Death by Peanut Butter.

If you've been hip to the latest news, you may be aware that there have been over 400 salmonella-related illnesses in the U.S., and three deaths. What do all of the victims have in common? They have all consumed peanut butter. Now before you run to your cupboard and evict your jar of peanut butter, you may be interested to know that most of the cases involved peanut butter that was distributed from food service providers, not directly to consumers. King Nut and Parnell's Pride peanut butters and suspected to be the culprits. Two years ago, ConAgra recalled Peter Pan Peanut Butter for causing over 650 cases of salmonella food poisoning in almost every one of our 50 states.
I was thankful to find that my favorite peanut butter brand's (Skippy) reputation appears to remain untainted, and I intend to continue eating the Duane ____ Burger as often as possible.
In lighter news, the mayor of Guanajuato has declared Mexico City the "kissing capital of the world." He did not do this to encourage romantic PDA, however. He did it to prove that he had not, in fact, placed a ban on kissing in public as it had been rumored. He set an ad campaign in motion with a picture of a couple kissing that says, "Guanajuato, the kissing capital." This is a sweet idea and all, but couldn't he have just denied the kissing prohibition? Does he need a full-fledged campaign to prove he's not the anti-cupid? Whatever his reasons, it looks like Rome and Paris are being given a run for their money ;p ...or not.

The Funny Thing About the Flu

The flu does a lot of things to a person. There are the obvious symptoms: congestion, cough, sore throat, all over body aches, fatigue, etc.

But beyond the less than pleasurable symptoms of the flu, you may find yourself deliriously hopeful of doing two things: 1) being outrageously productive in the downtime you now find yourself with since you have missed all of your classes for the day or 2) wanting to sleep the day away, turn off your phone and become a complete recluse.

Well I have found myself feeling both extremes in the now three days that I have been sick. Sleeping has, of course, gotten quite old and I daresay I will most likely avoid sleep at all costs for the first week of my improved health. Perhaps two weeks. I also have fluctuated through the cycle of wanting to be productive and rationalizing that I needn't be, because, well, I am sick after all. I have work to do for all four of my classes and I feel that it would be advantageous to my mental health (though maybe not my physical health) to get it done. Advantageous or not, I predict that I will get very little done in the coming hours of illness and I probably also will not sleep.

A third symptom of sickness has suddenly become apparent. The desire to watch endless hours of television while snuggled comfortably in my bed drinking ginger ale and texting all of the exciting folks who are out living their exciting lives on a Saturday night.

The third will reign victorious tonight.

Bizzwords

I got an e-mail from my dad that contained a little snippet from a review of a book by "Mr. Bergman." In it, he mentions a few words that I definitely think should become a part of everyone's daily life when they become part of the workplace.

chainsaw consultant, "an outside consultant brought in to fire employees"
brightsizing, "downsizing by laying off the brightest workers"
layoff lust, "the desire to be fired from one's job"
to Nasdaq, meaning "to sharply decline in value or quantity."
bozo explosion, "a rapid increase of incompetent employees at a particular company" mucus trooper, "an employee with a cold or the flu who insists on showing up for work"
prairie-dogging, "the sudden appearance of people's heads over the top of the cubicle walls when something interesting or noisy happens."
jetiquette, the flyers' code of polite behavior.
clickstream, "the virtual path a person takes while surfing the Web"
Zen mail, "an e-mail message without text or attachments"
Dorito syndrome, dissatisfaction felt after wasting time surfing the Net and accomplishing nothing

"There are also a number of entries whose business connections are tenuous. For example, negative patient outcome (the patient died) is medical jargon. Voluntary simplicity (avoiding luxury and pretense) smacks of New Age patois. And ohnosecond -- "the little bit of time it takes you to realize that you've just made a huge mistake" -- has far too much potential to be confined to the workplace."

My favorites are bozo explosion and mucus trooper. C'mon, you know we've all tried to think of what to call those people that make you gag day after day with their constant sniffing and hocking. Ta-da! Now if we could only introduce these people to another highly used bit of necessary jargon. Antibiotics.

Twilight

I am finally getting around to reading the first book in the Twilight series! I read the second one in the beginning of my senior year but I just now got around to reading the first. My inspiration? I want to have all the books read before the movie comes out (and also because I saw it on display at my school's bookstore for 20% off the display price... only SEVEN dollars!). I really can't stand it when a movie ruins the essence of a book. I find that if you've read the book first and the movie is awful, at least you know that you can always return to the beloved text version of the story. But if you see the movie and THEN read the books, you are often forced to think of all the characters in terms of how they are portrayed in the movies and these depictions more often than not are different from how your imagination would create them to be.

So I am reading the book first! Unfortunately, I know who is going to be playing Edward (the really gorgeous guy who plays Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!) so I already am starting to envision him in the role. Sad.

Springtime!

It is officially Spring! I realize that technically it has been Spring since whenever the hedgehog... wait no, it's a groundhog, so since whenever the groundhog poked his little head out to announce the arrival of springtime. Not really sure when that was to tell you the truth. What's the difference between a groundhog and a hedgehog anyway? As far as I know hedgehogs do not live in hedges (the only ones I have ever known of lived in Alli's house actually) and I have never seen a hog in the ground. Who names these animals??

Anyway, the first day of Spring Quarter is tomorrow and I am stoked. Why am I stoked you ask? Because I am determined to be SO organized and SO on top of things this quarter that I cannot help but get ALL A's! Yes, that's right. I'm aiming high.

I'll keep you posted on the likelihood of me actually achieving my goal.

HAPPY SPRING!

Cheerful post!

I didn't like having a negative post as my last post... so I decided to write a cheerful one to top it off!

I'm in a good mood! I have Fruit Punch Gatorade and I'm having a wonderful week with Boyfriend and I went to Disneyland and Malibu and Balboa and I'm going to a Ducks game tonight and the super secret Valentine's Day date is in THREE DAYS and basically... everything is wonderful!

Yay for happiness!! Eat your heart out negative blog post.

P.S. There will be a post about Malibu, with some of the wonderful pictures that we took that day :)

I cannot describe...

...how awful the past week has felt.