august: cleveland county

It's the Great Turkey, Chelsea Burris!

Y'all, this Thanksgiving break was one for the fiction section. I think I could write a very successful novel about this break in the tradition of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever or A Christmas Story. To start off the extravaganza, Mom & I met Cassandra and Patsy (our cousins) in Shawnee for lunch on Tuesday. We had a great time, and then went shopping at the Shawnee Mall, which has come back from being quite dead. I picked out a few things for Christmas, bought myself a pair of boots that look almost exactly like my beloved brown lace-up boots that didn't make it back from Germany, and got some fabric. That's right...I'm going to make curtains for the living room over Christmas break!

Wednesday was similarly eventful.

Emily went to the phone store to get them to switch her back to her old phone cause the new one was awful. Instead, she ended up with an iphone. Behold world: the Burrises have entered the 21st century!

That evening we went to the movies and saw Mockingjay. The best part of the movie is definitely in the middle where they just show the trailer for the movie to District 13 and then they all cheer. I liked that they cheered because it covered up Em's & my laughter.

After that we went by Lowe's because Mom & Dad needed something. (I have no idea what. We bought a poinsettia.) We found some Chelsea barstools, and then Emily and I skipped around serenading the store with lovely song. (Mom & Dad mysteriously disappeared...we couldn't find them. We ended up waiting out in the car.)

(We sang this song.)

Here we are at the movies. We're excited because we can take selfies with Em's new phone.

That evening we went to see Grandma & Granddad because Granddad had surgery - he looks like he got hit in the face quite a lot, but he seemed fine besides that. He was in good enough spirits to join Mom in mildly heckling Grandma while she was on the phone.

It's not Thanksgiving without a gun! (Jk. This was my first Thanksgiving gun.)

On Thanksgiving we went to my other grandparents' house. It was quite a fun time - Grandma made ham, which made me super happy because I really find turkey totally pointless. (Unless it's ground turkey for tacos. Ground beef is so expensive!) One of my uncles was there, but most of my cousins had come the day before - I'm sorry to have missed them because I'm pretty sure I still haven't met some of them!!

We got to see the famed hogs that Grandpa keeps on having to shoot at because his neighbor won't keep them in a pen. Additionally, there was an armadillo in the yard, so Dad tried to shoot it. (Hence the gun.) Overall, it was a rather wonderful Thanksgiving! I ate most of a batch of chocolate chip cookies by myself, which is always a good day.

The Sisters Burris with a Thanksgiving goose.

Gameday! We watched Arkansas vs. Missouri on tv on Friday. It was a shame that they lost...but there's always next year!

I also read quite a lot during this break. Here are my quick review of these books:

Pulse by Patrick Carmen: Soooo good! I was excited because the library had the sequel when I went this afternoon. It's another dystopian book, but the twist is that the main characters are (so far) working to preserve the new government system.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan: This book is science fiction feminism. It's fantastic if you can get over the fact that the girl talks kinda weird...she says "so" all the time and it took me most of the book to learn to ignore that.

Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves: Totally okay. I got the sequel today as well. Sometimes I love Neil Gaiman, and sometimes his characters are in such frustrating situations that I don't like it. Whatever, I still loved Neverwhere.

The Diviners by Libba Bray: I'd heard of Libba Bray a lot before I read any of her books. I was surprised by how much I liked this book - it's pretty creepy, and it definitely gave me a nightmare. It's also really long, so I was surprised when the ending was a bit of a cliffhanger. Even worse, the library didn't have the sequel checked in, so I'll have to wait for it!

I also reread one of the Fudge books by Judy Blume and was dismayed to discover that I'm closer in age to the parents than to Peter.

On Saturday we went to Tulsa to visit Target, which was quite fun! After that we stopped at the Muskogee mall to see a movie - Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, which was super cute.

Today I agreed to be the liturgist at church for December. I'm not quite sure how that happened...

I also got a fruit tea sampler pack, and the first cup I made diffused weirdly, and I thought it was pretty, so here's a picture!

Happy Advent, everyone!!

8:47 PM
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Current Reads!!

Here's a pile of books I'm currently reading or have recently read!!

From back to front: Rambunctious Garden by Emma Marris

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling

The Evolution of Faith by Philip Gulley

Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Atlantia by Ally Condie

I'm reading Rambunctious Garden for a class. It's okay so far - not really something I'd read if I were picking out a book, but it's interesting and I can already tell that the discussion about it in class next week will be good. Also....this is my last assigned book of the semester!!! Huzzah!

