There's Always Room for Jello...

What is it about Jello that makes people eat it when they’re sick? Since I was 5 years old, my mom has tried to feed me Jello when I’m feeling the slightest bit of illness coming on, like sugar and gelatin mixed with artificial food dyes have some special healing powers. Last time I checked, this slimy and disturbingly translucent dessert wasn’t chock-full of vitamins and nutrients.

Let me just say in writing so that my family might eventually see this, I don’t like Jello. I have never once enjoyed eating it. There, I said it. I think a food that comes in so many different colors and flavors while withstanding that awful texture is just not right. And if I don’t like Jello on an everyday basis, why on earth would it make me feel better to eat it while I’m sick?

Well, I faced this dilemma again this past week when I somehow picked up mono in the middle of the summer, while spending the last month completely alone in my parent’s tiny apartment. But that’s a mystery I don’t want to tackle right now. Anyway, the first food my mom suggested was, you guessed it, JELLO. Even after repeatedly resisting her offer, somehow my dessert always ended up as a bowl of Jello with some heavy encouragement on the side. And every time, I’d gag through one bite and push it away with, “Again, no thank you.” Eventually, though, my manners only took me so far and it was “I…..HATE…..JELLO” that finally stopped the seemingly endless supply that came out of the fridge.

After that, my mom decided she was tired of feeding me and sent me to my grandma’s house for some much needed rest and comfort food. I was truly looking forward to being pampered for the week in my ill state and filling up on chicken pot pie and chocolate pudding. The first morning, or should I say afternoon since I slept for about 14 hours with the exhaustion that mono brings, I sat myself up at the kitchen table ready to see what my grandmother had been cooking for me. I stare down at the bowl that’s set in front of me and low and behold, JELLO. Damn it.

Moves Like Shaq

There was a time when I thought, no, I knew, basketball was my sport. All of my friends in middle school and high school were athletes and by tenth grade, every one of them were on the basketball team at school. Naturally, I felt left out because after 12 years straight of playing softball, I had lost the chance to acquire the skills needed for any other sport.

For example, the 5-second blitz rule in touch football bewildered me nor did I ever let it apply. If the quarterback is standing right there, with the ball, completely open, why on earth do I have to wait “5 Mississippi’s” before I can tag them!? I now understand that without blockers, being the quarterback in a touch game would be nearly impossible without a rule like that, but still, it seemed unfair. In fact, more often than not I would just tag the quarterback immediately and justify it by saying that I was simply a quick counter. I’m gifted I guess.

Anyway, the girls on my softball teams were never exactly the friendly type, and by the time I was in high school, I was feeling both burnt out and left out since my friends spent their afternoons together at basketball. That’s when I knew basketball needed to become my sport.

I joined a community basketball league in hopes that I could learn the rules fast enough to think about joining the school team. My community team had a wide range of skill amongst the players, so it’s unfortunate when I say that I was one of the best on the team. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was a pretty good at shooting and dribbling. I was fairly unaggressive though, and couldn’t resist flinching and moving my feet during a screen, so I was taken off the list for defensive positions.  By process of elimination, the position I was put at was….point guard. That’s right. The leader of each play, the ball carrier, the player expected to know what was happening on the court at all times.

It’s beyond me why the coach thought I could play this position without knowing any of the rules, but he put me there anyway. After that season, this is what I could tell you about the game of basketball: my job was to run back and forth across the court dribbling the ball. That’s all I knew and know now.

Maybe I should blame the coach, who was well informed that I had never played basketball before (yes Coach, as shocking as it may be, I’m 15 and have never played a formal game of basketball). Or maybe it’s my parents’ fault for not teaching me the rules of other sports during my childhood. Maybe it’s even my own fault for not reading up on the rules before signing up for a team. I hear Basketball for Dummies works wonders.

Anyway, I guess all of these factors played a part in making my days of basketball fame short-lived. By the last game of the season, we had not won one single game.  This was our last chance to break our defeated streak. I, obviously, was playing point guard for the entire game and I was feeling confident and ready to make this one count. With a couple minutes left, I made a steal from an opposing player that created uproar from the crowd. And by crowd, I mean the six or seven parents that consistently attended our games.

With a close score and now having possession of the ball, I was sure this was the break my team needed to get ahead. I dribbled as fast as I could, leaving the other team behind with only the whip of my ponytail as I ran. I was going to run to the other end of the court and make my lay up and my team, the Comets, would win their first community league basketball game. I ran, dodged, faked, dodged again, kept running, and then….the whistle blew. Uh excuse me ref, I’m only at half court…I haven’t made my winning shot yet.

