Lots of Traveling

Happy almost New Year everybody!! I just came back from Rhode Island Sunday. The whole trip started out with my parents and I going to Lincoln, New Hampshire to go skiing on Loon Mountain. The first day there was pretty awful with ten inches of snow and winds so fast that we could barely see out of our goggles. The next two days were beautiful with sunshine and warmer temperatures.
After that, we traveled over to Rhode Island where my grandmother and other relatives live. I know how Alli said I had a wonderful time with my family but to be completely honest I can't stand my dad's side of the family. My mom's side lives in Poland and they are the sweetest and kindest relatives you could ask for, but my dad's side is whole other story. There wasn't a day over there that I didn't see fighting. Either my grandmother was bickering about her other daughter-in-law or my two aunts were fighting about each other. My dad's side always seems to find something wrong that they have to gossip about and then not speak to each other. It is the holiday season and you would think that they would put aside their differences and not be so stubborn about everything.
I like my cousins, though. We just want to hang out since we haven't seen each other in over a year, some four years. Jack, my four-year-old cousin, is especially sweet. He's so curious about everything and is so energetic. It was funny, cause he got this toy helicopter for Christmas and it didn't even last two days. He kept disassembling it and putting it back together and playing with it around the house :)
Anyway, my family is Polish so we have the tradition of having a huge dinner on Christmas Eve and then going to midnight mass afterwards. Christmas day was spent visiting relatives and having some tea and snacks. My parents and I left Saturday evening and came home in time to go for the Transiberian Orchestra Sunday night! The light show was amazing! There were even flames in different colors and a rising platform! Great music and an awesome time!

Our Generation

What's wrong with our generation? Our generation seems to lack the talent and drive that made the previous generation so great. Where's our Frank Sinatra, our Pavarotti. Why don't we have great movies like Casablanca, or Roman Holiday. I am on my way to Orlando for the Capital One Bowl. For me time driving is time spent thinking, and I spent most of it thinking about the great talents of past generations. 

At some point I heard that Taylor Swift song "Love Story" and it made me think. Why would you want to be Juliet to Romeo, that play was a tragedy. I want to be the Pam Beasley to Jim Halpert, the Betty Haynes to a Bob Wallace, the Holly Golightly to a Paul Fred Varjak, the Bella Swan to an Edward Cullen. I think of these as the epic love affairs of our time. And I know that Twilight is a little media crazy right now, but it really is a beautiful story. It seems a little crazy a vampire and a human but it's really quite beautiful. They're terrible for each other but they can't stay away and in the end they get to spend forever together, literally. The great thing about these modern romances, besides the fact that they didn't kill each other at the end, is that they were all terribly flawed, because let's face it nothing is perfect but in the end they were in love. I don't want some huge tragic love affair, women nowadays want something that'll last, they want forever. No girl grows up planning her fifth wedding, and she doesn't play Barbie and Ken's suicide. 

Nothing like Family

Alright this will be a little sporadic. Some fun news: I got a better parking permit, so now I can walk to my car rather than take two buses. Also, the absolute best news, today I got my acceptance letter for my study abroad program in London. As Jenni mentioned we will be having a party although due to some scheduling problems we have to have it after school has already started. Either way it will be fun.

 Just about the time Jenni headed to Rhode Island I got back from South Carolina. I went to visit some really close friends. The entire week that I spent in South Carolina was blessed with unseasonably warm weather. My wardrobe was unprepared for the 80 degree highs, Oh well. The trip was a tremendous amount of fun and had my wanting to move to South Carolina. Sadly just as Jenni will be coming home from Rhode Island, I will be leaving again. Where, you might ask? Well my loving father and I are going to drive to Florida to go to the Capitol One Bowl to see our Spartans play. I am amazingly excited, not for the driving though. And lastly after the bowl game but before school starts I will be heading to Pennsylvania to see my mother's family.

Which leads me into the ever so pleasant conversation of family. I have the strangest relationship with my family. For some reason they annoy my terribly, all of them, and whenever I come home it's only minutes before I want to leave. My siblings condemn my soberness like the plague. I'm a constant outcast in my own house due to my lack of alcoholic tendencies. It's shameful. Despite it all, I love them. 

Allison's Family anecdotes (to be extended later):

The other day I was sitting on the couch and my mother asked me if I was doing school work. I said no, I'm between semesters, I have no school work. Why? She looked at me and said "because you're reading". 

When growing up my grandmother told me two things every time I saw her, always in this order: 1) Don't join the army. 2) Never marry a Mexican (My grandmother's kinda a racist).

Well it's getting late and this is getting rather long. Jenni and I will write soon. By the Way she is having a wonderful time in Rhode Island with her family.

Break time!

Hey guys,
Today's blog will be brought to you by Jenni. Allison and I are extremely excited for break! With finals out of the way, we can finally wind down, relax, and get the real party started! This past weekend, there has just been a lot of christmas shopping and unpacking. lol
I'm really excited to go off to Rhode Island for christmas to visit my family. I love to travel, especially off to the east coast.
Around new years or before we go back up to State, Ally and I were thinking about making a huge joint party filled with great food, awesome music, and cool decorations =)
The party would celebrate Ally's half birthday on January 23rd, Mike's birthday on the 25th, and Greg's birthday on the 31st.

violaceous

Today Jenni's fortune cookie said to concentrate on the color purple, so that's our plan for the day. I know that's a really strange fortune but it said it would bring her luck, so:

Main Entry:	purple
Part of Speech:	noun, adjective
Definition:	blue and red colors mixed together
Synonyms:	amaranthine, amethyst, bluish red, color, heliotrope, lavender, lilac, magenta, mauve, mulberry, orchid, perse, plum, pomegranate, reddish blue, violaceous, violet, wine

Today I had my worst final, Organic Chemistry 2, and I thought I had another final, I even studied, but it turns out I just wasted my time. I know, how is it that I didn't know I had a final? Well there was a time and a place labeled final exam in our syllabus, and I don't like going to that particular class. Tomorrow Jenni has Chemistry and I have Physics and Biology, both of which Jenni has later in the week. Everyone wants finals to be over but I'll hate to go a month without Jenni and the rest of my friends. School has never felt so much like home.

I grade homework and tests for a math class, and today after the students took their final we had to grade them. Two of the three other graders for the class live in the same dorm as me, and when I got to work one of the other graders bet on how late the third would be. Sadly we were both wrong, he was much less late than we expected. You see the strangest things grading papers. You would not believe the number of students that thought 1/64 = -64. 

Winter is so beautiful, as long as I don't have to drive anywhere, or walk anywhere. Today I had to work and afterwards I was walking and the snow was terrible. I looked up for a second and the snow shot me in the eye, it stung, and that's why I'm a winter recluse. 

Finals

Today is brought to you by the letters J and A.

J for my bestie JenniFer Piwonski and A for me Allison Glasson.

Jenni and I are sophomores at Michigan State University. Sometimes Jenni will write and sometimes I will. Jenni is the queen of thats what she said, she says it constantly, and even when it's funny to no one else, it's funny to us. Right now we should be studying for finals but instead we are making humorous comments about each others facebooks. Our finals week starts tomorrow.

Hi this is Jenni and we also have a facebook group named J.A. Shenanigans filled with witty comments and random comics. This blog is to document our hilariousness and maybe vent some frustration with Lon-Capa.

Thanks Jenni, well I know this was short. I hope you enjoy our blog, even though at times it may seem like we should never be allowed to speak our minds at all.