King Cake!

I had my first taste of King Cake today in honor of Mardi Gras.

Yup, interesting day.

I never knew there was such a thing.


It's a pastry-like cake filled with cream cheese and apple goodness and decorated in green, gold and purple sprinkles, the official colors of Mardi Gras. New Orleanians, or those who participate in the OG Mardi Gras festivities, (it hasn't always been about winning beads in very bad, dirty, dirty ways) hold this very special treat near and dear to their hearts.

There's even a little baby baked into the cake. Not a human baby, (that would be disgusting, of course) but a miniature, plastic, human baby. The lucky person who finds the baby in his slice is made king or queen for the day and is also responsible for providing the next King Cake.

my inner nerd

An abstract for a paper I wrote for my comics class (yes, I'm taking a class in grad school on comics) on Watchmen was accepted to an academic conference--The Living Text 2009--at CSUF. I've got mixed feelings about it all.

On the one hand, I'm very excited to know that my hard work is taking me places and I'll have the chance to have my work heard. I mean, this is what grad students are supposed to do. I sort of feel official now. On the other, I'm frightened of speaking for 20 minutes in front of a large group of really smart strangers, turning beet red, looking like I can't breathe, sounding like I have a Birmingham accent because It's impossible for me to breathe, etc.

These are all valid fears because they've happened to me before. I'm hoping that one day all of these things that happen to me when I get really nervous will never happen again because I'll somehow get over my fear of speaking in public to my peers or superiors.

Strange, but this never happened to me when I taught ESL. I think it was because I spoke English and my students, well, didn't.

Old Elvish

Don't ask me why, but this semester I'm taking a course on Old English among others. Sure, it's a dead language, but it has its benefits--one possibly being the ability to sound like I speak Elvish.

My poor husband. He's got a geek for a wife. Anyway, Mel's got the right idea in this little video.

mushaboom

Red mushrooms with white spots. We saw these babies on a hike. They don't just exist in Super Mario Bros.

top secret camping

We packed our packs and took a long drive up the coast to Big Sur where we camped, hiked and communed with nature. On one of our last hikes we discovered a top secret campsite beneath a few redwoods, nestled atop a cliff that overlooks the ocean. If you glimpse the photo seen here, the campsite was hidden away in the trees on the cliff above the waterfall. It looked pretty perfect as it was complete with a glorious vista and the accompanying soundtrack of crashing waves, which we decided will either sing us to sleep or keep us awake, but either way, we plan to make a reservation in the near future for this super exclusive campsite. Want to come?

umbrella

RIP hansel & gretel

In my version, they die in an earthquake. So sad. Look at the devastation.