cutest cupcake contest winners!!

Martha Stewart announced the winners to her first annual cutest cupcake contest on her show Tuesday afternoon! Each of the ten winners received a cupcake stand from the domestic diva, and two of my top fifteen made it into Martha's favorites! Dang. I'm so good at spotting cute cupcakes. I went through every single one of the entries...but somehow I managed to miss some since the Tartan cupcakes that Martha liked so much did not look familiar to me at all. Neither did the blue ones with sea shells. Oh, well. Out of over 2,000 entries, I feel pretty good for guessing two of the top ten. Click the link above to see Martha announce the winners.

My selections that won the contest were the sushi cupcakes and the cherry pie cupcakes:

i'm a junkie

Caffeine junkie, of course. So WHY OH WHY does my university not sell sugar free Red Bull anymore? And don't preach to me about how horrible it is for my body, because my school has no qualms selling corn dogs, French fries, and brownies the size of your head. Not to mention the fact that my school still carries Monster, which is a disgusting, larger version of Red Bull. I want an energy boost fast, I don't want to have to drink a gallon of carbonated sludge to get my buzz, kthxbye.

I'm leaving for Maryland tomorrow to present my paper on Scorsese, which of course I have yet to finish. I really just need an introduction and a conclusion, and a little more detail in one section. Part of me wants to add a few paragraphs devoted to Scorsese's aesthetic style, but given that I'm already super pressed for time, that probably won't happen. I also need to take my finished product of 17 pages and trim it down to 6 pages for my panel presentation. Blargh. Where's the sugar free Red Bull fairy when you need her?

things i miss about high school: #1

The #1 thing I miss most about high school is...(drum roll, please)

Napping during class. Okay, to be fair, I think almost EVERYONE has napped during class. However, I'm not talking about that normal dozing off during a lecture kind of napping (which I actually have never done), I'm talking about full on whipping out a yoga mat, sleeping bag, and pillow and napping in class. In fairness, this "class" was a TA class so I wasn't missing any kind of important information. I guess when I think about it I probably should have been grading papers or something, but my sleeping bag always seemed more inviting than doing any kind of real work. More than once the students in the class (standard level English class of freshmen) would whine about how they had to do work while I got to sleep. The instructor used it as motivation: "Well, if you do really good in school and get As you'll be able to be a TA and take naps during class, too."

coconut the opossum

My family has a pet opossum. Sort of. For the past month or so a opossum (by the way, I hate the way that word is spelled) has been coming to my house every night to feast on the cat food in the front yard.

When I was house sitting for ten days straight, Tater Tot would start barking like crazy every night at around midnight. Tater is always barking so I never really thought much of it. Notice the scratch marks all over the door frame? Yeah, Tater was just a LITTLE upset by Coconut. Finally, I decided to actually check out what was causing the Tot so much anguish instead of just yelling at him to stop (and occasionally throwing a stuffed animal chew toy in his general direction). This is how Coconut and I met:
Oh, be warned, the volume is kind of loud because I was VERY excited and could hardly contain myself as I was videotaping. And I have a lisp from my retainers (yes, I wear retainers).


I was talking on the phone to Noelle at the time, and we decided that "Coconut" was a fitting name. I'm not sure why we chose "Coconut", but given that we love to name pets after items of food (Muffin, Latte, Fajita, Tater Tot, Cheese Puff), it just seemed to work.

Since our first encounter, I discovered that Coconut has a temporary hide-out in the front yard. I say temporary because I researched opossums and found out that they are nomadic creatures, but I'm hoping Coconut stays for a while. On the side of our house we have a large banquet table leaning up against a wall along with several cushions from our lawn furniture. Coconut is using the make-shift tent as a home for the time being, here are some pictures of me sneaking up on him paparazzi style:





Coconut, don't ever leave me. 'Cause I'd find you! (name that movie quote)

things i miss about high school: #2

The #2 thing I miss most about high school is...

Chicken rings and spicy fries. My 16 year old metabolism made it possible for me to eat these EVERY day of high school (with two sides of nacho cheese, please) and not become a total fatty. Sigh. Those were the days. Sadly, my school stopped serving chicken rings and started carrying regular chicken nuggets instead. They just weren't the same, y'know? Also, in doing research into "chicken rings" I found out that White Castle sells them! I. cannot. believe. it. Seriously, I now completely understand the motivation behind the characters in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Goal before I die: go to White Castle and order some delicious circular fried processed meat. Mhhhh.

sex and the city countdown!

It's April and you know what THAT means...only a few more weeks until the Sex and the City movie comes out (May 30th)!! I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to this more than my college graduation set for May 17th.

Okay, that is a complete and utter lie, my graduation is going to be the BOMB (and so is my celebratory tea party, I might add), but I am really looking forward to seeing Carrie on the big screen. However, as the movie gets closer I know more and more people are going to start talking about it and how "it's TOTALLY their life!" and they're "such a Carrie but sometimes I'm Samantha". Like, duh. S&TC is every woman's life, that's why the show made gazillions of dollars.

I don't know, it just annoys me when people get all preachy about how they ARE Carrie or whatever. Because they're not. Yeah, maybe your life has aspects of some of the situations shown on the show, but really, you're going to try to tell me that you lead the SAME life as Carrie? You rarely work, live in an awesome New York apartment, wear crazy clothes (and get praised for it), shop every day, and party every night? Yeah. Sure you do. Just because you have dating problems doesn't mean you lead the same life as a character from S&TC. It means you're like every other woman in America.

Geez, someone is a Debbie Downer today. Wah, wah, wah.

Oh, and can I just add that if I were Kim Cattrall I would be SO pissed about this promotion picture, she looks like a totally fatty compared to the other girls. Most unflattering angle ever.

more from the cutest cupcake contest

Martha's first annual Cutest Cupcake Contest is now over, but she has yet to announce the winners! The suspense is killing me! I really hope one of my ten favorites wins. Since I made that post there were another 900 entries, and yes, I went through them all. There were a few repeats of concepts (more S'mores cupcakes, some other "popcorn" cupcakes, etc), but these next few cupcakes really stood out to me, so I'm amending my Top Ten list to a Top Fifteen list.


*chirp chirp chirp* chicken and chick cupcakes


Chocolate chip cookie cupcakes! I LOVE this so much!


Hello Kitty cupcakes. These totally reminded me of Twin.


Vegetable garden cupcakes.


MY FAVORITE CUPCAKE OF THE CONTEST!! I absolutely love this idea, and I think it's so simple but SO inventive! Also, I just watched Interview with the Vampire and I know Louis and Lestat would love these.

pontification at its best

I'm not going to bore you with the very nerdy details of the National Undergraduate Literature Conference, but it was an amazingly dorky and wonderful experience. It was so fun to be around hundreds of people just like me (read: get pure joy out of analyzing novels and films). I mentioned earlier that I was going to be presenting a paper on William Faulkner (pictured to the right looking studly and very Hugh Hefneresque), and my talk went extremely well. There were two other people on my panel who were discussing different texts from Faulkner, so it made for a very interesting session and we all got a chance to ask each other questions at the end. Several people told me they really enjoyed my presentation, which made me feel good because I had been extremely nervous and also worked very hard on editing my paper for time constraints and semi-memorizing it. I was very, very tempted to start my presentation asking, "Is everyone ready to get Faulked up?" but my better judgment told me not to.

Oh, side note, my school DID end up funding the bulk of my trip. I knew they'd give in. No one can resist the persuasive princess that is Nicolle.