What the world wants to do...

A while back Google added a feature where, when you are typing something into the search box, it will attempt to finish what you are typing with popular search phrases. This can be quite useful on occasion (you know, when you don't want to finish typing the whole phrase, and it happens to appear in the list of suggestions). My brother suggested that I type the word "how" into the search box and see what it comes up with, so I did.

how to tie a tie
how i met your mother
how to kiss
how stuff works
how to get pregnant
how to make money
how to lose weight
how to draw
how to make a website

So, my friends, that is what the world most wants to do: tie a tie, kiss, get pregnant (probably in that order), make money, lose weight, draw, and make a website.

Let's hear it for a successful 2009!

Apples to Apples

or, "Meet my Family"

After a rousing game of Apples to Apples, everyone has to read the green cards that they won, as a description of their personality. Here are tonight's results:


aaron:
funny
playful
hilarious
responsible
repulsive
popular
dignified
dead
masculine
meek
quiet
crazed
lazy
foreign
trustworthy
refined
smart
refreshing
My comment on this one was "hey... most of those are pretty realistic... except dead. and popular." hahaha.

mom:
twisted
painful
zany
dysfunctional
healthy
horrifying
dull
realistic
miserable
pure
furious
spiritual
fuzzy
spunky
easy
melodramatic
unusual
manly
Yep, that's my mom alright. :P

nay:
lucky
crazy
worldly
revolutionary
silly
haunting
demanding
hopeless
honorable
deadly
elitist
powerful
eccentric
dangerous
ridiculous
Sounds like a teenager to me...

Me:
earthy
heartless
desperate
fragrant
legendary
rich
depressing
lovable
overwhelming
woebegone
graceful
relaxing
spooky
violent
mischievous
glorious
dirty
distinguished
goody-goody
puffy
hot
Well, as you can tell, I totally won. Go me. I especially like a few of these such as "goody-goody". hahaha. right.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles...

I made it home for Christmas! But not without incident. :) It all started on Friday when the big storm that we had all heard rumors about finally hit. I got an email Friday morning from the BU Emergency Alert Services instructing "all non essential personnel" to leave campus by noon in order to beat the storm. I, unfortunately, was very essential that day--due to the fact that I am a TA (aka slave) and was grading the AS202 final--so I was not able to leave on or before noon. Thus, I didn't beat the storm. When I finally did leave school, the snow was coming down full force. It made it rather unpleasant to wait for the T. The snow continued all night, and I decided to leave pretty early Saturday morning just in case it took longer to get to the airport than usual. Also, my roommate had told me that the lines in the airport were insanely long so I should be sure and get there early. Thus, I left my house around 9:30. My flight was scheduled to leave at 1:30. Probably a little too far on the cautious side even for me, but I didn't have much else to do that morning anyway.

Sadly, I had no delays getting to the airport (other than that I was meeting Ryan at Gov. Center and he was a little late, but it was all good), and check-in was a breeze. I wasn't checking luggage so I just went to the self-service kiosk and it took all of 2 minutes. The line for security wasn't bad, either. I made it all the way to my gate before 11:30. Then I curled up on those oh-so-comfortable airport chairs and fell asleep. I woke up around 1 when Ryan called me to see if I made it on my flight. It's a good thing he called or I may have slept through the boarding calls. The flight boarded fairly on time and we pulled out onto the tarmac where we proceeded to wait for 2 hours for the de-icer. On the plus side, we had a movie to watch to keep us entertained. On the minus side (can you even say that?), said movie was "Fred Claus." On the plus side, they gave us free headphones. On the minus side, I missed my connection in Cincinnati practically before our plane even took off.

