I know, judging by the title you’d think this would be an entry about dating at Cornell. Not all the guys are total goobs, but let’s be real… there is a pretty significant goober population.

Anyway, this is about cooking lab. Today was our last one and it was pretty much the grand finale. And everyone knows that NO grand finale is complete without a Turducken. Yes, a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. Absolutely delicious.

Today was also the day where each one of us made our own “boneless wonder”– a whole chicken, boneless, and stuffed with a yummy cilantro stuffing. Along with this, each one of us had to learn how to correctly bone a chicken– logic would dictate that “debone” would be the correct term for removing all the bones, but apparently it’s “bone” and I don’t know about you but that kind of gives me the heebies.

Let’s talk about boning a chicken, shall we? I was presented with a whole chicken (like the kind you get at the grocery store) with all of its goobery insides and everything. I made a face. The professor demonstrated all the cracking, twisting, scraping, and scooping involved in the process. I was not at all pleased. More faces were made.
I commenced boning which actually means that I made one incision and got skeeved, so I called the professor over and pretended like I had no idea what I was doing (which was not unbelievable because usually this is the case in cooking lab). So, he did steps 1-3 for me and handed the half-mutilated thing back to me to finish what he started and walked away. I stand, I stare, I get more skeeved, and call the professor over again, asking him to show me what to do again. He completes steps 4-6. I stand and stare some more and, as you might guess, the cycle continued until I had gotten my professor to do the whole entire thing for me.

To my credit, though, I did insert the stuffing and then sewed its little chicken hole closed.

Another success in cooking lab!

Oh. My. God.

So in my Spas class we have had this semester-long assignment where we do a consulting project for a real client. One group helped develop marketing strategies for Canyon Ranch (and got to spend a free weekend at Canyon Ranch in Lennox… JEALOUS), one group did some work for Banyan Tree in Mexico– you get the idea. Our group’s mission: create a guide for spa operators to help them kick-start a green program within their spa which is, more or less, “Sustainability for Dummies.”

And then “Going Green: A Practical Approach to Sustainability in the Spa Industry” was born. Ok I’m sorry but I’m going to be the first to say that this thing was fabulous. We approached implementing a sustainability program as a series of steps, emphasizing that paying attention to the little things today would make a big impact tomorrow and all that good stuff. You with me? We finished the thing last week, printed, bound, and covered all 40-whatever pages, and overnight FedExed it to our client.

So today we presented our project to the class (2 of us because we were down one member) and the client was listening via conference call. Ok, so a little about our client; ready? This guy is the director of spas for Sea Island in Georgia and also just happens to be CHAIRMAN of a little organization called ISPA… aka an organization that includes like every single spa ever.

Soooo suffice it to say that this dude basically is the biggest of the big deals when it comes to the industry. Great, cool. When we call him to start the presentation, the speakerphone pretty much has this heavenly glow around it and we are shaking in our cute pointy black heels. We get through the presentation about why going green is so important to the spa industry and how to make a spa environmentally friendly and have surprisingly said or done nothing even remotely ridiculous. We’re standing up there awkwardly staring at the speaker thing waiting for the client’s comments… and do you know what he says?

“Girls… you sent me a sustainability guide that was printed with one-sided pages and on non-recycled paper with a plastic cover.”

Oh. My. God.

Since coming to Cornell, settling into a “style” that suits me has been a long and even physically painful road. No, I don’t mean physically painful as in squeezing my freshman 15 into my high school jeans (although that SUCKED. Those pounds have miraculously just like… left… probably thanks to the fact that we walk to class uphill in the snow both ways. I don’t do gyms.) No, friends, I mean physically painful because at one point, I had 5 earrings in various places of each ear (10 total), had dark dark dark hair, wore a hemp necklace, and– the kicker– had a pierced tongue. No, people, a pierced tongue. I know. Painful experience… even more painful to see pictures of it. Heinous. Anyway, so that phase quickly passed (THANK GOD), out came the tongue ring and 8 of 10 ear piercings, and thus began the metamorphosis into a blonde who, in the fall of ‘05, wore nothing but Ralph Lauren Skinny Polos and jeans.

Still, while I’m quite preppy and like to think that such prepiness will never go out of style, I look around me on campus and am appalled at some of the trends. Shocked, even. Allow me to explain.

