Last week end was back to my sister’s meadow but this time there was no fence making involved. Instead I got to do one of the things I’d always wanted to do as a kid and never actually got the chance : catch frogs. I’ve always had a thing for frogs, I remember when I first went to Florida, one of the very first things I bought was this, and we became best imaginary friends instantly.

I also remember when I was ten or something, and I tried to bring tadpoles home, hoping they’d turn into fabulous hopping frogs. Turned out they were not tadpoles, but mean salamanders’ babies, which tried to eat each other as soon as their teeth had grown (yes, salamanders have teeth, and so do frogs). Anyway, I’ve finally seen frogs for real, thanks to my sister and her swampy meadow. It’s quite fun when they hop all over your hand, you should try it sometime if you haven’t already. Enjoy the movie

Attention to all my RSS subscribers. As I am getting my blog Sydney-proof - yes, that’s right, no more stress, I am going to Sydney for six months, that’s 100% sure - I’ve been doing some geeky technical stuff for my big cup (don’t worry I won’t detail anything ) and so the rss feed for my entries has changed. Click here to get the new one. There may be a few technical glitches over the following days, do not hesitate to let me know.

For those who may be wondering why I haven’t posted anything new for a while, and for those who are just curious, here you are a brief compte-rendu of my week. Having recently moved out, I’d actually planned on resting and not doing anything in particular… well, that’s not exactly what happened.

I eventually realized that when sleeping all morning long, and spending the day in front of my computer were not much fun - not to mention that it didn’t help with my upcoming internship related stress. For those who are still wondering what this internship thing is, I guess I should give you a quick explanation : I am an undergraduate engineer in telecommunications (don’t ask me to be more precise, I simply can’t, and no, this doesn’t mean that I’ll work for AT&T Wireless for the rest of my life), and, in order to get my so awaited diploma, I must undertake a six month internship wherever I want, as long as it deals a minimum with what I have been studying for the past five years (again, don’t ask for precisions). I may able to go to Sydney for this internship, but I’m still going through the recruitment process, hence the stress.

Back on track. Getting aware of the fact that spending my days pointlessly glaring at a computer screen I would probably lose any chance to ever be able to wear contact lenses again, I finally decided to “do” something. That’s how I ended up spending three days pasting various postcards (and by various, I mean really various, from landscapes, to Marilyn photos, with a bit of Garfield and Calvin & Hobbes on the side) on huge cardboard boards, to freshen up my mom’s bathrooms’ decoration. I am definitely planning on posting pictures of the final result, as, not that I want to flatter myself (but maybe a bit though), it looks really nice.

I’ve also discovered I had a well hidden yet true video games player side. I was cleaning my old bedroom at my mom’s and came across my Tomb Raider III CDs. My mom had bought me those like ten years ago, and I had played it for one hour tops. Well, I gave it another try this week, and this time it was like, woaw, this is really fun. So that kept (and is actually still keeping) me busy for a while. I know what you’re going to say, so much for my eyes’ redness. You’re probably right, but it also turned out to be a great way to do some bonding with my younger brother, and that’s real nice.

Talking about family, I’ve officially become my younger sister’s nanny. She’s almost eighteen, well, so what, you can always use a nanny ! So I pick her up at school, I help her with her homework and to get ready for her tests, (trying to figure out how ovarian hormones were produced in less than 30min, so that I could clarify things for her, just before her biology test, wad indeed a bit of a challenge…). I really like this new big brother - nanny thing though, it’s a great feeling, especially after having spent five years away from home (not that far, but still).

And then came today, this week’s most physical day. I hate sports. I really do. To me, physical activity is this thing that you MUST do if you want to stay fit and not to explode because of your job’s pressure. I know it’s supposed to be wonderful to work out, play a game with some friends, but I haven’t reached that point yet. I’m still trying to recover from gym class. Anyway, my dad and step mom once thought it would make my sister happy if she had horses. Yes, horseS. One mare and a pony. They just somehow forgot that you couldn’t put your horses in your garden and let them be. All this to say that today, my sister and I spent the afternoon working on her horses’ meadow’s fence. I will spare you the details, as it’s not much fun, but it sure was physical and tiring. Well at least we enjoyed the great weather (am I starting to sound like my grandma here ? oh well…).

To conclude on a grandmother touch, I am now enjoying a delicious cup of tea selected by my so connoisseur mother, listening to my favorite Sinatra tunes, getting ready for some more adventures with Lara Croft (see, I ain’t that old yet !)

Before you watch this video and start making fun of me, you have to understand that :

• I’ve just moved from my cozy apartment back to my parents ; don’t get me wrong, I love them that much, but there is no such thing as having your own place
• I’m still a bit nervous because I am not sure yet of where I am going to undertake my internship, so I need to evacuate my stress
• I have a thing for corny Disney songs
• I’m being brainwashed downloading legally watching American Idol all day long
• I had a lousy afternoon.

