coeur de pirate (what a rad nickname)

I love discovering awesome music

that is sung in French.

Also, love watching episodes of Lost that have French people in them.

(started season 5 today! Jin meets 1988 Danielle?! Ohmygoodness! And Whidmore was ON THE ISLAND in 1954?! AHHHhhh!!! Must. Know. What. Happens. Next!)

Maybe you should also listen to this:

And maybe then this:

Rihanna just got Coeur de Pirate'd!

cheese please.

For my birthday (a week from today!), I would like Utah to stop selling gruyère and emmental cheese for $9 per 5"x5" square, so that I could make some decent savory crepes with the crepe cookbook Kristen sent me.

Someone could arrange that, right? Just for one day?

kthxbye.

(although even if i did have awesome cheese, the crepes would probably turn out terrible anyway, because ever since me and aaron got married, my cooking skills have decayed exponentially...in the past week i've tried making macaroni and cheese, molta lava cakes, chocolate sugar cookies, nutella cupcakes, and white bean chili, and none! none of them have turned out nicely. grrrrr.)
HOW DO YOU RUIN NUTELLA CUPCAKES?! how can you go wrong with butter + sugar + flour + nutella + nutella cream cheese frosting?! 
bake them way too long, and don't bother mixing your frosting long enough so you have little cream cheese chunks everywhere.
that's how.

i've been invited!

Who would've thought, that after managing a flight from Toulouse to Paris to home by myself, that I'd be slightly terrified to fly to Philadelphia for the chem department's open house?

Or, that I'd be terrified to put down almost $600 on a flight ticket because I can't decide if I count as flying from the west coast or the central US (we get $500 reimbursement for flying from the west coast, but only $400 if flying from central/south). Or! How about the fact that Aaron doesn't find out if he gets into Penn until three days before the open house? So if we get bad news that day, it'll be like, "what the heck am I going to Philadelphia for?"

Anyway. These are the things that keep me awake at night. Navigating airports, coordinating mine and Aaron's life, and what to do with a 4 hour layover in Cincinnati?!

clever

Gearing up for the first test in American Heritage we watched this video:

And I thought it was pretty funny. I mean, colonists singing "Apologize" to King George? Why didn't I think of that?
This class is growing on me a little bit. We had a discussion about school vouchers last week, and it was actually really interesting. Anyone have an opinion on this topic? Turns out I run a tad bit anti-voucher. But I think that's a post for another day.

Happy Friday!

maybe the city of brotherly love?

This is what I found in my inbox this morning:


Dear Katherine,

It is my great pleasure to inform you that you have been admitted to Penn's PhD program in Chemistry for the Fall 2011 semester.  We receive many highly qualified candidates and feel that your academic interests and achievements are an excellent fit for Penn Chemistry. 


I'm just happy that all the time and money I spent on applications (and suffering through GREs) was not wasted. Now all we have to do is wait for Aaron to hear back from them!!

été invicible

I think now is a pretty good time for a trip to the Mediterranean, yeah?

Boo on below 10 degree weather.

Photos from last summer's vacation within a vacation to the picturesque coastal town of Collioure while living in Toulouse. Vive la France!

to you, dear readers:

I meant to say this earlier, but thank you for all of your comments, encouragement and advice on my "I'm freaking out about moving" post. I think I'm feeling better about the whole thing. I even started meandering through Craigslist St. Louis the other day for housing. And thank you for all of the congratulations on my "I'm freaking out because I got into a chemistry PhD program" post.

In fact, thank you for bothering to read my blog at all, with all of my silly posts. You guys are great. :)

Happy Saturday.

thought of the day:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5

go getta

Today I am feeling awesome because

1) Yesterday I got 100% on the multiple choice portion of my math test

2) Today I got an email with the following,

"Dear Katherine:
 Congratulations! It is a pleasure to inform you that Washington University in Saint Louis is extending you an offer of admission to the Ph.D. graduate program in the Department of Chemistry."

YEAH!!! Now I don't have to sit at home and get an office job and bake cookies and take piano lessons to keep myself busy while Aaron's in med school. I can get myself a dang PhD!!!!

:D