Merry Christmas from the Odas

Merry Christmas.  Since most of you won't be getting our Christmas card, I thought I'd post it on my blog.  Plus, I wrote it, so it's basically the same thing.

Merry Christmas fellow family and friends.  This year my mom wasn’t particularly inspired to write a Christmas card, so I, Kristen Oda, heroically volunteered.  In other words, I basically saved Christmas.  But enough about me.  I’m sure you’re all dying to know about the great and impressive things that my other family members accomplished this year. 

Both my parents may be getting older, but you’d never be able to tell from their appearance.  Today Mom tried on a pair of my skinny jeans and rocked them.  I’m proud and creeped out at the same time.  Though my dad is also healthy, his eyes are horrible and last week he had another detached retina.  His eye is recovering well, but he’s not as worried about his “down time” as my mom is.  When he actually is lying on his side (like the doctor ordered) he normally passes the time by watching Jimmy Neutron...He really enjoys that show.   My mom has been busy working to establish a scholarship for our local BYU chapter, and both my parents continue to feed their obsession for tennis.  My dad doesn’t have much free time, but when he does, he likes to fly RC planes.  Hmmm, Jimmy Neutron and remote controlled planes, I think I figured out why my dad has such a youthful vibe.

Lily is the youngest, so she is the only one still living at home with the parentals.  She recently became a licensed driver and has hit only one mailbox since then.  Driving might not be one of Lily’s talents but she’s a pretty good singer, and is an alto in her school’s Concert Choir.  Though Lily is the youngest Oda, she is the tallest, and towers over the rest of us with her 5’4” frame. 

This is the second year that Jenai and I are together at BYU.  We don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like, but we usually share Sunday dinner together.  I definitely get the better end of the deal considering Jenai cooks, and I eat.  Jenai has been salsa dancing for a couple years, but I started to join her this semester.  I was horrible a few months ago, but since I’ve improved, people ask me if I’m Latina all the time.  (We may be half Japanese, but we can pass for pretty much anything).  Jenai is still working customer service at Vivint, and I work in the dish room at the MTC.  Luckily we’re going to college so that we don’t have to keep these jobs for the rest of our lives.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year.  Hopefully the Mayans are wrong, and you’ll be receiving another Christmas card from us next year.  If not, at least the world will end before the last Twilight movie is released.

Love,

The Odas

College Cooking with Kristen

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which means food is on my mind.  Ok so food is always on my mind, but you get the idea.

Cooking in college can be rough.  Most of us are cooking noobs, and don't have the time nor the money to make anything very fancy.  Because of this, I thought I would be a saint and share my favorite meals with you.  They are fast, easy, and cheap.  You can thank me later. 

Canned Soup
Ingredients:  Canned soup.
Instructions:  Dump soup in bowl.  Microwave.

Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients: Potato, salt
Instructions:  Boil water, add salt.  Cut potato, cook in boiling water up to 15 minutes.

Toast
Ingredients: Bread
Instructions: Place bread in toaster, and heat.  Add butter, jam, honey, peanut butter, cinnamon sugar, etc.

I may have had two pieces of toast while I wrote this blog...

Tuna Fish and Rice
Ingredients:  Rice, canned tuna, soy sauce, sweet relish, garlic powder
Instructions:  Cook rice, and boil water.  Place rice in bowl and add said ingredients and add hot water.

Egg and Rice
Ingredients:  Egg, rice, soy sauce
Instructions:  Crack egg over freshly cooked rice, add soy sauce.  Stir.

Before you get all Caucasian on me, the rice is hot and cooks the egg.  Sheesh, calm down.

Chili and Rice
Ingredients: Hormel chili, rice
Instructions: Cook rice, stir in canned chili

This picture doesn't do it justice.

Squash
Ingredients: Acorn Squash
Instructions:  Preheat oven at 375.  Cut squash in half and place in one inch of water rind up.  Bake for 45 minutes.

Proof that college students can be healthy AND cheap AND lazy.

Spam and Eggs
Ingredients: Spam and eggs.
Instructions:  Fry spam, scramble eggs.

This was dinner today.

Spam and Rice
Ingredients:  Spam and rice
Instructions:  Cook rice, fry spam.

 

Grilled Cheese
Ingredients: Bread and cheese.  Meat, egg, mustard, and spinach optional.
Instructions:  Grill the sandwich.

If you want your sandwich to seem fancier, just GRILL it.

Grilled PB&J
Ingredients: Bread, peanut butter and jelly/jam
Instructions:  Grill it dumby.

Seriously.  You can grill ANY type of sandwich.

See how witty I was with that?  None of those meals were real recipes and they didn't require more than three ingredients...Ok, so it's not that funny.