1. The giant top + leggings trend. Ok, I get that leggings are comfortable or whatever and I will admit that they work wonders as a layering piece on a night out when you’re dying to wear that denim mini but simply cannot justify walking out the door in one when it’s 35 degrees. HOWEVER. There are SO many like, potato sack shirts being paired with leggings alone. Repeat after me: leggings ARE NOT PANTS. They aren’t. Yes, wearing a giant tunic-esque top that hits mid-thigh covers your butt and creates a really nice shape AND even hides flaws. Let’s all admit to ourselves that this is the millenium’s variation on the “If I Tie This Sweater Around My Waist, My Butt Will Look Smaller” plague that struck in 1995.

2. Reckless deployment of belts. When you wear your giant shirt with your leggings, you’re already on notice with me. But THEN do not GO EVEN FURTHER and place a belt wherever your little heart desires. Please? It really is painful to look at what it’s doing to your chest/stomach/overall look when you have a pleather strap cinching you tightly. Belts are to hold your pants up. When you’re wearing leggings or a dress, you’re not wearing pants. See where I’m going with this? Why a belt with no pants? Would you wear eyeliner if you had no eyes? NO.

3. Crocs. Oh, the rubber menace. They’re everywhere, I hate them, they’re horrible. If you’re not familiar with the atrocious wonder that is the “croc“, it is a shoe that looks like a swedish clog with holes and it comes in neon colors. The other night at Pyramid Mall (aka people-watching wildlife safari), in fact, I saw an ENTIRE CROC FAMILY. A mom in green ones, a dad in navy blue ones, and a small boy and girl sporting silver ones and pink ones respectively. SILVER CROCS?! This is unacceptable and should be reported to a social worker. Why are these trendy? Can someone explain this to me? If you assert that they’re comfortable, how about my big fluffy pink robe that I wear when I get out of the shower is comfortable too… BUT I DON’T WEAR IT IN PUBLIC. This one blows my mind. I feel like Crocs are one of those things that will end up on VH1’s “I love the 00’s” in a few years, with like all these mortified celebrities admitting that they wore Crocs while Fergie’s equally atrocious “Fergalicious” plays in the background. Picture it. Can you live with that?

So, what have we learned from this? 1. If you don’t know what part of your ear the “rook” is, I would just advise you not to pierce it when you find out. 2. Leggings? Nope, still not pants. 3. Become a croc hunter and stop your friends from being laughed at on “I Love the ’00’s.”

Law school, I’m sorry about before. (See this entry)
So I sort of had a crush on you, and then lost all interest when I spent all that time with you taking those 5 hour exams– you were smothering me; I needed space. If that was going to be my future then I thought I needed to just turn on my high heel and get out immediately.

But now…well, I am starting to feel you again. You see, law school, I got an A+ on the last exam. No, I know, it was the first A+ I’ve gotten at Cornell and it made me feel fabulous… but I know this is wrong. This is totally the equivelant of going on a few dates with a guy and then realizing you’re not interested; you diss him, tell him he’s a loser and he’s not worth your time… and then 2 weeks later you find out he is the heir to the Jimmy Choo fortune and send him an awkward text that says, “so, are you busy this weekend?”

So, law school… uh, are you busy next weekend?

Ithaca does have a lovely and lively social scene. But once you hit mid-November, every party every weekend starts to look the same. Plus, you’re worn out from prelims and papers and maybe just need a change of pace. So, some friends of mine decided to get creative and host a food fight party. It was tons of fun… and even more fun since it wasn’t my house and I didn’t have to clean anything up.

me and my best friend and housemate Danielle… damn, never have I seen her lookin’ so fine.

Brian was cheap and wore a trashbag… but now he is a celebrity. Happy 21st, BC!

This is Jordan, and this is around the point where we both were so foul that we had to put the cameras away.

True confessions: I’ve always loved Britney. Christina’s music has been worlds better since the Mickey Mouse Club, but Britney herself has always been a cool girl. I mean, come on. She dated Justin. Then she showed up onstage with a giant snake. Then she kissed Madonna.

Yeah ok. So then she met Kevin Federline.

Whatever! I’ve dated losers, you’ve dated losers (you may be dating one now; trust me, your friends don’t tell you til you break up)… it happens. Forgive our girl for marrying one and for having his children and for almost dropping those children on the ground a couple of times.

I feel you, Britney. We all make mistakes. In fact, we all have a K-Fed in our lives: that thing that holds us back from being truly successful and fabulous; that thing that seemed like a good idea at the time and now is just kind of sucking. It could be a loser boyfriend, a needy friend, a demanding extra-curricular, or a horrible class.