“OVER AND BACK.” …what? Nuh uh! Wait, what’s over and back? It doesn’t even matter I had an open court ahead of me! Turns out, no. No I didn’t. I had completely forgotten about the fact that my steal was not in fact a steal. It was taking the ball back after an opposing player had stolen it from us. Therefore, of COURSE they weren’t going to chase me into that “open court” space I had ahead. That was their side. I was carrying the ball away from our basket and going to shoot for them.

Luckily, this isn’t one of those horror stories that you see on TV where the young child runs and scores for the wrong team, jumping and cheering feeling so damn proud of themselves that it breaks your heart. But it was still pretty humiliating. The awkward stares from my teammates, the smug grins from the other team, and my parents awkwardly clapping since they got excited any time the ball was passed in my general direction.   

But…that was the day I knew that basketball wasn’t, nor will it ever be, my sport. That was my first and last season as a basketball player. I can’t say that I learned a lot, or that I had a lot of fun doing it, but at least I did it….Next up, soccer.

Revolving Chamber of Death

This is a continuation of one of my previous posts, “WARNING: Penn State Campus Lies Ahead.”  This is a story about the time I got stuck in the revolving door at Pattee Library.

It was just like any ordinary fall day at Penn State, cool but sunny. I had decided to spend my break between classes in the library reading as I sometimes do, so I entered through the push/pull doors of the Paterno (northern) side of the library, headed to the third floor and proceeded to have a pleasant 2 hours of quiet reading time. My next class was in Willard, south of the library, so naturally I chose to leave out the other side.

Now, I actually had often avoided this entrance as much as possible because I’ve always had an apprehension about revolving doors. I’m extremely uncomfortable with the fact that the speed of the door can change and rely on the person that enters before or after you. You can be walking at a relaxing pace, thinking you are going to make it calmly into whatever building you are entering, and that can change in an instant if God forbid the guy behind you is late for a meeting. Suddenly not only he is running through the door, but you and everyone else in any of the quadrants have been taken to a sprint completely against their will. There’s just something not right about that.

Anyway, on this particular day, that apprehension turned into a distinct fear of these doors. As usual, I waited like a child boarding an escalator for the first time in order to gauge the speed of the door and a space that I could dive into the door. When people began to line up behind me I figured it was my time to go for it whether I could find the perfect break or not, so I walked toward the door and hopped in the first open space.

I will never know what happened in the next 3 seconds that shrunk that door space from the normal 4 foot space to approximately one foot, but whatever occurred had me trapped in a space in which I could not move my feet one in front of the other. I’ll also add now that in addition to revolving doors I have a slight fear of small spaces, otherwise known as claustrophobia. In this very instant, two of my fears were slapping me in the face in the form of a glass door. I continued to push, fall really, into the door pane in front of me and as it moved my feet shuffled below me. I could see through the glass that the line of students flowing through the library doors had come to a halt and most of them were looking to see what the hold up was. That would be me. My body, still stuck in the right side of this revolving door at Pattee.

I’m not quite sure how long I was actually stuck in the door, but in my mind it felt like 5 minutes. As more and more people gathered outside of the door, I started to wonder if they were now lining up to get into the library or to simply watch me struggle. Somehow I had finally shuffled far enough to see daylight and I burst through the opening like I had never experienced a breath of oxygen.

Now I had to decide what to do with myself to minimize the humiliation I felt as everyone watched in shock, probably never having witnessed a human having such a struggle with a manmade object. I decided to do what any self-respecting person might do after they fall face-first on the ground. Get back up and act like nothing happened. So, I stood up straight and continued walking at a normal pace, took out my cell phone, and began texting every single person I knew about what had just happened.

Cher Impersonator for Hire

One of the hobbies I enjoy most throughout my everyday life is music. I sing quite a bit, or should I say, belt. I’ll tell you that I have an okay singing voice when the volume is at an appropriate level, but once I hit a certain decibel, I’ll admit it becomes very unpleasant.

Due to this, I’m well known amongst my friends for my Cher impression. I have a low range of notes I can hit, so naturally she is my first choice when it comes to choosing a number I can belt all the way through. I just hope to God I don’t sound like this girl.

