This might get published...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a paper it was more of an analogy between finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe and finding the right college for high school students. Well my professor loved it and suggested that I try to get it published and well I'm going to try but I get the feeling it would not be good enough so, here's my question to you read my paper and telling me what you think about it, and suggestions would be very helpful. So read away....

"Finding the right college is like finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe"
If a high school student came to me and told me they wanted to be successful the first thing I would do is ask why do they want to be successful, and if they told me they wanted to be successful because they want everyone to be envious of them I would tell that they have to go to college, because in order to achieve success you must be willing to put the work in and get educated. Then I would tell them that picking a college is like creating a perfect recipe for a batch of brownies. In order to gain success and achieve their goals a person has to be willing to try and fail, but they also must be willing to fail on more than one occasion; because in order to create a great recipe one must be will to suffer through a few stomachs before coming up with the perfect recipe. “I can’t win anything until I’m willing to lose everything” (Kevin Shultz)

There are six steps one must take in order to achieve the perfect brownie recipe, this includes many trial and errors. Once someone has done the research, put in the time and the energy and has tried countless recipes they will have created brownies that everyone will not only devour but will be completely envious because they were not able to come up with a recipe that delicious. Just as there six steps to perfecting the best brownie recipe there are six steps a student must take in order to go to a college that will help them get ready for the real world and help them to achieve the success they want.

Step one research, in order to create the perfect recipe one has to research and see what kind of brownies are out in the world because not every recipe is the same. There are different countries which may have different ingredients or the country’s ingredients may have a different type of taste to them because they might be grown differently and because of the differences the brownies may distinct taste. For instance Mexico’s chocolate tends to have a different taste from the type of chocolate that is made in the US, in my opinion it tends to taste more like dark chocolate.

A person can also look at award winning recipes online or in cookbooks and they can compare and contrast the differences between the recipes, by doing this they will be able to see which recipes stand out the most. People who post their ingredients on line or have sold their recipes to companies will do it because they want to show the world how they have successfully created a recipe every person will want to have and want to get recognition for it. “Students who rely on performance goals might be motivated to gain recognition for their accomplishment or to avoid the embarrassment of a poor performance.” (Burger, 2008; 199) When students go to high school many of them know they want to go to college but they know they are not only in competition with the thousands of students in the U.S but the millions of other students in different countries who are all trying to get into the same school and because of this they are determined to stand out from everybody else.

Step two once you have done your research and found a few recipes that not only sound delicious but also have a few of the same ingredients, a person should also look for recipes that o have at least two or three different ingredients form one another. The one or two different ingredients tend to be the key ingredients which make the recipe stand out from every other recipe. For instance one recipe may require molasses, while the other requires miniature non sweetened chocolate chips. Then it’s time to take each recipe find the ingredients which at times can be a bit tedious because at times a local grocery store will not carry certain ingredients and because one has to see if the ingredient can be replaced with another one that will help the brownies have a distinct taste, for instance there are a few grocery stores that do not carry molasses or only have sweetened miniature chocolate chips.

Just like finding recipes students should research and find out what types of schools are available to them. They should look for a few schools that not only catch their attention but offer a few things that are completely different from other schools. For instance one school may offer a class in learning Japanese calligraphy while another school may offer a course in learning to make handbags. Then the student should look to see what the college admission requirements are in order for a student to get accepted, for instance some schools may require SAT scores but not require ACT scores, or at times they will not require either one but require the admission essay and possibly a resume to stand out from all of the other applicants essays.

Step three once you have your ingredients it’s time to have patience and put a few recipes together this will require a lot of time because there are moments when one thinks certain ingredients will go well together but in the end the combination can be an awful blend. For example the combination of chocolate and sweet and low sugar is not a very good combination because sweet and low can be over powering and because of this sweet and low will over power the taste of the chocolate and in the end instead of tasting chocolate people will only taste the sweet and low. When looking at college requirements, most of them will require an admission essay a person should writing down a few ideas they could talk about in their essay. They also make sure the courses they are taking in high school will help them be successful in college. Taking only the course requirement in high school and not taking enough extracurricular classes to expand one’s horizons will make a bit difficult for students to want to expand their horizons in college.

