g and her husband a and the rest of their posse. it was so fun! i sort of arrived late in the game after they had done some sightseeing and museum seeing, then we went to dinner and drinks and then they came back to my place to help me get ready for the winter ball - aka med school dance. g is a miracle worker who made me look nice in spite of myself.

{i tried to steal some photos that g took to put here but for some reason mister macbook p won't let me use them. so sorry}

anyway, i went to the winter ball. important to note is that there was an open bar with minimal food. and friends that kept handing me yummy drinks. so in short, i made lots of new friends but also made a fool out of myself. so there's a really good chance that the "new friends" i made just think i'm a sloppy tipsy girl. for example: i dropped a glass in the middle of the dance floor! how embarrassing is that?! i also kept falling off my shoes, but that is less a reflection of how tipsy i was and more a reflection of the fact i was wearing uncharacteristically high heels with a left ankle that i'm pretty sure is slightly sprained from Christmas break when i fell down a step (katie and colin - you remember ;) lol). i also have the bad habit when i've had a couple drinks of telling people about how if i choose my ethnicity, i'd be Asian. and finally, i got a cab ride home with a stranger. but don't worry. i made it to my own place safely. i was supposed to meet up with g and the gang at a bar after the dance, but at that point i was pretty tipsy and just needed to sleep i guess. i felt like such a bad friend since i really only spent like 5 hours total with g when she had flown all the way up here to visit. ugh. xoxo i love you g! i'm going to make it up to you :)

the reasons i told you guys all of that embarrassing stuff is 1. because you guys are my friends and 2. so that i can get it off my chest. i always feel like such a fool after being silly and now i can move on and forget about it. and make better decisions in the future. probably :)

anyhow, so obviously yesterday was spent sleeping and eating greasy food and staring at the ceiling and watching a how i met your mother marathon. today i need to get back in the game by studying the intricacies of the gastrointestinal system - oh yay! i'll keep you all updated on how incredibly awesome it is to learn such things. and i'll find some pictures from this weekend for you. in the meantime - here's a cute and awesome music video:



She & Him - Don't Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

the gall of it all

also, i failed to mention:

feeling nauseous at the sight of all green stuff. all i can think of is how green bile is. barf in my mouth.