So when my little sister dared me today to lipsync to “Part Of Your World” from The Little Mermaid and to put it online… I just had to do it ! Seriously I think I could go to Broadway now, I don’t know how to rollerblade, but I sure hope you’ll appreciate the chair on wheels special visual effects here. It’s corny, it will definitely make your ears hurt, it’s Ariel with a beard, it’s with a Pocahontas frame because I couldn’t find a Mermaid one, well, it’s too much for words ! For the pleasure of your ears and eyes only…Enjoy the show !

Some thought that she was gonna have to quit, to “bow out of the race while she’s still got some dignity”…Come on, that’s not knowing a Clinton well enough ! I must say it felt good to wake up this morning (that’s what happens when you live in France, you have to wait till morning to get the US evening news…), check the results, and see this bright smile on her face, with those confettis flying around. I mean, after reading the comments after the Ohio debate on various blogs, reading those dreadful articles about whether she should stay in the race or not, I must say that for a split second there I thought her “coup de grâce” was approaching… I know it is still going to be EXTREMELY difficult for her to get the nomination, but I keep watching this part of her speech where she says “as Ohio goes, so goes the Nation”, and I keep my fingers crossed… So anyway, I guess you could say I had a nice morning.

Then I had to go to school, (I can’t believe that in less than a month, I’m finally going to be able to say I’m going to work), and then the day became…let’s say, not quite as fun. I can’t take it anymore, having to sit down in a room, which usually has this bad feet smell, listening to this guy you don’t really care about, watching a PowerPoint presentation -or at least trying to, since the colors are usually so aggressive on this screen it’s kind of hard to watch more than one slide- going on, and on, and on… Really, I can’t wait for this to be over.

And then some uneventful things happened, so I just won’t mention them there, and eventually - wait, I almost forgot about my butch moment of the day when I got to go down to the cellar and clean it out. That is worth mentioning. I had to do it, as I’m leaving my apartment in two weeks, I couldn’t leave the cellar like this. To understand the amount of cleaning I suddenly had to face, you must be aware that for the past two years, whenever something was bothering me, it went straight down to the cellar, and once it gets there, because it’s on the ground and quite humid down there, it starts…rotting. Nice, eh ? 600L of crap (don’t ask me to convert this in pounds or gallons or whatever, it’s just too late for maths), yep you heard me right. Can you imagine, me, with my little strengthless arms stuffing my car with all this crap and then drive to the the “dechetterie” (I don’t even know if that’s English, but again, it’s late for me) to throw it out ? Having to touch things I wish I’d never had to touch, constantly having this feeling that disgusting bugs were running on my shoulders, wondering whether it was true when the other day my neighbor mentioned rats…Boy, <irony>that was so much fun…</irony>

So, back to what I was saying in the first place, eventually came the evening. I thought, well, after such a manly afternoon, I NEED to watch a musical, or at least something close to it.

That’s when I remembered this cute Kristin Chenoweth song on the Oscars, That’s How You Know, from Enchanted. Yes, I watched Enchanted tonight. Please don’t erase this blog from your bookmarks now, I won’t do it again, I swear.

Instead, try to understand what actually made me pick this movie : Kristin Chenoweth singing, wonderful. Susan Sarandon playing the villain, still good. Patrick Dempsey in tights, since I still can’t decide whether is a hottie or not, I’ll say… interesting. Oh dear… I should have known better. First, Kristin doesn’t even sing in the movie, that was just an Oscars fraud. Then Susan Sarandon is onscreen for like 20 minutes tops -out of 120 that ain’t much- she’s wearing ridiculous make up, even on pride day you’d notice her, and don’t get me started on her shoes… Finally Patrick Dempsey was definitely not cute enough to compensate all this ghastliness, he does have a je ne sais quoi though, I’ll give the movie that much. So that left me with 100 minutes of boring, stupid, and disgusting - I’m thinking of the scene where the annoying chipmunk actually farts, come on, what was that for - brainwashing stuff, where you learn that your charming prince is somewhere out there, though it might not be who you think it is. Well, I didn’t need Enchanted to get this one. So you won’t be surprised if Enchanted doesn’t make it to my i’ve just seen section, it is NOT worth it.

