Kitties Join the CARTay

Last week, we had some temporary additions to the CART family.  They were my super cute kitties, Butterskotch and Karamel.  Butterskotch is a girl and Karamel is a boy and they are siblings.  We got them from a box outside of Walmart when they were only four weeks old and looked like this.................................
Now they are over 6 years old, but they're still adorable!


When they first arrived at the CART house, they were very shy and hid under the bed all day.  But as the week went on, they befriended all the members of CART.  Christine didn't really like them though because they made her feel itchy....even though she's not allergic, so I think she was lying.  Taylor and Butterskotch became best friends!  They always cuddled up together in the living room while Taylor studied and fought the mono disease.  She didn't really like Karamel though and that made him sad...she wouldn't even say goodbye to him on our parting day.  Rachael was mostly indifferent to both cats.  However, she did have an exceptional moment when Butterskotch leaped on top of her in the middle of the night and made her scream.  (It was the night I had to get up early for clinical, so I should have kicked Rachael out of the house for waking me up...but I'm a good roommate so I didn't).


Both felines were very helpful in the CART house throughout the week.  Butterskotch's good deed was being my friend at 5am on Friday when none of my housemates were inclined to keep me company.  She meow-ed a lot, mostly because she wanted me to feed her, but also to make sure I stayed awake until I had to leave for the hospital.  She also sat in my lap and kept me nice and warm in the midst of the freezing CART household.

Karamel didn't want to be left out either, so over the weekend he studied with me for pathophysiology.  He did this by walking back and forth in front of me several times before finally settling down right on top of my note binder.  I was on the microorganisms section when he did this, so he must have mistaken himself for a lower life form.  While it was cute, his actions were not very instrumental in helping me study, so I unfortunately had to send him off in a different direction.

Yesterday, it was time for the babies to say goodbye.  Mama Ring came to AA, and we loaded them into the car.  As she drove off, both kitties stood by the front window, staring longingly at the home they had cherished so much.  They are probably happy to be back in their real residence, but maybe one day they will decide to come purring at our doorstep again :)

Resolved: Barack Obama has failed as President of the United States

Okay, so actually that resolution failed, but that was what we discussed tonight at MPU!

Barack's happy with the Union's decision.

Teeners didn't come this time because she was busy watching the Tigers play in Detroit. At least they won, so we'll excuse her. Girlfriend didn't dress up because the mono makes her feel yuck and Zacky was late because people didn't leave the store quickly. Also, Brian didn't come so there was only one strong conservative voice.

BUT, that doesn't mean that people didn't argue that Obama is a failure. People called him a failure because of his lack of leadership with the debt ceiling. People called him a failure for his hypocritical foreign policy stances (e.g. Libya).  People called him a failure for not closing Guantanamo. People called him a failure for not living up to his election promises.

Barack wishes he'd been there to defend himself. But, not everyone gets invited to the Michigan Political Union

The argument that his term isn't over was important as well.  Maybe history will view him as a successful president--who knows? How do you define failure? By approval rating? By action? Through cost-benefit analysis? Also, many people took into consideration the hostile environment he's faced with the 112th Congress. I'm inclined to pin some of the blame on Congress myself, but I guess it doesn't fully absolve him of responsibility either. I hope he wows us in his last year.

The Union did end up deciding that Barack Obama is NOT a failure of a president, but it was a pretty close vote. The meetings are getting pretty big and that's exciting! 30ish people there tonight!

Then we came home and I made (sort of) messed up rice for me and Zacky. Then we snacked on banana bread I made this afternoon, pumpkin squares from Senora Glinksi and apply pie! Tomorrow I'm making enchiladas! Don't you wish you lived in CART house?

Touchdown Time

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!
We started off the season 4-0 (this feels familiar...) and got to be at the first rain-out and the first night game! Not to mention we get to look at Denard's adorable face on a twenty-story score-board/screen every Friday. Three quarters of CART house just got back from our win over SDSU, where we get to dance, cheer, and make up new songs like "Touchdown time, it's time for a touchdown!" (copyright: Katy).

Michigan players are incredibly classy.

In case you are not from this planet, I will explain to you the importance of this game called football. The players (there are a lot of them) run up and down the field and try to score touchdowns. This is much more exciting than many other sports, like hockey, because they tackle each other and make exciting passes or even trick plays! This is a good football year for CART house, because we already decided that Michigan is going to win a National championship, and the Lions are winning the Superbowl! Its good to get things like this figured out early in the season, so we chose early on that we'd like to win.

