Another foot in the door

So today it became official...I ordered my cap, gown, and graduation announcement! I'm almost there, 2 more weeks to go! All I have to do now is pass all 7 seven classes and I'm out...that is , hopefully I will pass all of them! Feels good to finally realize and accept that after all this time, I will be achieving a degree. The only problem I have now is to figure out what to do after graduation, yikes! My mother is very excited of course and wants to throw me a big graduation party...my sister did not graduate from college so I guess she's thrilled that one of us is going all the way. I'm inviting a few friends from Lafayette, my boyfriend and his family and some neighbors. Also, my family from New York, South Carolina, and Texas are all coming in and we're having a crawfish boil to celebrate my graduation...I'm ready now to kick back with a beer and grub on some crawfish!

South Carolina meets South Louisiana

So, my uncle and older cousin came down to New Orleans for their very first Mardi Gras this past week. For them, I can imagine it was like stepping into the world of Oz...literally because on Fat Tuesday along with the many other extravagant costumes were the the lion, tin man, scarecrow and Dorothy parading through Canal Street drinking what looked to me like Hand Grenades and catching beads from the Truck Parade. So my family and I (very much not new to Mardi Gras) took the two to the Riverwalk to eat charbroiled oysters from Drago's (wow, deliciousss!!) which they were not so keen to try but eventually did, and then took them to Bourban right after. Their faces when women were popping out of windows, almost naked was timeless. My uncle and his camera soon became infamous as he could not help himself but take pictures of every strange costume or strange looking person on the street. What was even funnier was that we caught cops snapping some shots when they thought no one was paying attention to them. After a while (and a couple of cheep beers) my cousin began to get into the spirit and was hootin' and hollarin' for beads from people on the balconies. Hurricanes, Hand Grenades, jello shots...they tried them all and could not believe that people were allowed to walk around in public with alcohol. Everything about Mardi Gras and the Louisiana carefree easygoing culture seemed to just blow their minds, lol.
Later that same day we took them to get some of New Orleans best Po-boys at Johnny's. Besides the craziness of Mardi Gras, one thing I did note on was how disgusted they were of all the trash that is left behind after a parade. They were absolutely appalled at how the people seemed to have to sense to throw their trash away in trash cans. I tried to reason with them and explain that is does all eventually get picked up but they were set in their environmentalists ways. Overall, the guys had a great time and were exhausted and not ready to go back on Wednesday. I think we showed them how we do it down in the real South.

Here is a clip of Mardi Gras 2009 on Bourban Street, a little laste of how crowded and crazy our trip was:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp3lvvX4mdo

California Dreaming

My elder sister, Becca Garcie, has lived in California for over 4 years now with her husband Jeff. Since she has moved to California I have gone to visit her twice. She has come back to Louisiana once. Times are hard and money is tight...I completely understand why its been so hard for her to come back home. As well, she is unable to get up and leave on a moment. She lives on ranch with 4 horses, 2 pigs, 4 goats, tons of chickens, 3 dogs, 2 cats, 3 ostriches, and 1 llama. Yea, she's pretty out there as far as animals. She breeds and trains and the horses, sells the goat milk and chicken eggs, and eats the ostrich eggs for breakfast. It's always very interesting to listen to her day when we talk about 3 times a week. Either the llama got loose and was biting everyone, a horse got sick or pregnant, or the dogs were bringing dead rodents into the house. There always seems to be something crazy going on in her life. Becca and Jeff live about an hour from any city with gas stations and grocery stores. She when Jeff forgot to fill up the car last time we went into town, I get a phone from my sister bitching because she's stuck 30 miles from her home on a very rural road with the dogs all going nuts and trying to run away...very interesting. Anyways, she loves her life and is very happy living freely with her animals. She has always wanted to get out of Louisiana, I don't blame her, California is beautiful.

I wanna press snooze again!

I now find it harder to get the motivation to get out of bed every morning and go to class...my classes lately seem pointless and like I could of slept in. This one teacher keeps telling us he will have our grades from the test two weeks ago in the next class. Guess what, still no grades so he decides to talk about his recent trip to China for three class periods. Someone finally asked him if this was going to be on the next test, guess what...nope, sure not! He just likes to talk about himself and tells us to just read the book. Honestly UL, what are you paying this guy for?! Anyways, I am just so ready to be done with my undergraduate classes forever but am scared to face the real world when it comes time. What makes is harder to get up is every other senior saying the same thing making me think its not worth it either. I guess I just need to suck it up and listen to my professor talk about how the Chinese women were all rubbing his belly for good luck...schmuck.

Definitely had my share

My freshman year at UL I had a roommate that I had never met before. The first time I walked into my first apartment I was scared out of my mind to meet this new person. Her name was Katie. I met her while I was outside smoking a cigarette on our porch (I used to smoke). This meeting really helped our relationship in that we were both able to socialize with each other outside on the porch while we smoked each day. She was such a nice girl, but unfortunately, she was failing out of UL and going to a different school. She moved out and I got another random roommate. Angel and I did not have much in common. She spent alot of her time in her room (ususally with a boy) or studying on the couch, ignoring me. She was black I was white...there were plenty of differences. My stepdad Jeff thought it was hilarious that I ended up with a black roommate. Anyways, she ended up moving out and one of my best friend's Rebecca took her place. We had soo much fun together but at times we had some arguments. She was different from my previous two roommates...she was very outgoing, very loud, loved to talk, loved to always be around, and was a little messy. Eventually we both ended up moving out of that apartment complex because the prices rose severely and niether of us could afford the rent anymore. I then moved into a much larger apartment with two other roommates. Kylie and Kristina were quite a pair. At times I felt like their personal maid. They would literally leave old dishes and food in their room for so long that everything would begin to mold. You couldn't even walk into Kylie's room because there were piles and piles of clutter covering her floor...I didn't see carpet in her room for months at one point! Kristina was a terrible cook and never cleaned up her messes or her dishes...this went on for months and I could not take it anymore and began to argue with them over the mess. Kylie's family had to file for bankruptcy and she was eventually kicked out of the apartment for not paying rent. Kristina and I went on to live with each other for about 5 months until Rebecca moved in. So now it is the three of us and we all get along pretty good. Kristina and Rebecca have really improved and help clean up the apartment every once in a while. We are the best of the friends and I am now sad to moving home in May and to no longer have roommates.

