"I'll Be Home for Christmas"

I cannot begin to describe how great it is to be home for Christmas. This feeling comes from many things: 1) last year I was in Thailand for Christmas, and although my mom came to visit, it just wasn't the same as being home, 2) the last set of exams rocked me hard, being away from school is a way of forgetting, 3) I LOVE my house at Christmas.... my mom has a huge Christmas tree with all these funky ornaments, along with about 15 other "themed trees" around the house (my room is the white, snowman and angel themes... my new favorite addition is the black and pink themed tree).

The Main Christmas Tree

The Tree in My Room






























The Pink and Black Themed tree/ decorations


Funny story... you know how I was super excited about post-exam parties?!? Well, let me tell you the little tale of post-exam stress. When I got home I was trying to figure out how much money I actually had in the bank (1st semester loans are running REALLY low making Christmas a little difficult, but that's besides the point..). In trying to figure out how much money I had I realized that I could not find my checkbook (I've learned that I'm really bad about losing things lately... I must work on this... p.s. my keys ended their vacation and are now safely back in my possesion). This stressed me out more than probably necessary... but I had these visions of sketchy people of the D finding it and depleting my already low funds to 0, or even worse, into the red. AHH. Well, needless to say this stress (along with a phone call from a friend) convinced me not to go to the skating (boo, wish I had) and just go to the party that night.

Well, in order to relieve the stress I decided to sit down and watch some TV... I fell asleep and woke up the next morning at 11 am. Oops... (Which reminds me of the CNN article on all-nighters that I've been meaning to post... I don't pull all nighters, I pull 5 hours of sleep for multiple nights in a row, probably having nearly the same effect). Then my mom called saying, "GET OUT OF THE D BEFORE YOU CAN'T COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!!" Just kidding, she was calling to notify me of a blizzard that supposedly dumped at least a foot of snow on SE MI... I got out and got home instead.

Sad story... on the way home I stopped by the mall to pick up one of my Christmas presents that my mom had on hold.... which they apparently decided not to keep on hold. While at the mall I ran by the Apple store to have them check out my computer (it's doing this funky thing where if it goes into sleep mode the keyboard and mouse become non-functional). Anyways, looks like I'm going to have to back up my entire computer and give to them for a few days to fix whatever "corrupted HD" thing that is going on... Boo, I thought Macs didn't do this. Picture me crying on having to spend money I don't have on a computer that's not supposed to do this kind of crap.

That being said, happy new on the Chiang Mai front. I forgot to post this earlier, but my roommate's brother is trying to sponsor all the kids in one of the orphanages in CM... the happy news is that all 125 kids are sponsored!!! If you want to read about what they are doing, here's the link to the original story and the post about meeting the goal. All I have to say is HALLELUJAH!

And now for other random things making me happy:

Christmas carols on crack (not really... it's the same song that my undergrad choir sang, I think, or at least is very similar)


Daft hand (My friend posted this, I've seen it before... but it still makes me laugh)


Room for Marys and Josephs at the Inn...

Post-Secret (if you don't read it, you should... or buy the book... I have my own secret I want to send in, just haven't had the time yet)