As If I Needed Another Excuse to Eat

Happy National Caviar Day! I can assure you, I will not be celebrating this holiday, but I'm definitely looking forward to July 21, 23, 24... pretty much the rest of the month. On the blog, Epicurious.com: Editor's Blog I found this blog posted about national food days for the rest of the month. In case you needed any more excuses to celebrate with food, here's your chance. The blog links to a listing of the national food days for the entire year so you'll always have an excuse to celebrate!!

National Caviar Day July 18
National Daiquiri Day July 19
National Lollipop Day July 20
National Ice Cream Soda Day July 20
Fortune Cookie Day July 20
National Ice Cream Day July 21 <-- That's every single day, for me! :-)
National Junk Food Day July 21
National Penuche Fudge Day July 22
National Vanilla Ice Cream Day
July 23 National Tequila Day July 24
National Hot Fudge Sundae Day July 25
National Coffee Milkshake Day July 26
National Crème Brûlée Day July 27 <-- yummmm!
National Scotch Day July 27
National Milk Chocolate Day July 28
Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day July 29*
National Cheesecake Day July 30
National Raspberry Cake Day July 31
Cotton Candy Day July 31
Jump for Jelly Beans Day July 31

*Cheese Sacrifice Purchase Day is the day you go out to buy cheese to sacrifice to the mouse traps to keep your house mouse-free. Or, as this guy did, you can sacrifice a cheese-man!

Don't Forget Your Seatbelt

This is the kind of thing that I find when there's nothing to do at work except look up news information. This story just makes me shake my head and laugh.

Driver buckles beer in car -- but not child

DARWIN, Australia (AP) -- An Australian driver who secured a carton of beer in his car with a seat belt but left a 5-year-old child unrestrained was fined 750 Australian dollars ($710; €460), police said Tuesday.

Read the rest here:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/13/australia.driver.ap/index.html?imw=Y

Overnight Shift with Drug Addicts

I just wanted to inform everyone that I am amazing. (That came off egotistical, didn't it?) Anyway, I have managed to stay awake, not even nodding off, during my overnight shift at the place I work! I am quite proud of myself! I work at a residential treatment center for teenage girls (and sometimes at the boy's house). To sum up my job, I work with drug addicts and alcoholics-- makes for some interesting time.
At the beginning of my shift, I had a confrontation with one of the girls. It got me all worked up and I was completely intimidated! After I barely held my own and stood my ground, I went and sat back in my chair and a thought hit me: how am I possibly intimidated or afraid of these girls? They're teenagers, for one thing, and have the maturity-level and thought-capacity of 10 year olds (if not younger). I'm 21 and strong and lucid and I have the power... and yet I get extremely overwhelmed and flustered when they start yelling at me and cussing me out. But I can handle it, it just takes a few minutes for my heart rate to return to normal.
Other than that, my shift has gone well and I've only had to call the on-call twice. That's good for it being my first time by myself! Okay, I just had to get that off my chest. Every time I go upstairs to do bed checks, I pray that they're all in bed... I don't know what I'd do if someone went AWOL. Cry, probably. I got overwhelmed with a girl cussing at me-- AWOL is a whole different story! Anyway, it's 4:50am and I'm wide awake... this is strange... you start to hear things and jump a lot easier with sounds, even normal ones like a cough... and you also ramble on your blogs... (Oh, and I found that picture and it's totally me! That book is the book of assignments and I'm sure my eyes look like that; the only difference is I'm drinking iced tea...)

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm finally legally allowed to drink!!!!!! Happy 21st birthday to me (well, it was technically on Feb. 28th)! It's amazing how many doors open and opportunities are available when the government thinks you're responsible enough to consume alcohol! The one thing I'm most excited about is being able to go to the store and pick up a bottle of red wine to take to dinner at a friend's house! It's weird the things that I get excited about.
Because of my birthday, I ended up having some pretty interesting conversations with friends and family about the issue of drinking. Being in college, I am constantly surrounded by people whose only view of drinking is to get belligerently drunk and become out of control. Those who do not drink at all are in the minority. But the issue that was discussed was, "what ever happened to responsible drinking?" Do college students lack the ability to learn this? Or the ability to act it out? Does it always have to be an all or nothing ordeal? What happened to having one glass of wine with dinner? Or a cocktail with friends? Why is drinking to get drunk the only way people seem to be able to drink? It especially came out when it came to my birthday because all people would say to me was "I need to get you drunk!" or "We need to go out and party!" or "Let's go shot for shot!" What happened to people just offering to take someone out to get A drink, not drinkS? (And thank you to my best friend for doing so!) When the act of getting completely belligerent is encouraged and nothing else is taught or portrayed, why are colleges (CSU especially) surprised when people are being sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning and/or dying? The stigma of drinking needs to change and education about alcohol is not going to solve the problem-- learning how to drink responsibly is! You can talk till you're blue in the face about the dangers of alcohol and partying, but it's not really going to help anyone in the long run. So this is an official thank you to my parents for teaching me and my sister how to drink responsibly and to take the "cool" stigma of getting drunk away. We know how to enjoy a cocktail or a glass of wine with dinner, and not expecting to wake up the next morning with a hangover! There's nothing wrong with drinking (even if you get a little tipsy-- I drink one drink and I can feel it-- I'm the walking, talking definition of a lightweight!) as long as you can do it responsibly and know your limits. It's amazing that people are getting a college education and yet cannot seem to grasp this concept... unsolvable mystery.