Tuesday with Hannah

Although I did not spend the whole day with my lovely, the most interesting time of my day was spent with her, as usual. Sooo i've learned that having an 8 o' clock class sucks. It sucks even worse when the class you're taking is an english class that feels like it should've been offered to middle schoolers who don't know what comma splices are. I totally get the whole "trying to develop our writing skills" aspect about this class, but when you spend about a whole month on grammar and spelling I feel that it should've been called

GRAMMAR

or

SPELLING

not Composition. I also feel that if you don't know the difference between an in-text citation and an out of text citation then you shouldn't be taking a college level english class. Oh and don't even get me started on people who don't know how to spell correctly. Simple words should not be misspelled. First off, teacher don't pair me up with someone who really isn't awake at 8 o'clock in the morning and who sits in the back of the room and doesn't participate in our class. Rule Number Two, do not pair me up with someone to peer edit my paper who misspells "believe" and spells it "belive"....multiple times on a handwritten copy of his paper. I feel that if this person would've taken the time to type his paper instead of handwrite his paper very sloppily, obviously late the night before, then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Come on people think... duhhh Spell Check at least. GRRRR Anyway. After my english class...Buh... I went to get breakfast at the UC which was not that exciting. Actually it was a moving experience, if you will. I had ordered a veggie omelette with a piece of toast and jam very good and very healthy. After that experience I went to my voice class where I heard my favorite song from Children of Eden composed by Stephen Schwartz sung by my friend Cody Heuer. After that exciting event my day actually started to take shape. I had lunch with Hannah at the River Campus and talked to our Costume Shop Supervisor about a mask workshop that I am co-directing on Saturday. Basically times, details, and what needs to happen. I was then able to greet all the dancers that were returning from ACDFA in Illinois. My roomie and a couple of our floormates were in the crowd and they recieved a very warm welcome. Now is the time that the Theatre and Dance department decide to have advising sessions with their students to plan for next semester and get schedules done. This is the most hectic time of the semester for me since I am only a freshman and have so many options and choices to take whatever I want. It's so hard because I want to stay on track with my theatre classes but I also have university studies that I need to worry about getting credit for. So I did plan out some of my schedule before I had a terrific time shopping for records at Pastimes Antiques in Downtown Cape and browsing the floor of Annie Lauries with Hannah. Hannah and I had a delicious dinner at our favorite Thai spot Cafe & Me, of course Phad Thai and a Bubble Jasmine Milk Tea was in my belly before we left. That was basically my day, right now I'm over at Hannah's blogging since I was going to help her try and study for her Theatre History test that is supposed to happen tomorrow, but realized I couldn't do much. I feel that most students are frustrated with the system now a days and how everything is supposed to work but really never does and there is always slips and flaws that go unnoticed, so to help with venting I think that Hannah has found the perfect facial expression and I'd like to share it with you now :)


Thought this was a great way to end the blog session. Goodnight !

I'm Back!!! After a very relaxing and wonderful break....only the second half though