Realizing I was going to miss my connection, I texted my family and asked them to check if there were more flights out of Cincinnati to Salt Lake that day. I was originally supposed to go to Cincinatti, then to Las Vegas, then to Salt Lake. But I missed the boat on that one. We took off and I had to turn off my cell phone before I was able to finish my conversation with various family members, but when we (finally) landed in Cincinnati I got a text from my uncle telling me that he had rebooked me on a direct flight to Salt Lake from Cincinnati. I didn't even know he had gotten involved until that point, but it was nice. Many of the other passengers on my flight ended up having to standby to get on other flights, but I already had a ticket and a seat assigned and everything, so it was much less of a pain for me and I didn't have to wait in any long lines or anything. That took a lot of stress off. Turns out I had gotten one of the last seats on the last flight to Salt Lake that day. Else I would have had to stay overnight and wait until the next afternoon for a flight.

While I was waiting for my flight to leave, I started talking to a Canadian couple who were standing by for my flight. They were headed to Park City for a big family Christmas/skiing thing. They had also missed an earlier connection and were stressing out about getting on my flight. I eventually had to ditch them to board the plane, but I later saw them get on. Apparently some people had missed that flight because other flights were coming in late. Craziness. It was a zoo.

I finally made it to Salt Lake at around 11:30 pm, and my brother and his friend had been kind enough to wait for me even though I was much later than I had originally been planning to be there. So they took me home with them and we ended up getting in at almost 2 am. Good times. I am so glad I made it, though, and despite the missed connection, it was a lot less painful than I thought it would be--thanks to my brothers and my uncle (who managed to rebook me without even having my confirmation number or anything, wow) and all my awesome family. I am so lucky to have the family that I do.

Comment nazi

Hi, my name is JM and I moderate comments. I also don't post some of them, including a recent anonymous comment I got. If you have something to say but you don't have the guts to take credit for it, exactly why do you expect me to put it on my blog? I take credit for all the things that I write here. Seriously, it's not that hard to put a name in that little field.

A while back I got into an argument with a friend about the fact that I moderate comments. He said it was lame. I said I hardly get any comments anyway, so it's practically a moot point. He seemed to think it was somehow morally wrong to moderate. So, here's my policy on comment moderation (not that any of you care): This is my blog. It's not a democracy, it's a dictatorship (though perhaps sometimes it resembles more of an anarchy). There is no "freedom of speech" here. Sorry, but it's true. I created the blog to post the things that I want, and if someone leaves a comment that annoys or offends me in any way, I feel absolutely no moral obligation to post it. Why should I? I'm not going to get all noble and be like "everyone's opinions should be expressed," because this isn't a public-opinion-expressing-forum. It's JM's blog. Where JM writes boring things about her mostly mundane life. If you want to comment and say "JM, you're a loser" I don't feel the need to let that one through--though in that case I probably would anyway because, seriously, that would be funny. hahaha. So there we go. This is my little corner of the internet, where I make the rules. [insert evil laugh here] Love it or leave it (and write a "JM, you're a loser" comment on the way out).

TIME magazine seriously rocks sometimes

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863395_1863399,00.html

watch out

Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage

Oh, no! I think this might be a sign... the trees are trying to kill us.

One final down

Two to go...

I don't know if that's good news or bad news. It wasn't a total train wreck, at least. Or, as Chris put it, it was a survivable train wreck. On the plus side, I think I pulled a good enough score so as not to fail the class. :) That's pretty much all I'm asking for right now. I'm not picky.

Now, should I go home and sleep?

So much to do, so little time....

hmm...

JM
Enjoyed the rain until she had to walk in it for extended distances. :P
Going home in a couple weeks--yay!

Eats pizza a lot. (But not enough!)
Loves space physics now that the class is over.
Saw the Grand Canyon IMAX movie and wants to go there again.
Keeps forgetting to buy a new buss pass.
Ebbs.
Really should buy new pants. again.

Brought a blanket to school.
Understands magnetic reconnection. FINALLY.
Reads books a lot.
Feels REALLY tired right now.
Edjukated.
Loves glitter.
Thinks she's a lot more amusing than she probably really is.

Oh every time it rains, It rains...

...pennies from heaven


Today it rained! It was such beautifully warm weather--very surprising for December in New England. But I appreciated every second of it. :) :) And if I had had an umbrella, I would have kept it upside down. ;)

JM is happy.

