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Yesterday I found out I’ve lost about 10 pounds since Christmas, so yay in that respect.

Coincidentally this also happened to be the same day I found out Rite Aid had chocolat bars on sale and thus I decided to buy one of every type I’ve never had before.

Really, how did I make it through being an American kid in the 90s without ever having a Whatchamacallit? Something was wrong with me. I’m pretty sure I was just eating too many Reese’s to care.

For the record, the cashier at Rite Aid totally judged me for buying all this chocolate at once. I only ate a bite or so of each¹, okay! It’s not like I ate all seven last night. Granted, one of the only reasons I didn’t eat all seven last night is because I no longer have the iron stomach of a 10 year old and would probably hurl. >_>

I just fucking like Kit-Kats, okay.

Heath: How the hell have I never had a Heath bar before, but I’ve had Heath bar ice cream? Something is wrong with this picture. ANYWHO. NOM. The only annoying thing about toffee is the part where it gets stuck in your teeth. (6/10)

Skor: So I just discovered that Skor bars are basically the same thing as a Heath bar only slightly more delicious. THE MORE YOU KNOW. (7/10)

5th Avenue: Oh my god, it’s like a crunchy Reese’s cup in a bar. It’s like a Butterfinger with a better peanut butter to chocolate ratio. And with actual chocolate rather than a chocolate-like mystery substance. And it actually tastes pretty good. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? (8/10)

Whatchamacallit: Anything with chocolate and peanut butter is already amazing by default, but then you go and add rice crispies and caramel and it’s basically a party in your mouth. (6/10)

Snickers Peanut Butter Squared: These are apparently a thing that exists in the world. It’s exactly like a Snickers only better because it has peanut butter. (7/10)

Hershey’s Air Delight: To get this bar you basically have to pay Hershey’s to give you a bar half the size of a normal bar, replace even more of that chocolate with air, and then charge you more money for it. It’s all around a bad deal, especially the part where it tastes awful² and chalky. (3/10)

And then I proceeded to spend the rest of the night flying high as a damn kite on a sugar rush.

What candies/chocolates did you love growing up? What are your favorite cheap chocolate/sweet things available in your country?

1. Except the Kit-Kat because I fucking already know what Kit-Kats taste like at this point in my life. ↩
2. As a sidenote, I saw someone misspell ‘awful’ as ‘offal’ yesterday. It made me want to put my face through a wall. ↩

What happened in 2011? Well, first off, I abandoned this blog again. I didn’t have a clear idea of what direction I was even aiming for, and none of my plans were particularly cohesive¹. Additionally, I was at a strange point in my life. For the first half of the year I didn’t do much at all. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall any significant thing that happened to me or that I did, aside from having a birthday.

However, the last half of my year was quite eventful for the better, as well as the worse in some cases, but overwhelmingly for the better.

At the very end of July I moved to a town just south of the U.S.-Canadian border and about 100 miles north of Seattle, where I’d lived my entire life. The town, Bellingham, which I affectionately refer to as the Ham pretty much any time I talk about it, is pretty awesome.

I’m finally back in school with no intent of taking another break until I not only finish my bachelor’s degree, but my master’s as well. I’m doing pretty well academically (4.0 GPA, gogo!) despite the fact I still procrastinate like it’s my job. I think I’ve finally settled on what I want to do with my life (another post for another day).

I joined my school’s QSA, or queer-straight alliance, at the beginning of fall quarter to meet people and get involved, and ended up becoming the secretary after a few weeks. We throw some bitchin’ parties and I love everyone in the club. It’s fantastic and meeting other queer people is always nice, particularly in an area that’s surrounded by some severely conservative town, and thus some of the homophobia around is a little bit higher than I’m used to in Seattle. Overall, however, the Ham is pretty awesome in that regard. I haven’t had any major incidents, just a few minor ones.

I started to take advantage of several hours of free language tutoring on campus for speaking practice for Spanish and French, which I’m studying once again because, goddammit, I love languages. I would learn ALL THE LANGUAGES if I could. The Spanish conversation tutoring is particularly important in that I’m going to go visit my friend Hans, or Patty as everyone else calls her, in Venezuela this coming August/September if all goes according to plan. I can’t wait to see my favorite brontosaurus’ face and eat all the amazing Venezuelan food she keeps telling me her mom wants to make me! This will also be my first real trip abroad. I’m ridiculously excited as I’ve been dying to travel for basically my whole entire life. I’m desperate to see everything, but money is such a cockblocker sometimes, dudes.

