"How's It Gonna Be?"

8:30 a.m. ...Nothing. 2:30 p.m. ...Nothing. 10 p.m. … Still nothing.

These are the times of day when I would normally get a text message or a call from my boyfriend. Now, I’m looking at my phone and nothing!

After being in a relationship for three years, I got used to hearing from him at certain times of the day or calling him to tell him that hilarious thing that only he would laugh at.
So after it’s over, who do you text or call that’s going to understand? You can call your friend and explain to them a hilarious part in a Seinfeld episode, but they might not get it unless they’ve seen it.
If you haven’t guessed it yet, my boyfriend and I just broke up.
You may be asking yourself, “Why did it end?”
Why does anything end?
In this case it was boredom, repetition, fighting, frustration, jealousy, annoyance.
It was all those things that I never wanted for myself.
Unfortunately, the decision to break up with “Joe”, we’ll call him, was and has not been easy.

It really hadn’t occurred to me that there were any problems until I went on a tour of Europe this August.
A fight, that I knew too well, broke out about the same old thing.
“Why did you have to go to Europe by yourself? All of my friends are asking me and I don’t have an answer!“
I of course responded, “ It’s none of their damn business and I’m having a great time, thanks for asking.“
I was at a payphone in Switzerland at that time and because he couldn’t call me back I was left with a terrible feeling in my stomach. I was thinking to myself, “What kind of person am I with that is so angry and jealous, that they can’t even be nice to me when I’m thousands of miles away?”
After meeting so many different people and seeing an array of beautiful things I started thinking that maybe this path I was taking with “Joe” was not the one for me at this time in my life.
I’m young, motivated and have my whole life ahead of me and I don’t want to waste my time.
So I got back from Europe, and of course had him pick me up at the airport, because we know what a pain that can be, and then ended it the next day.

The first couple days after the break up were fine. I had more time for myself and I hung out with friends, and thought, “This is great! I don’t have to check in with anyone.”
Then after a week, I realized that I wasn’t fine.
The calls weren’t coming in and the inside jokes were being ignored.
I was regretting my decision all because of a bunch of little things that were reminding me of what used to be.

I missed the comfort and the security that I felt when we were together.
Now, we are trying to be friends but, as some of us already know, it’s never easy to be friends with an ex. At least not right now.
So until then, I have my real friends, my family and Gino, my new boyfriend.

Just kidding! Gino is my dog. I have to someone to snuggle with!

Five foods everyone should know how to make CORRECTLY.

There are certain foods that everyone should know how to make.
It is polite, appreciated and can be unforgettable- if you do it right.
This is the kind of thing that is good to know but that no one tells you.
It is good to know that when you go to someone’s house for dinner or a party, that you bring something.
If you know how to make at least one thing, you‘re golden.
The first food that is always appreciated and easy are cookies.
Everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie and they can be brought to a party or as a dessert option at dinner.
If someone does something really nice for you, repay them with cookies!
They are a great way to say thank you.
And they are perfect for a poor college student to show they really care, because we all know how precious time and money are to a student.
Anytime you cook or bake for someone it is showing them that you are putting in the effort when they know you could have just went to the store and bought it.
Scrambled eggs are the second thing that are really good to know.
I’m sure you are probably thinking, “Any idiot knows how to cook scrambled eggs!” but honestly, they don’t.
Scrambled eggs are over cooked a lot!
It is important to make scrambled eggs at a low heat setting instead of a high “I’m in a hurry” setting.
Cooking the eggs at a lower temperature guarantees that the eggs will not get dry and hard.
Here’s a hint, if you see any brown then it’s not cooked correctly.
Once people have good eggs they can definitely tell the difference.
Plus, it is always good to cook eggs for that special someone in the morning instead of tossing them a pop tart.
It once again shows them how much you care. I just don’t see I Love You from a pop tart.
Another food that is over cooked quite often is fish.
Fish should be tender and should flake off with your fork.
It is a great staple in a meal because it is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for a healthy diet.
Fish has no carbohydrates which makes it ideal for people with diabetes or trying to loose weight.
Salmon is a great choice of fish, for example and there are so many recipes.
Salmon can be used in breakfast, lunch or dinner and a great alternative to meat.
Another food that is small, but still equally important, is a green salad.
Salad is important because it provides nutrition in many different ways.
It is versatile and it provides an option for every diet.
It is also a good thing to bring to a party or dinner.
Salads are one of those foods that are easy and can usually make everyone happy.
They can be made with anything and are a good way to use leftovers.
The fifth and last food that everyone should know is spaghetti sauce.
Who doesn’t love spaghetti?!
It is good hot or cold and is always substantial.
Everyone should know how to cook something they can serve for dinner.
This is a simple and delicious meal that anyone can make.
It is important to know these things because food is the way to everyone’s heart and it never hurts-even if you get it wrong.
All of these foods are versatile, quick and tasty and will put a smile on anyone’s face, just for trying.