Trouble vs. Bella

We got Bella (a standard poodle) when she was about 7 weeks old this past November. At first, Trouble was not interested in her and wanted nothing to do with her no matter how hard we tried to get the two used to each other. Even as a standard poodle 7 week old puppy, my cat was still larger that Bella...which he probably should not of been. For a while he was still the dominant animal in the house as Bella was still getting used to her new home and still small and weak. As she begin to shoot up like a tree and became very energetic, she more and more wanted to play with 'fatty' (this is my mom's new name for Trouble) and he was still not interested and only hissed at her. We thought that somehow the two would eventually learn to like each other...we thought wrong. Trouble growls and paws when Bella comes near, she only wants to play, she's still a puppy. He is so funny though and seems to taunt the fact that when she's in her pen he can freely walk around the house and sit with us at the table which obviously drives her nuts as she barks histerically when he does this. When she is not in the kennel, they are fine but just keep their distances...Bella tries to approach him and always get the front of his good paw right in the nose! Oh well, I guess when your a spoiled fat cat set in your ways, your going to still be king of the castle.

Fat Cat

Let me start off by saying Trouble was orphaned at about 1 month old where my mother found him in a ditch in our neighborhood. He was the CUTEST lil thing you had ever seen, a small grey furball with then, blue eyes (they're green now). I couldn't resist so I took him in without even consenting it with my mother. Every night he would sleep with me and I spoiled him rotten with treats! Anyways, I was coming back from work one evening, (he was about 1 1/2 years old at the time) when I went to the fridge to give him a treat like I always did. Anytime anyone cooks food in the house, no matter what it is, he is at your feet begging like a dog. Well now he doesn't go too near the fridge. Okay, so I opened the fridge with Trouble at my feet when a huge and very heavy clock that sat above the fridge fell, missing me (which I wish would have happened) and hit the cat, which broke its fall and didn't even have a crack in it. Before I even knew where he was hit he took off. After of course searching and calling him for the rest of the night, mom and I decided he would come back on his own. That morning at about 6am, my mom is in my room calmly waking me up with Trouble in her arms ( I think she was trying not to freak me out). My worst fears had come true...he was hit and hit hard. His left paw was a little larger the size of a tennis. It was swollen and obviously broken. So I immediately took him to the vet hospital where I stood histerically crying at the counter begging them to send him to the ER. So later that day as I was forced to go to work (I sobbed for hours) the vet finally calls me with an update. Trouble had to have an extensive surgery that lasted about 3 hours. All of the tendons in his paw were shattered and he had 7 fractures in that foot. The vetalso had to put 5 metel pins in his paw to help the bones grow back together. Anyways, after weekly check ups and about $2000 later, Trouble was back at home and recovering for good. He wore several casts that reached all the way up to his shoulder blades and when he walked he looked like a Nazi salooting Hitler (it was funny but terribly sad to watch). The point of the story is that during his recovery, which was about 6 months, he did not move around much and gained ALOT of weight from me having to nourish him back to health, and feeding him treats all the time because I felt so damn bad about what happened! So now I have this 19lb cat that lays in my bed ALL day like he's king of the castle. He hates to run around, except he has to from our new puppy Bella who is 3x his size now, but I wouldn't have it any other way...he's fat, moody, snores when his sleeps, his belly and butt shakes when he does walk, eats too much, but he's alive and walking on all fours and he's mine...my fat cat.

When oh when can I finally be done?

I just don't understand some teachers, if the class ends at a specified time then the darn class ends at that time, not when your finished talking about yourself! This one teacher I have, has no respect for her students and even though many of us in the class I'm sure have classes way across campus that takes a full 15 minutes to get to, she continues to discuss herself and her life till we're are all about absolutely red in the face. She drives me nuts! I have another teacher that tells the class he doesn't care if we're graduating this Spring, he will fail us...thanks Professor Helpful! I just don't understand most of the professors at this university, if we are the ones paying thier salaries, you would think they would put a little more input into their teaching and actually want to help students and actually care about them not being late to other classes! This semester makes me not want to go to any of my classes because most, not all, but most of my teachers make me sick with disgust at their disregard for students. Is it a rule that once you've spent half your life teaching that all your values as an educator just fly out the door?! I have learned that in the past almost 8 semesters I have spent at this university that no one cares about you...no one, you alone have to fend for yourself even as a very confused and scared freshman your professors and other faculty will not even do so much as point the way of the right direction (and I mean that loosely). I have had to rely on the help of my older sorority sisters and elder classmates for tips and such. My advisor, oh lord don't even get me started on that man...every single question I had for him he had to call someone else to ask. When it came time for scheduling, he did not know what classes required prerequistes or not so I ended up begging another teacher to allow me into a class that required a prereq just so that degree plan would not get more off track! Easy to say, I am ready to leave this university and seriously doubt I will miss many of the faculty I have met along the way.