Step four once you have the have a few recipes put together then comes the fun part, baking and tasting. Once you have ingredients all together in a bowl take a bit of the mixture to taste to make sure it tastes good. By tasting the raw mixture a person will be able to determine whether or not to even bother baking the mixture because if the brownie mixture does not taste well together before its baked then chances are once you bake the mixture the brownies themselves will not taste good either. If the raw mixture does not taste good then the baker should try to find out what ingredients did not work well together, they should also try to figure out why the recipe did not work. When a student has narrowed down the schools they are interested in they should not only read about the schools but they should also take a tour of the school and see if the school looks as amazing in person as it does in the college catalogs.

Because I can honestly say there were times when the schools sounded great in print but when it came down to seeing them in person there were times when I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. There were a few times when I walked onto the campus and thought “really was the picture they put on the catalog from another school because this looks nothing like the picture.” There were also times when I sat in on a few classes found myself thinking “this teacher is putting me to sleep, could he speak any slower.” Then there were times when I would to go to a school and think instantly “oh wow this campus is so beautiful and so serene.” I remember one of the first things I thought when sitting in Concordia’s classes was “wow this teacher really loves her job.” I remember seeing the enthusiasm as she spoke about the subject and everybody in the class was very engage and excited as well it got me excited as well.

Step five trial and error as I mentioned before a person has to have a few different recipes before finding the right one. This may mean baking four or five different recipes before finding the recipe that makes your stomach scream “give me more brownies!” This also means having other people try your recipe and getting suggestions from other people as to how to improve your recipe. This is also applies to students when they are looking at colleges they should not only visit and read about the college they should also talk to students who go to the school and see why they chose the school.

High school student should also try to remember when choosing a college to go to they should try to write down the reasons they are interested in the schools they have chosen; reasons such as liking how the professors teach, whether or not they like the idea of having to pay to use the laundry machines, or to pay for toilet paper. Whether or not they will also be able to stay in a dorm or save money by living at home with their families could also be a factor in making the decision. They may want to factor whether or not lecture halls will be an issue when choosing a school because there are some students who like their classes to be small because they want to have the ability to have that one on one connection with their professor. They should also remember to choose more than one school to consider because there is always the possibility that when they apply the school may reject them.

Step six the perfect recipe, after attempting many different ingredients and after having tried a variety of different recipes and after having a plethora of brownies by the 30 or 100th recipe a person should be able to choose the recipe that made their stomach and mind melt the minute they took a bite of the brownie. After going through three or four years of high school, taking all the course requirements necessary not only to graduate high school but to be able to go to college and after taking ACT and SAT classes that will help them to get the highest score possible. Then after writing one to twenty drafts of a college admission essay and submitting all twelve of their college application, they will come home from school one day and get the acceptance letter from the school that melted their stomach as well as their mind.

Once they are in college they will have the opportunity to start their career as a college student. In college they will be given the opportunity to take as many classes as they want to help them expand their horizons and give them an opportunity to see the types of careers that are available to them. Then once they have chosen a major they will be able to throw themselves into the major that will make not only make them happy but will give them the success they need.
There were six steps involved in creating the recipe for the most amazing brownies and just like the brownies choosing the right college requires six steps as well. As I said earlier in my paper a person has to have a lot of patience because choosing the wrong college is the same as choosing a wrong ingredient to put in the recipe, one bad ingredient could lead to the worst brownies, choosing a college for the wrong reasons could lead to four to five years of being miserable in college.

Flooding ...the after affects of a long storm

Well you know how I said that I love it when it rains but I hate it at the same time. Well the flooding of the basement is what I hate about it. As most of you know we had a huge storm last night and it did not stop until about 10:30 this morning and even then we still had a drizzle. Well as you can see from the pictures we have a pool in the basement, of course by the time I woke up the water had gone down, slowly, very slowy, but you get the idea. We basically haven't really slept, I went to sleep at about 4 a.m, to wake up at about 8:44 a.m to a phone call from daddy and he claimed to have hidden a pump for us but someone found it and sold it. Now I used to work at Home Depot and like in the business world it's all about who you know. If I would have been there and asked one of the associates to give me a pump or save it they would have done it because A)I'd bribed them with a promise of a baked good, B)they liked me and C)because I'm a girl and mostly about 97% of the store were male and they were horn dogs and I was the cashier they couldn't have; so of course I used that to my advantage, I'd flirt, smile and get my way. Actually I still do that at times when I visit and need a favor from someone there. We have a pool down there. A girl's gotta do what she's gotta do.