This whore ain't empowerin' sh**!

In case you haven’t heard, a Sacramento State alumna is selling her virginity to pay off her debts and most importantly to go to grad school and get her masters degree.
Natalie Dylan needs to go back to school, but not for the reason she is giving.
She wants to go to grad school to get her masters degree in family therapy but she NEEDS to go back to school because she her views of empowerment are all wrong!
She thinks that by selling her virginity she is gaining power but, any prostitute can tell you, they are usually not the ones who’ve lost power.
Dylan claims, “I think empowerment of women is picking yourself up and doing something on your own to better yourself.”
That’s funny, because I think she needs a guy to make this awful idea work.
She basically needs a knight in shining armor to come and save her from her debt and in the process he will be taking advantage of her for God knows how long.
That doesn’t sound like “doing something on your own” to me.
The women’s studies department at Sacramento State University probably didn’t teach her that empowering women means sell your body to fix your financial problems.
In fact, her fellow classmates from Sac State do not really agree with her at all.
They are saying that she should loose her virginity to someone she loves instead of giving it to a stranger.
But in Dylans own defense, she claims that she is not giving up her virginity to the highest bidder. (We’ll have to see it to believe it.)
She wants the winner to be intelligent and nice.
Huh?! This isn’t Match.com so why does it matter what kind of personality this guy has?
When Dylan was asked why she is doing this, she says, “ I think this is empowering.”
What is empowering about selling sex?
It’s more demeaning than empowering.
And what do her friends think about all this?
Oh yeah, no one seems to have found any friends of hers, at least none that have commented.
Her mother, a teacher of the forth grade, does not approve. Gee, I wonder why?
I wonder how she is going to explain her daughters actions to her students parents or even to friends and strangers who think she is the worst mom on the planet for not helping her daughter find a darn scholarship!
So many women would kill for the opportunity to go to school period, let alone get their masters degree.
This decision will ruin her life.
She will probably have a really hard time getting clients, making new friends and even dating because she will always be known as, “that whore that sold her virginity.”
Dylan is not empowering herself or women.
She is a bad example of women in general and what women represent.
Women are not sex objects and that is what she is demonstrating, that if you want something bad enough then it is okay to have sex with a guy and they’ll make everything better.
If anything this is empowering the man because he has the control.
Money=control.
He pays the money and he gets to have his way with her.
Sure, she walks away with the money but he will always have that part of her that she cannot get back, her innocence, freedom and her dignity.
She will be considered tampered with.
None of the articles stated whether or not there would be a screening process for the guys bidding but she expects us to believe that she is picking, out of the thousands of guys, that he will be nice and intelligent and that makes it okay.
I find it hard to believe that she is going to go through and interview each and every guy or at least read their profile and expect them not to lie.
I hear sociopaths are very charming, intelligent and nice so good luck with that Nat!

The recipe calls for what?!