I can't help it...

I'm a nerd.

When I was flying home from Copenhagen last week, it occurred to me that when you line up to get on the plane, you are in a queue, but the plane itself is a stack--so if you want to be one of the first ones off, you have to be one of the last ones on. Then I started programming a getting-on-and-off-a-plane program in my head. Then I realized how incredibly nerdy that made me (but I didn't stop, haha).

look at me all grown up

I've been thinking lately about what it means to be an "adult," since at the age of 26 I think I'm well past the point where I should be considered one. And to be frank with you all, I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing. Seriously, I feel like I missed the orientation class for being a grown up. I left home at the tender age of 17, and moved across a couple states--a 10+ hour drive away--to go to college (at the time, that seemed like a long ways away from my parents, but I've only gotten farther away since). Since then, the longest I've spent back "home" with my parents was a couple of summers which I spent working. Ah, working... the joys of being responsible and financially independent. I skipped off to Venezuela for a year or so, but considering I had people to hold my hand every step of the way, that wasn't too difficult. At some point I managed to get around to graduating from college with the collection of majors/minors I had accumulated, and then I decided, hey, why not move to Denmark for a year. So off I went again. In retrospect it was a little spontaneous, though I don't regret it in the least. Now suddenly I find myself a graduate student in a big city. I sometimes wonder how I ended up here. But moreso than that, I wonder why we have to go through months of drivers training and practice in order to get a drivers license and be able to drive a car, but there is absolutely nothing required to have an "adult license" and be able to do grown up things and make important life decisions. I mean, really, a little help here would be nice... :P I'm amazed that I haven't managed to mess things up more than I so far have, considering that I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants every day. Seriously. Who let me out into the real world?

Tempelpladsen

I didn't get any pictures of the temple in the day time, but I snapped a couple after they had turned the Christmas lights on.

Observatory at Round Tower

A cute bird...


JM looking all existential...


What a cool telescope. :)

My favorite passageway.


Some ducks we found. They all came over when they saw us, but we had no food for them. Sad.

American Pancake party!

I brought some syrup so we could have an American Pancake party. American pancakes are very different from Danish pancakes.


We had to convert the recipe measurements from cups to ml. It worked out okay, thanks to Google. On of the eggs had a feather on it!

Aww... JM thought it was so cute.


Melting butter or something.


Yay, a pancake!

Yay, a moose napkin! JM loves meece. (Also, on the left, JM's homework.) :)

Chris ate the heart-shaped pancake I made. Man, I'm such a pancake artist. (Note it has ice cream on it.) :)

Experimentarium

On Tuesday we went to the Experimentarium and spent most of the day there. It was awesome.
These lockers were the coolest. They had an awesome labeling system with things like "Einstein's IQ" and "Escape velocity of Mars" and stuff in place of some of the numbers.
We put our stuff in "Iron." JM was overly excited about it.


Giant legos! Or Lego bricks as I like to call them. How very Danish. We spent a lot of time here.

I made Troels wear a hard hat for safety purposes. :)



After we finished the house we all tried to get inside and it fell down. Favorite quote of the hour: "why didn't you tell us about gravity? stupid girl!"


We all wanted to be inside a giant bubble. Who wouldn't, really?





Ok, so this little marble track thing we made was way cooler in real life than it looks in the pictures. Trust me.

House of mirrors. Wouldn't the world be great if there were that many JMs in it?! :)
Yeah, we look cool.

This thing was fun to ride on. We look dorky. Thus, we took pictures.


I didn't get as many cool pictures here as I should have, but I was too busy playing to take pictures all the time. It was a blast. The end.

Friends (not the show)

Hmm... what exactly is this saying about me?


Favorite old classmate.


Favorite old roommate.


Favorite old bartender.


Favorite klippekort :P


Favorite engaged girl who is moving to Iceland.


Favorite Paul.


Favorite Lasse.


Favorite Troels.


Favorite other old roommate.


Favorite person to get Crazy Monday half price pizza with.


Favorite Dongdi. :)