Speaking of money, that leads me to my next point: I joined AmeriCorps’ Students in Service program (despite its website’s desperate need of a facelift) which basically means I get paid to volunteer. The payout after I complete 300 hours of service is coincidentally nearly exactly the same price to the dollar as a roundtrip Seattle-Caracas ticket.

I’ve started eating a lot healthier (with the last month or so an exception) and have lost a bit of weight, though I still have quite a bit more to go. While I still have several medical issues that need to be dealt with, and hopefully I can begin to deal with them soon as I just got medical insurance for the first time in several years on January 1st, I’m glad I’ve started taking a step in the right direction. I’m very much motivated by seeing results, because if I don’t see results I tend to give up quickly, so early success is helping me keep my eye on the prize, so to speak.

My mom and I got a bit closer this year. She celebrated her first AA birthday (as well as her real birthday) in August, for which I’m very proud of her. We had an amazing time at the Puyallup Fair in September, just the two of us. We bought Dizzy Passes, or unlimited ride passes, and rode rides all day and spent a completely insane amount of money on fair food, but it was worth it. We had a complete blast even if our feet were about dead after standing for about 14 hours straight.

My dad and I get along quite a lot better when I live away from home so that’s been great. We talk frequently. He still says insane and hilarious (sometimes inadvertent on his part) things that I can text to all of my friends.

Internet-wise, I’m still a Twitter scrub in that I don’t seem to post nearly as frequently as everyone else I know, but I’m sort of fine with that. However, after lamenting circa 2009ish that I didn’t understand WTF the point of Tumblr even was, I am now a tumblin’ fiend. I tumble all the things! I even recently started a new tumblr dedicated to reblogging all the Joss Whedon-related things I find and enjoy. I loves me some Firefly.

I’d kill for a Tumblr-style RSS feed aggregator sometimes. It’d be so much easier to keep on top of my reading, though I have been managing quite well lately after culling some old feeds I was never reading. I do still need to learn to be less of a lurker! I’ve always had an issue with being an epic lurker.

Perhaps that’s one more thing I’ll work on in the new year. More about that later. For tonight, I’m out.

1. However, I’ve now done a total redesign and culled some useless pages and reorganized and rewritten quite a lot. ↩

The reason I do my “This Week Was Awesome” thing is because it helps me see the awesome even when my week has been utter crap. It helps me think of that instead of dwelling on the shit.

However, this past week or so hasn’t been good, health-wise, for my family.

My great-grandmother is turning one hundred and freaking one years old on the 19th¹. She is old. She went into the hospital last week during the day, but was home by that night. The doctor told my aunt and uncle that she’s in the very beginning stages of congestive heart failure.

People can live for a while with congestive heart failure, but she’s 101 so what could be 10+ years for many people, probably won’t be for her. I’m hoping for a few more years, at least, but I’m trying to take advantage of the time I have with her. She’s my last living grandparent and a snarky one at that. I love that lady. When she was 98 she told me she wanted to slit George W. Bush’s throat. I nearly died laughing. It was beautiful. On Inaguration Day this year I called her and she was giggling she was so happy. She’s so adorable!

Then last night my dad had to go into the hospital because he faceplanted on some cement after tripping over a boulder in his friend’s backyard. After several hours, his head wouldn’t stop bleeding. It looks like someone shoved a baseball underneath his skin. This is disgusting. Thankfully, he didn’t have a concussion. A few stitches and they sent him on home. As a sidenote, apparently the first thing he said when he walked into the house was, “Now, I don’t want you to be worried, but…” before coming up the stairs² to show my mom his face.

Want to know the most worrying words in the English language? Those are them.

Also, my brother went to the doctor and found out he’s been walking on a fractured foot for over a year ever since a wrestling accident last year. *facepalm* And our family friend who lives with us had another seizure a couple days ago.

In other news, I have been having a lot of migraines and bad headaches lately. They always start behind the same eye and that’s making me nervous. I should really make a doctor appointment, though I’m going to wait until after my finals are over and done with this week.

Oh, yes, finals. I make things way too difficult for myself. If I’d just done stuff when it was assigned, I wouldn’t have to spend so much time worrying about the fact I wasn’t doing work. :P But I find it incredibly difficult to do schoolwork or anything, even, when I’m stressed out and distracted. Meh.

1. Funny story: Last year around July she was trying to make a doctor’s appointment over the phone and the receptionist could not understand when she gave her birthday as “12-19-08.” She just kept saying, “But…this is 08,” even when my grandma clarified she meant 1908 as in, SHE IS OLD. I lol’d in real life. ↩
2. We live in a split-level house with an entryway and then stairs leading either to the basement or to the living area floor. This means no matter what, we have to walk up an asston of stairs to get into the house. Fun for my brother–see above! ↩