But the truth is, I haven't made a real meal yet.  All that stuff above is what I really eat, and that's the fanciest it gets. I refuse to buy ramen, and I'm not living off of cereal, but I'm not eating anything that my mom would make for dinner either.  You may think I eat like this because I'm a poor starving college student, but that's not exactly the case. 

Like this Uber Frosh, I may blame my crappy meals on being poor, but I'm pretty lucky because my parents give me grocery money.  The real, less cool reason I don't cook anything is I'm just too dang LAZY.  I hate cooking, and I get home from work at 7:30 every night.  The last thing I want to do is cook and wait another hour till I can eat. 

And that's why most of my meals consist of rice, eggs, or meat from a can. 

Toast and Avatar saved my life.

I just finished the worst three weeks ever.  Ok, they weren't the worst ever, but they still sucked.  School just has a way of causing an unhealthy amount of stress in my life and I don't always appreciate it.  But I'm not going to explain all the crappy things I've had to deal with for the past few weeks.  You don't care, and I don't want to think about it anymore. 

The important thing is I survived, and there are three things I have to thank for that.

1) The knowledge that Thanksgiving break was around the corner.
  That's really all I have to say about that.
2) Avatar.
 Not the blue kind, the avatar with an arrow on his head.  I'm currently halfway through the third season.  It's SO GOOD.  My roommates and I were trying to decide which bending skills we would pick if we had the option.  Meghan said fire, Aubrey said water, and I said air.  But I'm still not sure; they're all so awesome.  

Yes, I did draw this.  I was willing to do anything besides my paper.

3) Toast.
We bought a toaster a couple weeks ago and it's basically the best thing ever.  We have been eating A LOT of toast.  I've had four pieces in one day.  Twice.

Toast with butter and honey.

Toast with cinnamon sugar.

Toast with peanut butter and honey.

Toast with butter and jam.

  

There are so many delicious options when it comes to toast.  Consuming just one piece is out of the question.

Bye.  I think I'm gonna go make some toast now.

HALLOWEEN

Yeah, yeah, I know Halloween has gone and passed, but I've been kind of busy, so I can't ALWAYS be on top of it and current with these posts.

Yes, I do realize how defensive I sound in the last sentence.  And no, I don't know why I'm responding to comments that I made up in my head.

Halloween.  (That's the scariest font I could find. Blogger has a very limited selection).

Halloween is an awesome holiday that makes absolutely no sense.  While Mexico celebrates Day of the Dead to remember their past family and friends, the U.S. celebrates Halloween. It's a pretty sacred holiday for us.  That's why we dress up in costumes that vary from princesses to bananas, go door to door of perfect strangers, threaten them with tricks if they don't give us candy, and then go home and eat all of it.

Like I said, Halloween is awesome.

I always loved Trick or Treating.  What kind of kid doesn't?  You get to dress up in a costume and collect pounds and pounds of free candy.  I remember the first Halloween I got to trick or treat with only my friends and WITHOUT my parents.  That's when I got serious about trick or treating.  We found the best route, ran to every house, and cut through yards.  Anyone who couldn't keep up got left behind.  Luckily, I had lots of skinny friends.  We would collect so much candy that we'd have to drop it off at home halfway through because our pillow cases would get too heavy.

Professional trick or treaters.  I didn't get the memo to dress like a barbie.

I used to get enough candy to last me the year.  Of course it was all the gross candy I didn't want.  Who the heck wants to eat a gummy eye ball?  Chances are it was made in China and has lead in it.  Speaking of candy, have you seen this video yet? 

I really loved dressing up in Halloween costumes.  But somehow people always assumed that I was a boy.  One year I dressed like a scarecrow.  Hey, I looked adorable.  Anyway, an old lady kept saying I was such a cute farm boy.  I was so mad.  Yes, I was wearing a plaid shirt and overalls, but my face was also painted like a scarecrow.  FARM BOYS DON'T WEAR FACE PAINT!  A different year I dressed like a soccer player.  Only I added an afro, buck teeth, and over-sized ears to the costume.  People kept on calling me a boy.  I've also dressed like an elephant, dinosaur, and a fish.  I'm starting to see a theme here...

That's Lily, but I wore it too.

Halloween is just innocent fun when you're a kid.  And then those kids grow up and go to college.  And then they corrupt Halloween. 

Halloween is no longer about dressing up to get candy, it's about dressing up to get laid.  At least that's what I assume when I see all the pictures of girls dressed up like sluts.  Oh sorry, I meant sexy bunnies and nurses.  So if your costume was "sexy" and you posted pictures on facebook, chances are I looked at them and laughed at you.  And that's the honest truth.