I'm rereading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me for the tenth time. It's still so funny! I think I read it at the beginning of the semester as well.

I'm not liking The Evolution of Faith as much as I thought I would. I'm not much for theology, but I'm giving it a whirl. I'm only halfway through, though, so it could become more interesting.

Inside the Kingdom is a fascinating book about Saudi Arabia. I'm about 3/4 done with it, and I liked it a lot better than the book I was assigned to read for class about SA. It's such a different culture - I'm still going to finish the book even though the class discussion about Saudi Arabia is over.

Finally, we get to the books I've finished!

City of Bones was not as good as I was expecting it to be. I feel like it was really hyped up on the internet, but it wasn't that different from other YA books I've read. I liked it, but I'm not sure if I'll read the others. (Jk. I'll read them. I'm also taking recommendations for winter break reading.) I feel like this book is getting a raw deal from me because I'm 23 and I've read so many other YA books. If I were 10 years younger, I might have absolutely loved these. (And this, my dears, marks the first time I've ever said "if I were 10 years younger.")

Last but not least, Atlantia. AHHHH. So good! I really like this even though I'm not the biggest fan of Ally Condie's voice. (Does this make sense? Some of her phrasings get on my nerves.) It's about a futuristic world where the environment got so bad that some people were sent to live in an underwater city (in a bubble) called Atlantia. It's dystopian with a twist because there's an element of a local religion and the supernatural, which makes it different from every single other dystopian novel out there. Also, Ally is from Utah so everyone in this book (and in her Matched series as well) has a really weird name. (Main character: Rio. Supporting: Bay (who I referred to as Bae), Maire, True). Overall, I liked this more than the Matched trilogy, but not as much as I liked The Selection,which I read last month and loved. It was cool that I put this book on hold right when it came out, so I was the first one to read it and there were no fingerprints on the cover when I got it. It's the little things in life!!

Somehow it's almost 10:30, so I'm going to head to bed. Cheers!

10:15 PM
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Schneefrei?!?!

Hello all!

Today was a snow day here at the University of Oklahoma. I was surprised to find out that President Boren records the message that goes out to students when the university closes; at Arkansas they always had a robot do it and it was very creepy. Since I have 2 of my 3 classes on Monday, it was like I missed a full week of 2 of my classes! One of my classes is coping by using the online discussion forum instead of class; the other class is just letting this week's material go. This means that I am done learning statistics - all I have left to do is my presentation!!

I've been making homemade lemon-limeade. It's tart, but so good! (Limes were 5 for $1 last week.)

I also made my Advent calendar last week. I cleaned out an old candle jar and attached some sequins before writing on the glass in Sharpie. I'm going to fill it with 25 thoughts of the day I wrote during Advent last year & read one a day! I'm also going to write new slips this Advent and make it a tradition!

I didn't get all the wax out. Oh well.

Related: We sang "Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates," my favorite Advent song, at church last Sunday. I thought that was strange since it's so close to Advent...

This past weekend I went home because Arkansas/LSU was on ESPN2 and I don't get that channel on the weird cable package at my apartment. It was definitely worth it to watch that game on tv. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO PIG!!!!

On Sunday morning, however, the weather forecast changed so that snow was predicted all day for Norman. I skipped church to drive home so I wouldn't get caught in bad weather, which turned out to be a good decision!

I made pizza for dinner with homemade crust & sauce.

The crust didn't rise this time? The last time I made pizza I used the same recipe and the crust rose. Bread is weird.

The last picture I took of the snowfall before it got too dark outside. They cancelled school around 9 pm....but by 10:30 this morning, most of it had melted! I definitely would've been safe going to my 3:30 class, but the roads would've frozen by the time I got finished with class at 9 this evening, so I'm glad I didn't have to go.

One last observation on this snow day: How many people do you know that got a day off of school for heat when it wasn't hot outside and a day off for snow when there wasn't snow outside within six months? I am crazy good at getting out of school. :P

9:04 PM
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Happy November!!

3:49 PM
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Typical Tuesday!

6:08 PM
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And and and....

It seems like so much has happened to me since the last time I posted! I went home and to a band contest and had a maybe dead mouse in my house and saw the infant Jesus of Prague and subbed for a prof and applied to intern at the State Department twice and wrote a paper and lead a class discussion and baked a lot of goodies for myself and watched I Ship It and bought a lot of books for a little money at the public library. Whew! I also slept 11 hours last night to rest up from all that amazing stuff.

Now I'm going to unpack that first paragraph a bit.