Okay, it’s really late now, so I’ll just go to bed still humming That’s How You Know (yes, I did like this song), and focusing on “as Ohio goes, so goes the Nation”…

I love that there are so many plugins for blogs to always be more fun… This week I want to introduce a new concept to The Big Cup : the weekly polls ! Every week (there may be some exceptions), 3 subjects for you to express your thoughts on, because I care about what you think too ! (see ? blogs are not SUCH self-centering tools for self-centered people!). With no further a due, this week’s polls :

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I’ve finally started watching Lost season 4. I must say after going through season 2 and feeling both bored because nothing happened in those episodes, and furious because whenever something did happen it was raising new questions, that, like the old ones, were never to be answered. Season 3 improved as the season went by, but nothing compared to exciting season 1. So I was like, should I watch this new season or should I don’t… nothing else was airing - I hear we’re gonna have to wait until late April for new Brothers and Sisters episodes - so I did watch. Well that was a good idea, because this season is actually going somewhere, at least for now. There’s great suspense, new questions of course but answers too, I’m must say I’m really happily surprised, it almost feels like season 1 again. Good writers seem to be back on, I guess it must help now that they pretty much know how many episodes are left.

I’ve also read today that Kate Walsh is taking advantage of her break from cute Private Practice to come back on Grey’s Anatomy for another episode, as a guest star. That’s great news, the show really isn’t the same without her, so I can’t wait to see Addison back at Seattle Grace’s !

Meanwhile I am still baking to evacuate my stress. I tried chocolate chips cookies, but you won’t get pictures because it was a total failure ! I think I’ve just made the most disgusting cookies ever, I don’t understand because the dough smelt great… But I won’t stop the bakery adventure here though, so, provided I get enough strength to go and buy baking soda, I should be making cupcakes real soon. There are my absolute favorites, and since I’ve just found out this great blog with wonderful recipes, I might just try it. But that’s all very hypothetical since I’m very much enjoying staying in bed with my computer (yeah I know, kind of pathetic, but it does feel good), slowly turning into a big high tech slug. I could use cupcakes though… Arg, tough life !

Remember this Grey’s Anatomy episode where Izzie is in a baking mood and turns into a muffins factory ? Well, same thing happened to me tonight ! I feel quite stressed right now, my studies coming to an end, not being quite sure where and when I am going to undertake my final and most important internship (I’m an undergraduate engineer, for those who are interested in getting to know me better) ; so I need to keep myself busy, otherwise my heart starts racing in my chest and it’s not that funny…

Since I had no Brothers & Sisters episode to watch tonight, I figured I was going to try and perfectionate my muffins recipe. I started around 6:30PM, I thought it would keep me busy for half an hour, one hour tops. Yeah, right… First I realized, a bit too late, as I was already arm deep in butter and eggs (I might be exaggerating a little, I tend to do that…), that I had no chocolate chips. Bummer ! How am I supposed to make chocolate chips muffins without any chocolate chips ? I really wanted muffins tonight, so, I had no choice, I made my own chocolate chips. Well, once they were done, it was 8:30PM. That’s right, I spent TWO hours making chocolate chips, but you must reckon that they look pretty damn good :

Alright, back to the muffins. I now had all the required ingredients, so I resumed my muffin-making. To find the right recipe, I googled “American muffins”, and then mixed all the recipes that looked the most appealing into one. As I was beating the eggs, adding the milk and the butter, I couldn’t help but notice that I was making A LOT of muffin dough, but again, nothing was going to stop me ! Another hour later, after fighting with butter that simply didn’t want to melt, no matter how hard I beat it, I was putting the first six muffin set into the oven. I thought I was only going to make six muffins tonight ; I should have guessed that this “cups to grammes convertor” site wasn’t working well…

Anyway, it’s now 10:00PM and I have almost 20 muffins for my desert tonight, so, as I said in this entry title, now you can call me Izzie ! Good thing is I feel completely relaxed, and I have enough muffins to go and greet my new neighbor (so I guess you call me Bree too…). Follow the link below to get the recipe…

Read more…

I have been playing with this StatCounter tool I’m using to see how many people visit my blog, and from where they’re from. And here is what I’ve found in the Returning Visits section :

“The best and most successful websites are the ones with a very high
return frequency. If you have a low or non-existant return frequency
you may want to change your website to encourage your visitors to come
again and again.”

Let’s see, only 8% of my visitors have actually visited my blog more than 10 times…so, what does this mean ? That I should change my website ? Alright, why not, after all it is what I  do best in blogs, changing them. But I am not going to build a whole new different thing on my own, I am going to ask YOU (yes, you heard me, I want to know what you think) what it is you’d love to see on my blog.

So here you go, I’m listening, tell me what it is that’s missing on my Big Cup that prevents you from coming back. You want more tasty recipes, movie reviews, cartoons, Brad Pitt naked (yeah right, like I actually have such a picture…), come on, rush to the comment section and tell me what it is you’re dying to see here at The Big Cup !

Alright, I know it is not the best show ever, but come on, Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing ABBA : it HAS to be good ! Anyway, I know I’m going to love it…