Football games are an excellent opportunity to document how popular we are

Flies

Today is only Monday, but it feels like Wednesday. This is because I had a long day. I woke up at 6:30 AM to work, then had class from 11:30-5PM straight. I am not even done yet, either, because I have to go back to genetics to play with fruit flies some more. So now I am procrastinating, and this seemed like a fairly productive way to not be productive, right?
In genetics we are working with fruit flies. Geneticists like these annoying bugs, because they are easy to study. I kind of like them, too, because their eyes pop if you poke them, and this looks really cool under a microscope.

In class today we got a mutant strain of flies. Our mutants had white eyes (instead of red) and black bodies (instead of brown). It is very important for our female flies to be virgins when we cross them and do our experiments, so we had to kill all the living flies and just leave the pupae in our jars. This was annoying, and then it became even more annoying when I had to sit around and wait an hour because I finished early. Now it is triple-y annoying because I have to go back and harvest my virgins so they don't have time to get too frisky with the male flies.

Today has not been all annoying, though. After class I went to Mongo's with Rachael, Ashley, Eric, and Eric's friend Halley. I LOVE MONGOLIAN! It was extra great because there was a deal for students today, and I got to drink diet coke, another thing I love!

My 18th birthday was at Mongo's!

Well, this post doesn't really have a point/theme. I'm new at blogging, maybe I will improve?

Muffin and A. Friend Visit Ann Arbor

This weekend was special because our favorite people from Grand Valley came to visit! (Taylor may contest that Dennis is her favorite, but she's not the author of this post, so her opinion doesn't so much count right now.)

My Muffin came to visit because we made a resolution that she should get to Ann Arbor more often than she did last year, which was only once--so far we're doing better.

This is what she looks like:

She delivered that puppy all by herself!

Muffin brought her friend roommate Amanda Friend with her too! Amanda made her first trip to Ann Arbor last winter so she was EXTRA excited to be here when it wasn't cold.

This is what Amanda looks like:

I don't know what she's doing, but the album title leads me to believe that this is from the holiday season.

Anyway, since Michigan was playing Eastern Michigan in football this weekend, it was really easy to get tickets and Amanda Friend got to experience her first game at the Big House. Even though it wasn't a very exciting game, I think it proved to be whelming enough.

Eastern Eagles....Hats off to you! Look to the sky! The Eagles will fly...

We're like the Blues Brothers--not actually the Blues Brothers.

Also before the game, on Friday night, we went to a party on Mary Court and Muffin and Amanda Friend won a game of beer pong after TWO rebuttals! It was probably one of the longest games of beer pong I've ever seen in my life. They found it particularly enjoyed it because they had to win a game of rock, paper, scissors first and they were playing against (and beat) Zack's frat brothers. Muffin also got hit on but wasn't so much interested.

On Saturday after the game we went to the MDen and got No Thai for dinner. Like usual it was really good. This was also the first time Amanda had Thai food--so many firsts in one day for her!!

Now we have an abundance of chopsticks. We're probably going to have an Asian party so we can use them effectively.

After dinner we walked to Cliff Keane to see the volleyball game since Amanda and Muffy both play volleyball regularly at Grand Valley. We watched Michigan defeat Texas A & M in 3 sets! Even though that kind of sounds like a blow out, all three were very close games. Now the two of them definitely know The Victors by heart--I would bet we heard it upwards of 100 times in a single day.

We went to Bubble Island despite Zacky wanting Pizza Bobs--it's a tradition that cannot be messed with! Muffin would have been beside herself if we didn't go and she hadn't been since January! (Foursquare told us so.)

After bubble tea we were all pretty exhausted so we just came home and went to sleep pretty early. Not very eventful. We're not really made to party two nights in a row.

In the morning we met up with Hiroko (a friend from high school) for breakfast. We were going to go to Afternoon Delight but it was SUPER crowded so we went to Sava's instead. I LOVE Sava's so I was happy! They were also having their first ever breakfast buffet; none of us had it though since it was too expensive. My nutella crepe was just as good for less than half the price!

Then...we went to Bigby and they departed for Allendale. It was really nice to see them for the weekend and it helped me forget the daunting amount of political science reading I have to do. Hopefully they can come back one more time before I leave for Senegal!

Yet Another Disease in the CART Family

After a very long day of classes, I finally went to the gym for the first time since last April. The reason for my sudden motivation is my concern over developing "Internal Fat Disease."

This is not what internal fat disease really looks like, but apparently that's what Google Images thinks it is.

As the other members of CART house have discovered over the past two weeks, I can consume a full package of Chips Ahoy in the time it takes Michigan to score a touchdown and beat Notre Dame (8 seconds for those of you who for some crazy reason didn't see the game last weekend). I am now on my fourth package of cookies since we moved in on September 1st. Hence, my concern over "Internal Fat Disease." I may be small on the outside, but my insides are most likely bursting with fat.