Now what I find interesting is the fact that water tends to come in slowly and yet somehow it's able to knock things that weigh a good 20-30 pounds over onto its side; or the other thing happens and the water knocks the lids off the totes and everything comes out or stays in the tote because it's full of water. So my plans for today have officially been cancelled because now after calling and calling and calling some more stores asking to see where in the hell I could find a pump or rent, bribe whatever needed to be done to get one in the end to come out with nothing. I spent about 2 1/2 hours calling every Menards, Home Depot, Ace Hardware store trying to find a pump and every place I called were completely out. By the time I called the 20Th store I didn't even use full sentences I went from saying"Hi does your store have any pumps to buy or rent?" to calling and saying "Hi, pumps you got any?" Up until Ace hardware store teased me and had me believing they had one (of course they didn't)I didn't even know what it was called or that apparently there are a couple of different ones. I learn something new everyday.

The first one is the one everyone either owns or wants and that one is called the Utility pump, with this one you just set it onto the floor and turn it on and the water goes through a tube and gets rid of the water. The second one is the one people could use but only if they have a pit, to my understanding and I like to think I got the idea, you put it down in the pit of where the water is coming from and manually pump the water out. Now I just got a call from my sister apparently Home Depot is out of everything one needs to get the water out, hoses, tubes, pumps everything. After living here for 19 years you think we would have bought a pump right? Well we do have one but A)we don't know how to use it and B) we don't have the necessary tools to use it properly. I can hear the water going down, I can hear my sister cracking jokes which as usual we do when we're in crisis mode. We joke because what else is there to do but laugh about a situation in which you have no control over.

And of course I'm kicking myself in the butt quite a bit because after the first flood of the season we got lucky and the water didn't get as high as last night, but that get me to clean out the attic and put my school totes there instead so that I didn't have to worry about re buying some of my school things...nope. So now not only are we going to have clean and wash like there's no tomorrow but we'll also have to check to see what I can still use and what I'll need to re buy. So here's my questions to all of you what are the after affects of a long heavy storm? And what do you do to try to not panic? And what were your plans for today that now because Chicago is almost 90% flooded according to the weather channel have either been altered or cancelled?

New guy...

Like right now I'm actually thinking about someone and here's the best part it's not my friend Darien or my ex that I wrote when it finally hit me that he and I were broken up. I'll admit even though we had broken up I was still a little hopeful that he would come around and want to be with me but it wasn't until my birthday when it really hit me for the last time that he and I will never be together. In fact I'll catch you all up a bit now unfortunately I don't remember exactly what was said because this happened over a few months ago; but after we broke up we still talked to each other and tried (but failed)to be friends and on my birthday after getting many happy birthday texts, Facebook posts and phone calls I even had a few people text me at midnight the night before my birthday and throughout the entire day I noticed he did not acknowledge my birthday (not even a day later like a few people did). So I texted him and told him my birthday wish was to be with him, and unfortunately I do not remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of "you say you want to be with me now, but after a while you'll think twice about it. But seriously hope you're doing well" Or something like it, it was actually very confusing I wanted to cry that day I wanted to throw the pinata I had bought that day and just watch it break into pieces. Because that's how I felt, I felt as though he had taken my last ounce of hope and broken it into a million pieces.

So after my birthday I decided to forget him, no more friends no more anything with him in my life. Now here's the person I'm actually thinking about right now, I met him about 7 years ago at Home Depot he and I both used to work there, {ok just as a side note the lights are acting as though they want to go out so hopefully that won't happen, but I thought I'd share that with all of you} We hung out a couple of times and at first I thought he was boring and strange, but at the same time I always thought he was very sweet. We worked together so it was hard to not see each other, we talked every now and then I left to focus on school and we lost touch with one another for quite a while and then last summer I was helping my friend Meg fill out job applications online and I was signed onto AIM and he found me. We talked for a little while, and then decided to get together him, me and another mutual friend of ours, it was the longest 3 hours of my life. I felt as though I was pulling teeth to get either of them to talk, all I kept thinking about was "when is the time to say ok I have to get going?" After that day, I didn't speak to...(we'll call him Hannibal) Hannibal for a while then one night I was in the school library studying when I received an instant message from him on AIM and we decided to get together that weekend and go ice skating. I had fun, suck at ice skating but fun nonetheless. After that we found each other on Facebook, didn't speak very often until one day I get a text from him telling me that the girl he was seeing cheated on him and they broke up. I hate when girls do that, at least have the decency to tell your boyfriend why you cheated.