But I'm not gonna hate on you if you decided to dress a little slutty for one night of the year.  I get it.  The thing that makes me mad is when mormon girls go to mormon parties dressed like skanks.  THAT makes me mad.  It makes everyone else around them uncomfortable, and it lets every guy around them know that they're ready for a NCMO.  (If you're not familiar with BYU lingo, that's short for non-committal make out).

Moving on...now I will post some pictures of my never ending Halloween weekend.  Pictures that prove I was social.  THREE nights in a row.

Thursday night I went salsa dancing with Jenai and Ashley.  I was a raccoon. 

 Friday night we hit up the Asian Ward dance and then went to the dance party at Alpine Village.  If you were wondering, that's where all the skanks were.

I wasn't a very good mime.  I still talked a lot.

 Saturday night I dressed like a chola for our ward party.  I was a chola last year too, but the only piece of clothing I repeated was the bandana.  I'm proud of that fact.

This year.

Last year.

It just bugs me when I go to Party Station and the only women's costumes are some form of lingerie.  So please don't hate me if I offended you; maybe I just hate the girls in sexy costumes because I'm jealous.
.
.
.
Nope.  That's a lie.

The life of a hermit.

I've discovered something about myself this weekend.

I'm a hermit.

But that's not really surprising at all.  I didn't do much hanging out in high school, and I hardly left my house this summer, but that was because I didn't feel like seeing those people. Now I'm back at BYU and I actually do like the people, but I'm too lazy to make the effort to be social sometimes.  (It would really help if we had a car). After a long week of school and work all I want to do is sit around a waste time.  I swear I can hear my couch calling out to me saying, "Sit on me!  I'm so comfy and soft.  Don't be social, be lazy!"  And I obey. 

This doesn't happen every weekend, but it's not rare either.  Last week my roommates and I were going to go do stuff with some other friends, but it got complicated and plans kept on changing, so we just bailed.  Instead we drew pictures of pokemon and colored.

That picture didn't take a long time to draw, but it took FOREVER to color.  If you can't tell, there's a lot of shading and other artistic stuff goin' on there. 

This Friday was a hermit day also.  Meghan and I stayed home and did a lot of stupid things.  First we made gourmet ramen with eggs and peas for second dinner.  (I'm proud to say that was the first time I've had ramen since school started).  Then we spent about an hour on reddit.  Just looking at really cool things like this.

Then Meghan introduced me to omegle.  It's where you can chat to strangers on the internet.  People go on omegle for different reasons, but we were there to troll.   We thought we were pretty funny, but the people we talked to would probably disagree.  Most of the conversations ended when they found out I wasn't there to talk dirty.  (Lots of classy people use omegle).

He didn't get my joke :(

Ouch. 

Apparently there is something wrong with mormons.  He didn't want to talk to me:(

How come they don't see the humor?

I have a problem with correcting people's spelling.

He didn't even say hi first.  Rude.

Why did he disconnect?  I was PERFECT for him.

Hahahahahahahah.  I loved using this one.

Sometimes you'd find other people there to troll too, but mostly the people hated me.  It was fun.  You should try it sometime.  Just don't give away personal details, there are a lot of scary people out there.  (I'm sure you already know that, but I don't want to be the reason some stupid girl gets abducted by a creepy 60 year old man).

Why would I want to go out and flirt with hot guys when I can chat to weirdos on the internet?  Wow that sounds really pathetic.  I don't care.  It was fun.

Really important things, and more crappy phone pictures

This is sad.  I feel like I never have time to blog anymore because I'm always busy.  I'm either sleeping, studying, homeworking (just invented that word), going to class, exercising, or working.  But seriously, that's basically all I do on the weekdays.  Whenever I have free time I feel like I should be studying.  College can be annoying like that.

But today is Saturday.  And that means I'LL DO WHAT I WANT.  So I'm gonna blog.  Just about what's been goin' on in my life since I haven't done that for awhile. 

Things that are going on in my life that mean nothing to you and everything to me:

1)I'm running the Halloween Half Marathon.  Yep.  It should be interesting.  I already have two black toes, so I must be doing something right.  I mostly want to run in this particular event because we can wear halloween constumes.  I'm open for suggestions.

2)  Provo is ugly except for the mountains.  I've gone biking twice in Utah, and both times I rode on a trail up the canyon.  I wanted to cry it was so pretty.

Wait, you don't bike next to waterfalls? That's weird.

Well, it's much prettier in person.  All I had was my phone.