Last weekend I went home, but my parents weren't there the first evening since they went to Emily's choir concert in Fay. Since I knew they wouldn't be there, I stopped in Prague (pronounced Preg) on the way home because I'd always wondered the the National Shrine to the Infant Jesus of Prague (pronounced Prag) was. So I took I-40 home and stopped at the church. It seemed to be a Catholic church with a lot of statues of baby Jesus. I was totally alone in there, which was weird but cool. I liked it - if you've ever thought about visiting it, I'd recommend it!

On Saturday Mom, Dad, and I went to Ada to watch the band contest. We're such nerds - at least our neighbor is still in band so we've got a tiny bit of a connection! The band did Fiddler on the Roof and they were so good. We only stayed for a few bands since we wanted to get on home to watch football since both of our teams were on tv, but we got to see Elgin, which is my old high school band director's current band! As we were leaving town, we saw him standing by his bus so we stopped to say hi - it was great to see him again!

I submitted not one but two applications for two different internships with the State Department this week. I really hope that one of them works out - fingers crossed and thumbs pressed! I'd love to go to Berlin for the summer!!

On Sunday we had communion at church. The older lady sitting behind us had her mother with her. When communion was about to start, she asked her mom if she wanted to go down to communion. She said, "No, I want to go home!" It was very funny since she's a bit hard of hearing so she said it in a normal tone of voice.

I bought a bag of fresh cranberries on impulse last week...then realized that I had never had fresh cranberries before. They're really sour, so I've been putting them in salads and baking with them. It's quite tasty!

On Thursday one of the professors I work for wasn't going to be there, so she had me go in to put on a film for the kids. I guess she hadn't mentioned it to the class because they looked very confused when a girl who looks like a 10th grader showed up and started turning on the DVD player. I sat in the back and wrote half a short paper while they watched the movie for an hour - not a bad gig!

I watched the short film I Ship It on Thursday. It's so good! I absolutely loved it. The trailer is below. You should watch it too. Like all of Yulin Kuang's short films that I've seen, it makes me wonder why all films aren't like this.

Now to the main event: the maybe dead mouse.

I was making chocolate chip cookie bars yesterday when I dropped some of the chocolate chips. When I bent down to see if one had fallen under the fridge, I noticed a dead mouse! It freaked me out so I decided to deal with it later. When it came time for me to deal with it, I called my dad for advice and to have someone to scream at. First I poked it, and that was gross, so I had to use a pencil to get it out. I was grossed out by all of this, so I sprayed some antibacterial spray in the general direction of the mouse and spent a lot of time trying to convince Dad to come and do this for me. (He said no, by the way. He'll take care of Emily's dead cats, but not my dead mouse.) Finally, I got it out from under the fridge.

IT WAS A TOY MOUSE. I guess the girls that lived here before me had a cat and left a toy mouse under the fridge. This is karma for not forwarding their magazines...

That brings us to today. I woke up bright and early and excited because today is the Friends of the Norman Public Library's annual book sale!!! They've been setting up all week when I went there to read. There were so many people there - it was crazy, and the selection was way better than Eufaula's book sale. (Sorry Eufaula.) Check out this glorious bounty I got for SIX American dollars!!

If your eyes are a-failin', that's:

a Russian textbook

The First Two Lives of Lukas Kasha by Lloyd Alexander (a childhood favorite author - I've never read any of his non-children's stuff before)

the French film Micmacs (from the director of Amelie)

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in English cause I'm lazy. Also I've been to his house.)

The Idiot by Dostoyevsky

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

And out of all those, I've only read The Moffats before. That book only made the cut because it's almost Halloween and I always want to read that chapter where the art teacher comes and they all make red leaves around Halloween. At the book sale I saw a girl who I think was a real-life Rory Gilmore. Her dad asked if they already had a certain book and she said yes. When he started to put it down she said "No, wait! This copy will fit in my purse!" Their tall tall stacks of classic books were the reason I felt justified in picking up the last three books...

Also, what is up with this German train strike?! I watch the news almost every day to keep up with my language skills, and the train workers' union had a strike on Wednesday (I think) and then again all weekend. It's fall break in Germany, so they're ruining a lot of vacations and probably killing some little kid's dream of watching his favorite German soccer team play (the strike means that almost all the special trains from the main stations to stadiums are cancelled). If this had happened a year ago, either Maggie would've been stuck with me in Erfurt or I would have been stuck in Amsterdam (neither of these things would've been horrible, just inconvenient). Some of the trains are still running, but they're very unreliable and very crowded. I'm glad I'm not in Germany right now!!