Have you ever gone to make a meal that sounded so good and then half way through the recipe you realize, “I need what? What ingredient is that?” and then gave up because it got too confusing?
There is no reason that food needs to be that complicated.
There was a restaurant review in the Contra Costa Times this weekend on a restaurant in Oakland called Camino.
It got a great review of three stars, which makes it better than Good but not Extraordinary.
As the critic and author, Chrissa Ventrelle, explained what she ordered there were a couple of words that were not obvious to the average cook, like myself.
One of the first things Ventrelle ordered was a tomato, cucumber and chervil salad.
Chervil? What is that? For someone who cooks regularly and watches the Food Network, this word has yet to come up.
It was time to use dictionary.com.
The definition of chervil is an herb of the parsley family, having aromatic leaves used to flavor soups, salads, etc.
Okay, that is not bad, right? That is something we can understand and possibly use in the future.
The next starter, which Ventrelle didn’t care for, was the ling cod brandade. Hmmm.. Never heard of the word brandade either. Let’s look that one up as well.
The definition of brandade is a Provencal dish of salt cod pureed with olive oil and milk or cream and sometimes mashed potatoes and garlic.
Well, my mouth is watering already!
It seems simple enough and yet there is a need to use fancy words with no acknowledgment for those of us who do not speak French or have gone to culinary school.
There were a couple of other words that did not ring a bell, for example rapini.
The dish Ventrelle tasted was a side dish of black-eyed peas and bitter rapini.
The word is also in another language, Italian this time, and means the leaves of the turnip eaten cooked or raw as greens.
Besides the fact that that does not sound very tasty, why is there such a fancy word for what it really is?
News papers are supposed to be at a fifth grade reading level. So why is this column filled with vocabulary that involves dictionary.com?
Ventrelle should really ask herself, “ Is this a technique, ingredient or instrument that a high school student would know?”
Not being a regular reader of Ventrelle’s column, who knows if it gets more complicated or not but the point is that this kind of negligence is intimidating people not educating them.
This is the exact reason why most of my friends hate to cook.
They tell me, “How do you know how to do all of this? Where did you learn?”
When you have a growing interest in something, it is easy to teach yourself.
Unfortunately, not all people share this interest and decide to eat out at fast food “restaurants.”
Do not get me wrong, fast food is fine sometimes, but it is always healthier and beneficial to cook your own meals, not to mention a turn on FELLAS!
The beginning to every dish that you are going to make should start off with the foods you know and love.
Do not make a dish that involves ingredients that “sound” good or that someone told you were good.
If you already know that you like cheddar cheese, there’s no need, at least in the beginning, to use a fancier cheese like feta or fontina.
Another helpful tip is to think of the meals you enjoy and try and create your own version.
For example, canned albacore tuna is a good source of protein and omega 3 fatty acids and can be made several different ways.
All you have to do is mix it up plain and then add whatever sounds good to you, pickle, celery, tomato anything will work and it’ll be easier to remember because you’re not reading it from a cook book.
Don't be afraid to get a little dirty and creative.

Listen to your grandmother, NEVER hold your pee!

Everyone remembers their high school experience whether it was five years ago or 25 and if it was anything like mine, there were a lot of rules.
Looking back, almost too many.

Compared to the freedom as adults, it is amazing that they even let us breathe on our own.

You needed hall passes, you couldn’t chew gum in class, you couldn’t eat or drink in class, and the one that always bothered me, was that you couldn’t go to the bathroom unless you had permission.

That is absurd! There was always a pass involved with a huge thing attached.

So because you’re going to the bathroom you had to carry a huge, and germ infested, pass with you while you do your business.

It was almost like a privilege to use the bathroom even though it is a human right that no one can control.

Obviously there are maturity issues when you’re in high school, but should a student have to wait 20 minutes, or anytime at all, to do, what is basically a human right?

Imagine getting yelled at, or even detention, for running out of class for food poisoning because “someone else was already using the pass and you should’ve waited your turn”.

According to Goaskalice.colombia.edu, holding urine for long periods of time can increase the chances of getting urinary tract infections (UTIs).

The website also said that if you frequently hold your urine for long periods of time, you can start to loose sensitivity and could have an accident or leak and not be able to control it.

Obviously, not all high schools are like the movie Sixteen Candles, or any other fantastic movie about high school, but there are usually always people who are always making fun of kids for every little thing, we call them “Bullies” or “assholes” later in life.

As mentioned earlier, the maturity levels are a tad bit lower in high school than in college, but kids can be particularly cruel in high school without a reason like peeing your pants because Mr./Mrs. so and so wouldn’t let you go to the bathroom until lunch time.

And we’ve all heard the reasons for the rules like, “ if I can’t go then you can’t go” or “only one boy and one girl at a time”, once again, the maturity level is lower in high school than college!

Teenagers in high school are going through puberty and have hormones raging and in my experience it only made kids a little more ADHD(Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and even a little more obnoxious, if that was possible.

Kids in high school may have a tendency to run off for twenty minutes talking to their friends or even ditching school all together but don’t you think that is their problem?

I know, I know, high school is mostly public and required BUT for one, if there are going to ditch school they are going to do it no matter what. And two, how else are they going to learn that there are consequences to their actions?

In college if you do not come back for forty five minutes because you ran into a close friend, then you are on your own to figure out what you missed. If there happen to be a pop quiz then that is something that you can’t make up and have to deal with.

The same should go for high school kids.

There were so many rules in high school that it was too easy to be rebellious because there were so many things to rebel against.

It’s like with a puppy. If you hold a puppy and don’t let it go, it will push and push to let itself free. But if you just relax then it will come to you because it wants to, not because it’s being forced.