3)  I hate my Sociology 310 class.  Yeah, so I'm taking two sociology classes this semester because it's my major, but I discovered that I kind of hate it. My 310 class is basically a philosophy class and it makes me want to die.  Want to know the differences between Hobbes and Locke?  Locke is the religious version of Hobbes.  That's about it.  Okay, well I could also compare and contrast Hobbes and Locke with Kant and Hegel.  Would you like me to do that?  Of course not, because it sucks.

On a side note: we're currently learning about Karl Marx and he's the first philosopher I actually agree with.  I'M A COMMUNIST.  Just kidding, but really.  If you disagree with Marx, you basically have no heart.  My professor explained that the ideal communist society according to Marx would be the set up of Star Trek.    It didn't take me long to realize how nerdy my class was.  But think about it; Star Trek is totally communist.  And awesome. 

4)  I recently decided I want to be a teacher.  So even though I hate my Sociology class, it gave me the mental breakdown I needed to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life.  And I decided on high school language arts teacher.  Don't laugh! That's insulting.  But I can understand your confusion since I hated school so much.  I always told myself I would never be a teacher and then I realized that I actually would like to be a teacher.  I hated a lot of things about high school like the cliques, drama, bad teachers, and math.  But if I'm the teacher I don't have to deal with those things.  I lied.  I'll never escape that, but at least it's not middle school...

I also plan on being the cool teacher.  That's really all I want.

Sick of being Single

Warning:  This post may end up being a rant.  I will try to control myself, but I can make no promises.

Do you know those girls who always have a boyfriend?  It doesn't matter if they just ended a relationship a month prior, chances are they have another boy lined up.  I can never see anything spectacular about these girls, but somehow they always have a boy.

Well, guess what.  I'm not one of "those" girls. 

I have never been, nor will I ever be, and that's ok with me.  But for heaven's sake, can't I have some of their luck every once in awhile?  I'm not saying I want a serious relationship (because I don't), but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like a little excitement in my life.  I just want a chill relationship with a nice guy that happens to be hot.  Is that too much to ask?  Probably, considering every other girl here wants the same thing as me.

For you to fully understand my frustration, I'm gonna have to go back to my High School years.  Shiver.  First off, since I'm mormon I wasn't allowed to date till I was 16.   So technically, I wasn't dating till the middle of my Sophomore year.  Correction: I wasn't allowed to date till my Sophomore year.  Until then, I blamed the lack of romance in my life to the dating rule.  Then I realized that I wouldn't have had any romance even if I had been allowed to date.  Like I said, I'm just not that kind of girl.

I was only asked to a school dance twice, and it was by the same guy.  (He asked me Freshman year, but I had to awkwardly decline).   I never had a real boyfriend either.  (I'm not counting summer flings).  I went through High School single, and just assumed it was because no one was interested.  Then the end of senior year was fast approaching, and we started to vote for Senior Superlatives.  I ended up tying with another girl for the "most attractive" superlative. 

Proof that I was the "most attractive" girl at my school.

Yeah, I know you're surprised; so was I.  It was quite the compliment, and I was flattered, but then I got mad.  If guys had been interested, then why hadn't any of them tried to date me, let alone talk to me??  GAHHHHHHHH!!!!  Oh, and today a kid from high school started talking to me on facebook chat.  After just a couple minutes he went out of his way to tell me he had had a crush on me all through high school.  Thanks dude, but why are you telling me this NOW?  I must be cursed.  All I know is that weird girls get boyfriends, and pretty girls get boyfriends, but I can't get one of those if I tried.  People tell me, "But Kristen, boys are just intimidated by you!"  Bologna.  I know a crap answer when I hear one. 

Now I'm at BYU, surrounded by hot guys and I'm still as single as it gets.  But I really should be blaming myself.  I have a problem with flirting because I find it obnoxious and annoying, so I avoid it.  So basically, guys don't know if I'm interested in them or not.  Here's the hint guys: if I talk to you in person a little more than the other guys, or I add you on facebook, I'm flirting with you.  That's about it.

That's going to change though.  From now on I'm going to actually try and let guys know I'm interested, and maybe I'll see some results.  My first victim is going to be the new hot guy that works in the dishroom.  I only saw him last Thursday and it was his first day so chances are he quit, but I'm hoping for the best.  I'm pretty sure I sat next to him last year in the Stats lab, so I can use this to my advantage.  Now all I have to do is choose which awesome conversation starter I should use.

Option 1:  "Hey, I remember you from last fall in the stats lab."

•   Nope.  Creepy.

 Option 2:  "Hey, are you bad a statistics?  Because I swear I recognize you from the stats lab."

• Nope.  Insulting.

Option 3:  You're hot.  Want to date me?"

• Nope.  Chuck Testa.

 Yeah, we'll see how this goes. Wish me luck.

For now, I'm just Forever alone.   Ok, I really need to stop with these meme references...