Hello everyone, I'm Back!! I know I haven't updated at all in like two weeks and I feel really bad because a lot has happened since my last post. One of the reasons I wasn't writting was because my inspiration was 1039 miles away. It was a tough week. Never the less, she was away auditioning for Summer jobs at NETC where she was successful at getting some call-backs that got everyone really excited. A traveling duo-type company, a theatre in up-state New York, and one 7 blocks from the Jersey coast. I'm so proud of her for taking the time to go up and travel to Boston to continue with her love of theatre. So in comparison to her week, mine consisted of a lot of laundry washing, cleaning, and reading to pass the time. I went out and bought some new records. My favorite out of the new bunch is my THIS IS FRANK SINATRA record along with the Hoagy Carmichael record. Still nothing can replace my love for my precious Breakfast at Tiffany's record. I am actually listening to it as I am writing this tonight :). So along with missing Hannah I was able to get a job and settle some stuff with my soon to be new apartment. I will be a part-time sales associate at The Buckle for the time being, but will soon be moved up since they need more managers on duty at our particular store, and hopefully I can move into a full-time position since I will probably be putting in about 40+ hours a week anyway. I also want to try and plan my decor for my apartment. I want to hang my record sleeves as paintings on my wall, without the record in it of course. I'll have to somehow figure out where I will store my records, but if anyone has an artistic way to make my record sleeves look like stylish wall decorations I'd appreciate some input. I have also decided that I want to use as little electricity and make my apartment as GREEN as I possible, while still having some atmosphere. I was thinking about making my own furniture out of paper mache, as I've seen done before but I don't know if I have that kind of time and I don't just want to be wasting newspaper. Oh well I'm sure I'll figure something out. I want to take out pages in old books and frame the different papers and use them as table decorations and stuff to put on shelves and on bookends. SO MANY IDEAS AHHHH I need some expert artistic help haha just to make sure I'm doing this right. I couldn't wait for Wednesday to come last week since that was the day Hannah came back. I was soooooooooo anxious to pick her up from the airport and was ready to give her a big bear hug. The rest of break was sooo relaxing and great because I spent it with her and just relaxed and was sooo not ready to return to Cape. Today was wierd for that very reason. It was wierd to actually have something to do and have to go to class and see everyone.

I had the chance to sing with Leon Pendarvis, a friend of my voice teacher. Leon is the musical director for SNL (Saturday Night Live) and he was giving a seminar on a digital recording system that was changing the way musicians are able to play and record their material. We had a simple band arrangement consisting of a couple students and an instructor lay down a basic blues style track, then my friend Dominique and I went and did some improve, Ray Charles style, blues deal that we dubbed Red High Heels. Obviously there was a woman with red high heels in our song and it took place in Mississipi at a dancehall. Very fun and entertaining and most definitly a great opportunity. I forgot to mention that I am very excited to say that Hannah has loaned me some amazing books that I can't wait to delve into. One is the actual Truman Capote Breakfast at Tiffanys which i've heard has a totally different ending. I can't wait. My amazing girlfriend also brought back some goodies from Boston/Cape Cod, delicious mangosteen green tea, a T-shirt from the aquarium with a blue stingray on it, and a book about traditional courting in America, which she knows I'm very passionate about :) Well I better get to bed since I have an 8 o' clock class tomorrow. I believe i've gotten caught up with everything on here so we should be good. Oh and I promise to try and be a little better at getting on everyday and providing new adventures for everyone to hear about. BYE and GOODNIGHT

Ending Sin Week

As most of you know that have been following this blog, my life, for the past week, has centered around discoveries and adventures in food. Well...I have decided to end that today, marking it as the the end of "Sin Week". This remarkable tradition happens a week after every production that I do. I'm not proud of this tradition but I think I deserve it and it makes up for all the time and crappy food and diets and workout routines I had to endure during the run of a show. For Carousel I was on a High Fiber, High Protien, and vitaman diet which helped me slim down and muscle up before opening night. Now that I am back to "normal people life" I have to get used to every day cuisine. But this isn't about the future this is what happened today. I was really excited around noon when Hannah suggested we go to Cafe & Me, the great little Thai place across the street from me. Well my luck, I call and find myself listening to a recorded saying that they will be closed until Tuesday. Ridiculous :/ I guess that means no bubble tea and no Phad Thai for JoJo. Since Hannah suggested Cafe & Me she said it was my turn and to think of a place while she was out running around and to let her know where I wanted to go when she was done. I was really in the mood for Thai or Chinese or something like that and realized that we hadn't yet been to Saffron Bistro. OOOOOO AAAHHHHH SAFFRONS :) This place is beyond all sushi places I have ever been to. Very ritzy and cozy with great food. We ordered edamame, one avacado roll, one asparagus roll and one St. Louis roll. My first time having fish eggs on my sushi, I'm usually a sushi faker that only gets cream cheese rolls. These things were delicious and I liked the popping sound they made in my mouth when I crunched them. After that fresh and new experience our main course came... Phad Thai... I thought that I wouldn't get any... But I wsas wrong haha. I actually prefer Cafe & Me's tofu, it's firmer and has a better taste but I wasn't complaining at all at this point, I was just happy to have the Phad in from of me. One thing that me and the lovely girl have made tradition is getting dessert. It's not fair to not have a sweet little ending to your meal. We usually can't decide between desserts so we just ordered two things and shared them. One dessert was Mochi.
MMMMMM my favorite in the whole wide world, it is a Japanese ice cream that has a gelatin skin around it so it gives your dessert a little texture. Hannah's pick was fried bananas with a honey sesame dipping sauce. Girl knows how to order dessert, i can tell you that. After a great end to Sin Week we were much satisfied with the dining choice and were full to the brim. The night was full of laughing at the stars of the red carpet and critiques on the fashion of some magnificent actors at the Academy Awards. I must say it was a gran noche, a great night.