I sing during most of my daily activities whether I’m cooking, doing my hair, etc. And don’t try to get in my way during shower time. “If I Could Turn Back Time: Shower Style” is one of my most popular performances, occasionally requested by my roommates.

This love for Cher stems from an early friendship my sister and I had with my mom’s best friend’s son (complicated, I know). He’s the most unique, talented person I know, currently living in NYC trying to make it as an actor and singer. He loved Cher as a kid and decided that I, at the age of 10, with my tiny frame of under 70 pounds would make the perfect “Cher” for the shows we put on for our parents. He and my sister threw a jumbled, gaudy black wig on my head making me look like a 40-year old prostitute on the morning after. But once Cher’s music started blasting through our stereo system, the hot pants and leafy fall decorations (in other words, the most bizarre costumes we could possibly put together from our parents’ storage closets) didn’t matter anymore. We were all taken to a place that was filled with so much joy, laughter, and pure enjoyment of our new-found stardom, and I think that’s why I still love theater and music so much today.

My childhood with Cher is something I’ll never forget. It’s funny how much those little weekend shows can affect my life this many years later, but it’s helped me to realize that growing up is about the little moments that still make you who you are. I loved those happy childhood memories, and now, here I am, snapping my fingers to Cher and wondering what will come next.  Do you believe in life after love?

Read Owner's Manual Before Use

I’ve recently made a life-shattering discovery. No matter how hard I try, I will never learn how to properly use a microwave.

It’s not like I haven’t tried or had the opportunity to learn…my family has had a microwave in our home since I was born. The appliance seems almost too good to be true: it’s a simple and speedy way to heat up, and in some cases fully cook, a meal. And discounting the minor fact that microwave radiation can cause cancer, who wouldn’t want to use one?

That answer would be me. Well, I guess it’s “shouldn’t” use one. I have burnt, exploded, inflamed, melted just about everything there is to perform any of these actions to in a microwave.

The most memorable would be in my high school cafeteria, during a time when I wanted to slip under the radar and fit in more than anything. Microwaves were a new purchase for our school that year, one that many students like myself were ecstatic about due to the endless supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches our parents had provided for us since we were able to eat solid foods.

I tossed an unpopped bag of popcorn into my brown paper bag that morning and was on my way. At about 11:30 am at the start of my lunch period, I waited patiently in the line to use the microwave, preparing myself for the snack of buttery goodness I was about to consume. I put the bag in, set the timer for 3 minutes, and proceeded to chat with a friend. We were still laughing about something that had happened earlier that day when I caught sight of smoke streaming out of the microwave about a foot away from me. Naturally, my “friend” chose to act like she didn’t know me and slip away to another lunch table. Nice. I was left alone to deal with what was happening in the microwave.

I opened the door to stop the power, but that did not stop the cloud of smoke and stench of burnt popcorn from entering the entire 200 foot cafeteria. Not only had I managed to burn my popcorn, but I had managed to start a FIRE in the microwave from the paper bag, stream smoke as I sprinted with the fireball across the cafeteria to the back door, and acquire more looks from fellow students than I was or will ever be comfortable with in my entire life.

For the rest of the day, I listened to conversations coming from students in the later lunch periods about the smell of burnt popcorn in the cafeteria. “My god the cafeteria smelled lie burnt ass today.” (It was high school, so throwing in a curse word every sentence or two was still incredibly cool, even if it didn’t make sense).

While my roommates would agree with the fact that I have neither improved my ability to pop popcorn (last night’s smoke alarm incident would vouch for that) nor increased my microwave skills in general, I realize that I am not fully to blame here. No, it runs in the family.

My sister, upon her first attempt at “softening” butter for cookie dough when she was about 13 years old placed the unwrapped stick of butter directly on the microwave bottom and hit “Time Cook” for about 2 minutes. As you can imagine, the yellow pool that was our microwave took quite a while to clean.

Even my dad has had failures in the past. On a night when he was the only one home about 7 years ago, he decided to cook himself a steak and baked potato. He put the potato in the microwave and went on out to the back deck to cook his steak. He believes now that he “accidentally pressed an extra zero” on the cook time. Instead of 3 minutes, the potato cooked for 30 minutes. In a microwave.  

What was left of the potato reminded me of the turkey in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, just a shell, with no substance on the inside. Needless to say the firemen that showed up at our house were less than amused.

The one thing I can give myself credit for is that I am a skilled chef and baker. When it comes to using a real oven and stove, I can whip up some scrumptious food. I had even considered attending culinary school at one point.