X4

Now, while I was at the gym on this monumental day, I invented the BEST WORKOUT IDEA EVER! It's a very simple process:

1) Decide how many minutes you want to spend on the elliptical/treadmill/whatever other machine

2) Divide that number by 3

3) Make a super awesome playlist with the number of songs that is equal to the value you got from your calculation in step 2 (assuming each song is approximately 3 minutes long)

4) Get on the machine and hide the timer

5) Start exercising and begin your playlist

6) When the playlist ends, you are done! You are well on your way to preventing "Internal Fat Disease"

Not a good playlist. Mine was better.

I Learned Something Sad Yesterday

 Yesterday, I woke up in the morning to find that my glands had swollen to the approximately the size of baby hippos. Because this was abnormal, I decided to go to UHS (University Health Services, in case you don't know acronyms) during my break between classes.

UHS is a nice place because it's free, but sometimes it's frustrating. I had an hour and a half break, and hoped that this would be enough time to get myself to see someone who would feel my bulbous glands and then say something like, "Hey, stupid, you just have a cold, so go home," and then I could go to my next class and everything would be happy.

That didn't happen.

Instead, I spent an hour and fifteen minutes waiting, and then the second a doctor looked down my throat, she immediately said, "You have puss on your tonsils." I was kind of offended. That might not be rational, but I was. Then she jabbed my throat with a swab, which was also kind of offensive, but in a different way. She also sent me to the lab to get my blood drawn, which sent me into a panic because it meant that I was going to be late for class, and clearly my health is less important than Asian-American literature. Especially because my professor frequently gives us food at the beginning of class. Last week, we had popcorn and mooncakes. On two separate days, because those don't go together.

Anyways, I ended up being really late for class, but that's not even the sad thing that I learned. The said thing that I learned came when my doctor called me while Rachael and I were watching Teen Mom. The doctor said that they had my results in and told me, "You'll NEVER BELIEVE what the results say!" She said it in a really cheerful voice that falsely lead me to believe something really good had happened. Like maybe they found the cure to cancer in my blood, or something. Instead, I have mono.

Sad mono face

And that's the sad thing that I learned yesterday.

CRT goes to MPU

Last night we, Christine, Rachael and Taylor, went to MPU, otherwise known as the Michigan Political Union, to discuss the constitutionality of affirmative action and Michigan's decision to ban it via Proposition 2.

That's a very small picture of MPU's coat of arms.

MPU is a fun roommate+Zacky activity we like to do every other Monday. We enjoy it even though Zacky's the only one of us who does the talking. I do the secretary-ing and Taylor and Christine do the sitting and listening.

 This is what Zacky looked like when he first started MPU, back when he had fun hairs.

This week was especially interesting because of the subject matter. The resolution itself seemed a little complicated because it dealt with the Supreme Court and its jurisdiction over decisions made by Michigan voters, but most people talked about the merits (or absurdity) of affirmative action so that was easily understood by everyone.

I liked it because I didn't really know how I felt about affirmative action. I have now concluded that I am for it, but probably not the system that was being used. I think that's how Teeners and Girlfriend feel too, but I can't say for sure.

Brian, however, did not feel this way at all and, more importantly, was not afraid to share it. He thinks that your ACT score and GPA should be the only factors taken into consideration during the college admissions process. (Personally I think that's putting a lot of weight on a single test you take when you're 16, but I guess that is the supposed function of a standardized test. Whether or not it's functional is a-whole-nother issue.) That's reasonable, but also not so much a solution to the problem of discrimination against minorities either.

Some people argued that the decision to allow affirmative action should be left to the state being affected (in this case: Michigan) and that the Supreme Court is NOT the deciding institutional. To me, that's a little scary because minorities, racial or otherwise, could be forever disenfranchised as long as the majority is not required to obey any kind of higher power.

But anyway, this was supposed to be a fun blog, not a political one so I'll stop talking about that. MPU was also fun because we got to wear nice clothes, but not for too long that we got uncomfortable. Roommates clean up well. Also there were new people at MPU so we got to see/hear new voices.

Tonight I'm making dinner for the first time in the house. I didn't last week thanks to SBE and its ruining of my week, so I hope the CAT part of the house appreciates my cooking. Or at least doesn't hate it. I'd settle for that.

Welcome

This is us:

This is CART house:

We are called CART because we cleverly discovered that this is what our initials spell out. That's the Michigan Difference.

We all go to Michigan, because we are all awesome. We are also all from Michigan, mostly from the D. We have begun this blog as a way to share our thoughts and lives with the adoring public, as well as to create revenue for our home so that we may eat.

You, dear reader, will find that our lives are very thrilling. So enjoy this blog, and most importantly, click our ads.