.... Lydia if you are indeed reading these this picture is just for you *** notice the orange fish eggs***

A day filled with good eats and great friends.

Saturday is by far my favorite day of the week and of course a perfect day to spend with friends on an adventure. That's exactly what happened, we took a mini road trip :) Carly, Izzy, Hannah and I. We took off on a beautiful day 30 minutes South of CG to a place called Sikeston where there is a very fun restaurant called LAMBERTS. Now I know tha most of my blogs are about food, I've come to realize that if there is one thing that brings friends together it is a good meal and that's just what brought friends together this day. If there is only one thing you know about Lamberts it's that they have a deal where they throw these huge softball size rolls, and you better hope you catch them or you may get whopped in the head. So anyway we get to Sikeston and head over to Lamberts and go up to the lady at the counter outside and ask for a table for 4, she gives a number.... 490...... they were like on 449 when we got there. It took forever for them to call our number, so by the time we got to sit down we were starving. Me and Hannah were dying of thirst so we couldnt wait to get these huge cups full of ice cold..whatever we wanted. There were servers walking around with pots and bowls of different "side style" foods like fried okra and tomato pasta, we were pretty upset because it took so long for our food and we didn't have any plates to put these yummy extra sides on :( We finally got our food and gobbled most of our food up but being that we all had had at least one roll with butter or molasses, or honey we were pretty full when we were done eating. The trip was so fun and probably the best part was just being with my friends and just having fun. It's been a really long time since I had just spent a day with some people I love, it's been go go go for me since I've been out of high school, this day kind of reminded me that I should relax more and just live the day just as a day and not a scheduled, structured, listed chore. This is a result of my happiness due to that thought.

The night only got better as I was asked to provide some smooth 1940's tunes to the lovely people in Cape Girardeau at the annual CCM Wine Tasting event at Deerfield Lodge... Here are some pictures....

First, First Friday :)

It was nice, after this long limbo week, to just spend time with Hannah and relax, go out to dinner, and watch a psychological thriller. It had been a pretty laid back day and week actually, but it just felt very long. I didn't have class all day Friday so I was able to sleep in and get some built up laundry folded and put away. After I had been cooked up in my room for half the day I had made my way to the apartment complex that I am looking to live in next year. I was really suprised at how nice the lady is and how helpful she is, sooooo in about a week or so ill make a payment to have my name put on the next available space :) super exciting huh? After I picked up an application, I headed over to Hannah's and found her waiting patiently for the UPS lady to come and deliver some stuff she had ordered. so we waited...and waited...and waited... and......waited, until the packages finally came. We could finally leave to begin our exciting evening. We were super hungry and had been wanting to eat somewhere where we hadn't been together before, Bella Italia sounded like the perfect place to satisfy our hunger. I will say one thing about Bella Italia.... I have never had such yummy bread before my meal before. I was very impressed with the food and had to take most of my vegetarian pizza home. We were going to get dessert but after 1 1/2 gigantic rolls and our entree we were stuffed and ready to just nap it off until tomorrow. BUT we had an agenda. One thing about the first Friday of the month in Cape is that most of the stores downtown have special things in their store, or they are just super nice. Annie Laurie's has friendly service all the time, but this night everybody seemed very happy and helpful. We looked around the store for some fun little items and actually picked up a couple record and a custard bowl set. Now I had been looking for a kitchen canister set for Hannah during the week because I noticed that she just kept her flour and sugar in their bags and thought she outta have some containers to keep it in. Wouldn't you know that there was a perfect set in the basement of the store. The most exciting thing at that moment for me was finding a comfy lounge chair and a french style couch that I would love to put in my new apartment. So we walk up to the counter to pay for all our finds and I ask Laurie how much she wanted for the chair and couch and she gave a really good price... I was so excited I asked if she could hold it for me and told her I was for sure coming back to claim. :) After the excitement of speaking for a chair and couch we started off to the movie theatre to see Shutter Island.
I thought that it was a great movie, I was really confused about the whole two-story plot and how everything happened and especially with all the names because after people started to not really exist and be other people it got real confusing. I walked out and told Hannah, "I think that movie made me insane because I don't even know what just happened." Haha it was a goodnight and one that was filled with a lot of adventure and happiness.