After not speaking for months and all of a sudden getting this message I felt horrible for him, I wanted to get on a train that night and see him but I couldn't because I had class the next day, so as luck would have it a friend of mine was suppose to host a makeup party but in the end it was canceled but by then I had already bought my ticket so I went home but crashed at her place and saw him. I spent the entire day with him, you would think after talking to him on the phone 28 times and talking on Facebook about 14 times that week I would have gotten sick of talking to him but no I didn't. He looked so sad... To be continued... Ok I started writing this in July it is now October and in the next blog I will tell you what happened after that meeting because it did not end the way I hoped it would.

The rain...

If there's one thing I love more than food, movies and reading, is sitting at home in my room and listening to the rain fall. I have to admit this is one of my favorite things to do when I'm either in my dorm or completely alone in the house. I don't know if it's the sound of the water coming down really fast or the sound of the thunder but it relaxes me. I even love walking in the rain, I feel as though my mind is in another universe and I'm able to put things into perspective, hell I'm able to get the answers to things that I sometimes feel is right in front of me but I don't want to see them because I'm not ready to face the truth.

I may love the rain but I also hate it at the same time. There's a reason why I like to hear it when I'm alone, if my parents are home my dad starts to panic and act as though he had never had to deal with a storm, and get into arguments with my mom. Also if it's a really bad storm our basement tends to get flooded so he starts to panic about that as well. He'll go looking outside the window, he'll go outside for god knows what reason, he'll go downstairs a million times and he'll do this until the rain is over. Here's the thing he doesn't panic about the flood reaching the living room or us drowning nope he worries about our air conditioner breaking down, because if the air conditioner does not work he feels as though he will die. Now don't get me wrong I myself do not like it when the air conditioner isn't working, which is the case at work right now. 3 of our 4 air conditioners are broken and the store is ok but when we're running around trying to get things done it makes it a little harder to not think "my god is it hot in here!" I've said it before and I'll say it again winter is sooooo much better!!

Now don't get me wrong when I'm by myself I check on the basement periodically to make sure everything is on top of something so that they don't get ruined, but I'm not freaking out about, even when our cable loses its signal I either grab a book or pop in a movie because luckily (knock on wood) we've been fortunate enough to not lose light in our house like some of our neighbors. I take that back we've lost the power once in the 19 years we have lived here, so there you go. Our lights will flicker as though we're going to lose it but it doesn't it. Right now I'm trying to imagine myself back in my dorm either reading or watching a movie while the rain is coming down and not having to deal with all of this drama. Truth be spoken this is one of the reasons why I like being away at school and I can not wait to go back. 4 weeks 6 days till I go back. It's not coming here fast enough. So here's my question to all of you what do you love but also hate at the same time because people around you tend to ruin it for you?

An investment...

A few weeks ago, I was told that I should consider taking time off from Grad school because of all the debt that I am accumulating while going to school. I was told that unless I am going to school to pursue a career in the medical field that putting myself in this debt is not worth it. I'll admit I am pretty deep in the hole but it's not like I am throwing my money away on things that I don't need, it's my education. I am putting my money into something that will help me have a better future. My best friend Darien once told me "If you ever need money, just ask, I don't consider it throwing money away I consider it a good investment. You're a good investment. Because I know you'll actually make something of yourself." Well I thought about this quite a bit recently, I've also thought about the crazy investments people make all the time and how they may lose all of their money but in the end they are still able to keep their heads above water. People invest their money in cars, homes, condos, and many, many credit cards,and are not only trying to pay them off, but they keep in the back of their mind that they will be paid off eventually. "It doesn't matter what you do the reality is everyone is always in debt, if it's not a home, it's a car, if it isn't a car, it's credit card debt, but an education is a debt worth having." Why shouldn't I invest my money into something that will help me to afford a home and a car in the future? Our American economy themselves are in billions of dollars in debt but instead of drowning and giving up our American economy is still fighting and trying. It hasn't given up, it's still surviving and so will I and every other undergrad and grad student out there putting themselves in the hole for something that will not only help but benefit them as well. I have decided to not giving up despite what a few people are telling me, I know what I am doing and it's possible that maybe in the end I will be in debt for the rest of my life, but as my mentor told me this week " So unless you become a doctor an education is not worth the money? That's bleak and pessimistic. Yes, it will be a burden, but a manageable one. Yes, it will take a long time to pay back, but it will be in small pieces, and that's what paying the bills is all about." I am not giving up and neither should anyone else...So here's my question to you...What are you investing in that people say you shouldn't be?

If someone would have told me...

