Hot Chocolate & Hash Browns

Since I’ve been back I haven’t really known what to write about.

I’m busy crocheting, or babysitting, or sleeping, or watching football (specifically Tim Tebow), which leaves me almost nothing to write about.

Well, that’s not completely true, but it doesn’t leave me enough to really elaborate upon.  Unless you wanted to hear me rant about Tim Tebow, but I figured everyone else on every sports channel and radio talk show is doing that for me already. 

Anyway…

I finally got to see one of my close friends from high school last night and we decided to go on a late night ice cream run, which quickly changed to a hot chocolate run due to the freezing weather.

Both of us agree that Starbucks’ hot chocolate is nothing special so we decided to find a different place instead.  Peet’s Coffee was closed and the coffee shop inside Whole Foods was closed as well.  Caribou Coffee was half an hour away, which didn’t leave us with many other options.

Then she suggested Village Inn and I knew of one right down the road, so we drove for 5 minutes and pulled into the parking lot.

We were both pretty sure that they wouldn’t mind a couple of college students wanting only a cup of hot chocolate.  But as soon as we entered my stomach grumbled.  Nothing surprising I guess.

It was difficult to hear what our waiter was saying since he mumbled a lot.  However, we both ended up with a mug of hot chocolate in hand—it just so happened that her mug matched the color of her fingernails, which we both got a good laugh out of. 

I couldn’t resist.  “Xavia, I really want some hash browns.  Do you think they’ll give me just a side of hash browns?”

This caused both of us to laugh again and receive some funny looks from the waiter when he took our order, but I couldn’t have been happier with hot chocolate, hash browns, and one of my best friends by my side. 

It’s an odd combination, that’s for sure.

But happiness comes in the most unique forms. 

Last night it happened to be something sweet, something salty (with some carbs), and a healthy portion of friendship. 

Perfect.  

The Reward of Chocolate

I had my second midterm this morning.  My first one last night was for art and I’m pretty sure I did just fine.  

I was a much more worried about the midterm this morning.  

It was for my freshman film class.  It’s a USEM, which means I chose to take it because I was interested in the topic, even though I hadn’t ever considered majoring in film production. 

Turns out it’s the hardest class I have this semester. 

I made myself a huge study guide, I studied with my friends, I reread sections of the book, and went over all my in class notes.  I studied until my eyes were crossed and I couldn’t anymore.

I studied so much I couldn’t even sleep last night.  I ended up lying awake until almost 2 in the morning, which isn’t that surprising because that’s about the time I go to bed on a normal night anyway…oh college. 

When my alarm went off I was up immediately.  I knew I couldn’t dress too casual, but also not too fancy.  If I dressed too casual I would be tempted to fall asleep.  My idea of extremely casual is a hoodie and sweats/pajama pants, which really gets my body in the mood to shut off and take a nap.  I also couldn’t dress too nicely because, first of all, I did yesterday, and secondly, I wouldn’t be comfortable at all. 

Thus, I found a perfect “happy medium.”

I pulled out my favorite pair of jeans, my Sperry’s (best shoes ever), and a sweater that I kidnapped from my Mom.  She doesn’t ever wear it and I do, so I figured it was only fair.  It’s actually one of the best things I have in my closest.  It would easily fit into the “ugly-sweater” category, but I love it too much to consider it as such. 

Throughout breakfast I was going over facts once more, and trying to mentally prepare myself for the test.  I wasn’t doing too well.  I continued to get more and more tense until I felt like my brain was detached from my head… I don’t really know how else to explain it, but it wasn’t a good feeling.

By the time I got to the room where I would take my test, someone could have pushed me over and I would have toppled like a chopped down tree.  I was that tense.

And here’s the weird thing.  Never before in my life had I EVER been that nervous for a test.  I think it was partially due to the fact I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t know if I had studied for it right.  Plus there was a ton of information I had to remember and I didn’t know if I remembered any of it. 

My professor handed out the test and I began immediately.  There were no multiple-choice questions and no matching questions—we had to write everything.  He gave us ten terms and we had to define all of them through writing and then write an essay at the end.  I was partially peeved…picking only ten people/movies out of the dozens we had learned about didn’t make me feel like my comprehension on the first half of the quarter was being fully tested.  

In a way I wanted to be really mad about it, but I quickly shoved those feelings aside.  Feelings don’t have a place when it comes to a test.  If anything they make things worse.

I finished right on time and I felt like I had neglected discussing a few minor details, but overall I felt good that I was finished.  And I wasn’t mad at my professor anymore for making us write everything because half way through the test he walked around the room and handed each of us a fun-sized, dark-chocolate, Hershey bar.

If you don’t know me well, you need to know right now that I love dark chocolate.  I usually refuse to eat Hershey chocolate unless it's dark, and I was immediately appeased by my professor’s kind gesture.

On any other day I would have saved the chocolate for later, or maybe eaten only ½ of it.

Today I ate all of it.

I had successfully made it through my second midterm (my first official midterm in my opinion) and nothing was going to stop me from devouring it.

By the time my second class started, it was gone.

And I don’t regret it one bit.