In my case, it was an 8:40 Monday/Wednesday course in which I could see no value whatsoever but was somehow required for my bachelors degree. It wasn’t happening, it just wasn’t working out. It was making me tired every day and was taking time away from the classes that mattered and really the lack of sleep was doing a number on my skin. The fact that it confused me all the time due to the lack of communication (or the heavy accent of the professor, maybe) was just too stressful. In fact, I knew it was over when I had an 8:40 prelim the next day and at 3 am I had no interest in studying.

So 5 hours before said prelim, I sat in bed with my laptop and logged onto Cornell’s Bear Access and filed for divorce.

It’s been great ever since. Yeah, I made a comeback and we all know that Britney will too.

Let’s all take a page out of Brit’s book and dump the loser now, whatever the K-Fed in your life may be. If it sucks, leave it behind. It may be the best move you make all year.

Behold… the pizza tower. This is our kitchen (5 girls and one boy live here) and the box collection we have accumulated over the semester. The trash/recycling situation in Ithaca is a little bit complicated (i.e. we have to buy stickers for our trash bags if we want the city to pick them up) and we’re a little bit lazy. Plus, we figured a tower of pizza boxes was aesthetically pleasing and therefore a better use of these resources than whatever these boxes would have been recycled into. Right?

As you can see, one of us was noble enough to place a box of trash bags on top of the first few pizza boxes as a signal to clean/dispose of whatever leftover food may be living here (oh god I don’t even want to know). However, as you may also see, the rest of us did nothing. We do have one rule, though: whoever knocks down the tower has to dispose of the tower.

Which is why nobody has gone into the kitchen for like a week.

My mother is on facebook.

Ok, before all of you go and friend her, listen and let this be a warning to all of you.

So I take a lot of pictures of nights out and significant occasions and things. I used to share these pictures with my parents through webshots.com to show them what I’m up to here. But…when facebook added the photo feature, Webshots kind of became obsolete. I have been posting all my photos to facebook and when I want to show my parents, I just use that feature that allows you to share your facebook photo albums with non-facebookers. Right? Ok.

So my sorority’s formal was last night and I took a bunch of cute pictures. I posted them to facebook and then went to go find the option that lets you share your albums and noticed it had been replaced by that awkward “Share+” button. It asked me to enter the email addresses of the recipients and I happily did so, praising Mark Zuckerberg for saving me the trouble of writing my parents an email to share the link to the photos.

But then.

I log in an hour later and what do I see?

WHAT INVITATION???!!!! OH MY GOD WE’RE FRIENDS?? SHE CAN SEE MY PROFILE, INAPPROPRIATE WALL MESSAGES AND THE WAY I LISTED MY ACADEMIC CONCENTRATION AS “EYELINER STUDIES”??!!!? Nobody asked me to confirm. In fact, nobody asked me if it was ok to INVITE HER. I mean, really? I think this was probably the first and only time I thanked the good lord for the newsfeed feature (yes, the same newsfeed I raged against last month). As I was moving towards the “remove from friends” button, my phone rings.

“JENNA. What is this facebook? This is so stupid. I can’t even find the photos the email told me you wanted to show me. This is so stupid.”

“Mom, I am de-friending you.”

“WHAT? WHY? I am going through your friends right now; I am only on the D’s! Wow, I didnt know [insert high school friend's name here] went to Vanderbilt!”

I sat and stared in horror for a moment trying to figure out how to handle this situation. Solution: limited profile; she can see my friends and my basic info. That’s it. Nothing else.

Oh. My. God. Opening it up to state schools? Fine. To high schoolers? Annoying, but fine. BUT TO MY MOTHER?! MARK ZUCKERBERG ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND.
Facebook, we are in a HUGE fight. I don’t even want to see you right now.

Yes, that’s right. A victory.

Ok so this entry is about two weeks late, but whatever. It took the TA a long time to post these photos so I will refuse to take the blame.

In my culture and cuisines class, each one of us picks a cuisine and researches it thoroughly. One day during the semester, we are in charge of “running” the lab– in other words, we design a menu based on that cuisine and the rest of the class cooks all the dishes on that menu while we supervise. Then we eat and talk about it. Greatest class ever much?
So, after losing sleep over whether or not I ordered enough cayenne pepper, the whole thing went off without a hitch… which is probably due to the fact that I wasn’t cooking this time.
Ethiopian food, for those unfamiliar, is basically a whole bunch of spicy stews and other dishes served on top of injera, a sort of sourdough flatbread pancakey thing made out of teff flour (which also acts as a utensil; no forks or knives allowed). Behold, the fruits of our labor:

my buddy Scott making the injera.

Me putting together the presentation. And being happy that there were no disasters.

Presentation!