Instead….I chose college. Where my freezer is full of meals that are microwaved on a daily basis. Where I currently consume more burnt food than is healthy for any human being. I figure I’ll learn to use a microwave one day, or maybe get rid of it all together for the safety of my family and myself. After all, if this incapacity is genetic, I would never wish this on any of my children or the generations to come. 

 

The Typo

            Let me tell you about the worst typo in American history. It all started this past summer, in May 2011. I had acquired an internship in Atlanta with a marketing agency; I gained a lot of insight to the advertising industry that summer. More importantly, though, it taught me to always proofread emails before I press send.

            You’d think by now I would’ve learned to do this. Not to brag or anything, but I’m an upstanding member of the Penn State Dean’s List. However, it seems even that could not stop me from making this mistake. One important thing I should mention is that this internship was paid. Fifty dollars a day, which is considerably less than minimum wage especially for a 9 to 5 job, but it was money, so as a college student I was overjoyed and immediately accepted the offer.

            I worked from May to August, working on different research projects on current trends in the advertising industry, sitting in on meetings with clients, even changing website product line-ups and distribution lists. By the week of August 5^th, I was ready to say my goodbyes and head back to Penn State.

            I started packing up my desk to ready myself for my last day (Friday). And then it happened. I was leaving on Wednesday afternoon and stopped by my account manger’s office to drop off a copy of my résumé for her to look over. She was on the phone, though, and I didn’t want to interrupt so I simply set the paper on her desk and waved goodbye. On my way out to the parking lot, I realized I had forgotten to ask if my boss (the CEO of the company) would be in on Friday so that I could pick up my paycheck on my last day. I wrote up a quick email on my trusty iPhone that went something like this: 
     

 Hi Amanda,

I left a copy of my resume and was hoping you could look over it so we can discuss it on Friday. I know I should probably cut and move some things around.                     

Also, I was wondering if Jerry was going to be in Friday. I wanted to make sure I would be able to say goodbye and well.... get laid. :)

Let me know! Thanks!

Laura Kreiser

I pressed, “Send” just like that. And as that little loading bar moved across the bottom of the screen, I realized what I had just done. I’ve never been so embarrassed sitting alone in my car than I was at that very moment. My face burning, I frantically sent another “Oh my god, oh my god…that word was supposed to be PAID” email.

            I still can’t really laugh about it; although most of my friends got a huge kick out of it. Looking back, the worst part was the smiley face. I didn’t want to sound too focused on the money, so I tried to add a little friendliness that in turn came off completely creepy. Even the account managers found it hilarious, joking that as much as I might admire him, he is a married man. To this day I don’t know if they told Jerry, and I don’t think I want to know. Let’s just say I no longer trust my iPhone as I did before and I don’t trust the first draft of anything, even a simple email.

WARNING: Penn State Campus Lies Ahead

            The Penn State campus can be a hazardous place sometimes. I recently saw a meme on the PSU Facebook group that played off of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads:

Let me just say that there was a time when memes were not funny to me in the slightest. However, I hit a point where many of them were so unbelievably accurate that I had to accept them for what they were. I laughed quite a bit at this one about the Forum, considering I have been the victim of those tiles multiple times during my Penn State career. In fact, if you set up a video camera there during the first ice of the winter season I would be willing to bet you’d get a YouTube video similar to this one: Beaver Ave Slips & Falls.

This footage was taken downtown last year during State Patty’s day, and while the considerable levels of inebriation probably contributed to the falls, this is pretty typical of any icy or rainy day at Penn State. In other words, Penn State students as a whole probably have a higher average of weekly tumbles than any school set in a more hospitable environment.

To the architect that chose to use tile and marble in any and every opportunity on this campus, I’d like to ask if you had any ulterior motive besides just the look and appearance of the buildings. I’m sure Penn State students would agree with me that they have felt personally attacked by the materials on this campus at one point or another, such as the time I found myself sliding on my backside down the stairs outside Carnegie in the pouring rain.

While there may be some rough spots on campus, I can’t deny that I love each and every square foot of Penn State University, and if the laughs from these falls can’t outweigh the pain that results, then maybe we just need to lighten up. I mean if you can’t watch that YouTube video without laughing or at least feeling a small amount of pleasure from watching people’s feet fly above their heads while caught in a total state of shock, then maybe Penn State isn’t the school for you.