If someone would have told me that I was going to be going to school in Wisconsin, I would have said "no way that will never happen." If someone would have told me that I would be a part of the Concordia family, I would have said "No, I'll be at Roosevelt." If someone would have told me that I would actually like living in Wisconsin, I would have said "Hells' no, it's SO boring there." If someone were to ask me if I would actually miss Wisconsin, I would say "Yes, but Chicago is and will forever be my home, no matter where I live." I came here almost 9 months ago, and at first I loved the idea of just being able to get away from things for a little while, then one night it really hit me that I was not at home anymore, that for the first time ever I was alone and then I was sad and scared. For a while I kept questioning whether or not I had made the right choice, in the back of my mind I already knew that it was, but I would still sit in my room and ask myself "how the hell did I not only get into grad school, but managed to come here as well?" There were even a few times when I went to chapel to not only cry and ask "What am I doing here?!" I would also pray for strengh to at least make it through the year before I made my final choice. If someone would have asked me would I come back next fall, I would have said "I don't know." The first few nights I was here I had nightmares like there was no tomorrow, I would also wake up in the middle of night and forget where I was. I also had to get used to my bed, because it was a twin, when I was used to a queen size bed so a few nights of falling off were just awesome!;-/ Then my classes started, and truth be spoken I almost fell out of my chair that day, luckily not many people saw it. Then came the issues of making friends, work, money, homework, meeting expectations, dealing with death, learning to get by on little money, learning to keep myself busy and so on and so on. Out of all these things the ones I had the most difficulty with were making friends, and learning to keep busy. Then somehow it got a little easier slowly but surely, I still struggle with these two things...but now I can honestly say if someone were to tell me Roosevelt accepted me, I would say "well that's awesome but I'm already in school and I love it and I don't care if other people say Wisconsin is boring." I can not tell a lie, as much as I really really like Wisconsin and probably can grow to love it, it's not home. Chicago is my home and I CANNOT wait to be home for the summer but then again I'll admit this my secret to you, I will start to miss Wisconsin. Who knows I might actually sit in my room in Chicago and say "what the hell am I doing home?!" I doubt I'll fall off the bed, but I do expect to wake up every now and then and have to remind myself that I'm home. So here's my question to you...If someone would have told you...whatever what would you have said?

I thought I was done with high school thinking

I'm 25 years old going on 26 and yet there are still times when I think like a kid in high school. For a few weeks now I haven't spoken to my friend Stacy. I had tried calling and emailing her during break but heard nothing from her. My first two thoughts were "is she mad at me again? or did something happen to her?" Because I know of her conditions the second thought was the one that scared me the most, but I have to admit part of me also kept thinking that she was mad at me for some reason. Well that was about 4 weeks ago, and today I finally got an answer. She finally emailed and out of respect for her I will not say why she hasn't been coming to school. I will say that she is on leave for now. I'm happy to say that she wasn't mad at me but I am sad to say that I hadn't seen or heard from her because of the second reason, I don't know exactly what happened but I'm sure she will tell me when she's ready. I have to admit I find it hilarious that as I said I'm 25 and yet at times I still think like a kid in high school. "Is she mad at me? What did I say? Why won't they tell me to my face?" Things like that still pop in my head every now and then...I'll admit I don't like when people are mad at me, especially when I know why they're mad at me, but then again I don't think many people like it when someone is mad, angry, frustrated, upset with them. In my case it makes me feel as though something is wrong with me, I begin to question whether or not I am a good friend or if there are things about me I should try to change...but of course when I start thinking about both of these things I look at the friends I have now and think "If there were something wrong with me, why would my other friends still talk to me?" Then after a while I get a headache because I can't come up with a different answer other than "I'm not a bad friend" most of the time this is all I can think of to make myself feel better, which is interesting, the fact that I need to feel as though I am a good friend, when I may not be to some people is a little disturbing to me. There are plenty of people who say they don't care what people think of them, or they don't care if someone is mad at them, I'll admit I'm in between. On one hand I do care about what people think and on the other hand I don't care; I will admit it usually will depend on the person telling me. Erikison and Freud would both say it's because of something that might have happened to me as an infant, which could be the case, it could also be because of my childhood years in grade school and the lack of friends there and the ones that I thought were friends weren't. Maybe Freud and Erikison were right about the fact that a person's infancy and childhood play a vital role in the transition from child to adult. But then again that's just me, so here are my questions to all of you why do you believe people tend to value other people's input on things? And are there times when you think like a kid in high school? And is it possible that we always have moments when we think and possibly act like kids in high school no matter how old we get?