Guys Night Out

Last night I had the chance to spend the evening with my extra special roommate and have a guys night out. After the lovely girlfriend and I had some dinner, I picked up my roommate and we went out to BWW since he hadn't eaten yet and well wouldn't you know it was 60 cent wing night... SCORE! the only thing about Thursday nights at BWW's is everyone and their momma was in there and it took like 20 minutes just to be seated, then another 20 minutes to get our order. The waitress was nice though and it gave me and my roommate a chance to catch up since we haven't seen much of eachother this week. We then proceeded to wonder what was on the agenda for the evening. Well, being guys we weren't very creative so we said HEY! lets just rent some video games and chill in the room So that's what we did and I must say it was a very restful night, one that brought back memories of us hanging out together during the summer and staying up 4 in the morning playing these video games. Haha, oh how we've grown up, because after about 30 minutes of playing we were bored and were ready to go to sleep, and we would have if some drunk people on our floor didn't come out of their dungeonous rooms and start having a "who can talk louder and annoy the whole floor, to where everyone can't fall asleep" contest. Oh dorm room's how i love thee. All in all a great day and night.

Awesome Frozen Yogurt Ideas Yield Delicious Results

So yesterday I spent sometime at Hannah's apartment after class. While she was updating her blog, and figuring what cupcake she would make this week, she brought up the idea to make ice cream.....homemade, which is basically the yummiest thing in the whole wide world. Anyway she said she had an old fashion ice cream churning gadget, so she brought it out and gave me the directions. After reading the directions and finding out that it took more than 4 hours to produce said ice cream, we were disappointed and a bit sad. :( After the disappointment of not having any ice cream had set in, i asked if she would be up to a new adventure, and like always she was happy to partake in my madness. I suggested that we make frozen yogurt! We got real excited and wanted to make it right then and there, but we didn't have all the ingredients. I was headed out to get my haircut anyway since I had grown it out for Carousel , it was getting annoying. So off I go, I get my haircut, then head to Schnucks and pick up a couple cans of orange juice concentrate, a couple bags of frozen berries, and as I look at the yogurt I think to myself, "JoJo, will all these ingredients equally put out the right taste when we put them with the yogurt?" As I traveled down the isle back and forth from the cashier to the yogurt area I finally just decided to get two tubs of yogurt instead of one. So back to Hannah's I go, I get there and we mix everything together pop it in the fridge and go on about our evening. 30 minutes pass by and she realized that we didnt put the vanilla extract in, so i make a mad dash to make sure that the vanilla has time to mix and fuse with the other ingredients. 4 hours and mixings every hour later we pop out the most delicious bowl of froyo I have ever seen. Hannah says she would like chunks of fruit in her yogurt and so she gets out her little cups and we do expert plating with frozen berries on top of our froyo. It was a very productive and yummy day, and what better way to end a day than to watch Cinderella with my amazing girlfriend, who is absolutely in love with Disney Princesses. :)