It's been raining a lot.

As in, last year the majority of Texas was in a drought, and now Texas is flooding everywhere. Craziness.

I was in Fort Worth this past weekend, which was Memorial Day weekend, as it was my last long weekend of the summer. (Thankfully, I didn't get stormed on while traveling either way.)

Since I will be taking classes and working the rest of the summer, I won't have any wiggle room on either side of Saturday/Sunday, which makes half a day of travelling on either end a bit more than desired (for one night of being outside of Lubbock).

Regardless, I had fun this past weekend. I drove across Texas after work on Thursday, and got to see some of my favorite people over the weekend. Highlights of the week include having brunch at Gloria's with my sister (they have fantastic $1 mimosas during brunch time), and spending all of Monday with Stephen (hanging out with friends and then watching a couple movies with just us).

I enjoy living in Lubbock, being independent, and doing the whole classes and internship thing. But it can be pretty lonely when family and friends are all several hours away (and when my Lubbock friends leave for the summer but I'm stay behind so I can graduate on time, which is still a semester longer than the original plan).

Anyhow, it rained previously while I was in Lubbock, it rained in Fort Worth when I was there this weekend, and is now raining when I am back in Lubbock. The strange thing was that it flooded in both places. Now, Lubbock will sometimes flood when it barely drizzles, but DFW usually has pretty good drainage systems. It seems there was just too much water to handle this go around. There have been floods, accidents, and deaths; it is bad (as an update, in case you haven't looked outside or read/heard any news in the past week or two).

The intern window (that I sit next to) starting leaking during this storm. Two shirts and a giant roll of paper towels later, and the storm started clearing up.

It's great to have rain, but it would be nice if things evened out now. No more massive rain/hail/tornado systems making me want to skip driving to or from campus. That would be helpful.

So, yes, this is a short blog. I'm sure I have lots of interesting things to say, but nothing is coming to mind, so here you go.


Needing to buy a bigger umbrella,

The Purple Writer

Texas Tech English has a letterpress studio.

Although Texas Tech is more focused on its STEM programs (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), there are a wide variety of other great programs here. For instance, the English department.

Now, the English department does not get a lot of money to maintain itself, because its graduates generally don't go on to make millions of dollars in oil/gas/whatnot. There are a lot of changes and improvements which just can't be afforded, but it does the best that it can, and even has a really cool room which holds the letterpress studio, also known as the TTU Letterpress Lab.

Several English professors have donated quite a bit of their own time and money to bring about the existence of this letterpress studio. There are a few different beautiful presses, including a simple tabletop proof press, a tabletop platen, and a handpress.

In the fall, I had applied to join the Letterpress Lab apprenticeship program, in which I could have worked my way up from a "printer's devil" to an actual printer and be able to print things and work in the press on my own. However, it turns out that I was a semester or two too late, as the program was going through several changes and the apprenticeship is no longer an option. Graduate students get to take a letterpress class, which I'm pretty jealous of, although there are talks of having an undergraduate class in the future (probably after I graduate, of course).

Anyhow, several really cool documents have been printed by hand in the TTU Letterpress Lab. Some of the coolest are broadsides of poetry. These are one-sided, single-page prints which are usually quite unique and beautiful.

These are a couple of the ones I've collected.The three on the left are poems by poets which were brought in to speak for the English department: Mary Szybist, Jeffrey Harrison, and Robin Becker. (We studied books by Mary Szybist and Robin Becker for the capstone poetry course I took last Fall, and it was really great to be able to meet them, hear them read, get books signed, and then get these broadsides as an extra souvenir.)

Last week, the English department paired with the Tech Book History Club (which I'm technically a part of but I haven't been able to make it to more than one meeting all year) to hold an open house for the letterpress studio. This was a chance for people to come and experience the awesomeness of hand printing that normally wouldn't have that opportunity.

We got little blocks of linoleum to print with. We came up with designs that we wanted, and carved out the white space on the linoleum. Then we went into the letterpress studio and printed with our blocks, using a small, tabletop proof press.  Here you can see the prints that I designed and made.

The block was put down and secured in place, had ink rolled over its top several times, had paper placed on top, had extra filler paper placed on top of that, and then a roller was dragged across the top of the whole thing, to transfer the ink from the block onto the paper.

The whole process was pretty simple and fun. I'm going to keep looking for a way around the graduate-students only rule, but for now I have these two pretty little prints to look at.

Thinking happy thoughts while recovering from my post-finals sickness,

The Purple Writer

This past weekend was pretty great.

First off, I know I've been slacking with my blog again. However, finals are finally here so I can take a breath, have some fun, and write posts again.

It's really the month before finals that are hard, what with so many projects, papers, and presentations that generally add up to form the majority of the grades in all my classes. I only have one final that is worth more than about 10% of my overall grade, so I can relax, having secured my overall grades in my classes (unless I was to actually fail a final, which isn't a concern this semester, at least).

But that's boring. Let's get back to my cool weekend of geekiness.

As you may guess from that poster, I started the weekend early on Thursday, with the midnight premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was a fun movie. Not as good as the first Avengers, but it set up several of the upcoming Marvel movies, which was important. I won't give any spoilers, of course, because not everyone was able to find time to watch it this weekend, but I would definitely be willing to go see it again.

On Friday, I watched the third and fourth episode of the current GOT season (and finally painted the new side mirror for my car, so it wouldn't look super strange when attached).

While doing this, I did some deeper cleaning and straightening in my room. It gets to be a mess toward the end of the semester, and I'm going to start moving my stuff to my future residence in a couple weeks, so organization will definitely help with that.

I also made my second kahlua chocolate bundt cake! (Somehow it still turned out well after I left it in the oven for an extra half hour).





Saturday, I hung out with some cool, geeky people.
I got free comics (for Free Comic Book Day, of course), bought the Civil War graphic novel (issues #1-7), and enjoyed the atmosphere of general nerdiness that can be found at comic book stores (especially when there's a table outside raising money for the  Lubbock-Con).

I watched the animated Flashpoint Paradox movie, which was the starting point for DC's New 52 comics. How had I not heard that story before? Well, I'm not sure, but I've seen the movie now, so we're all good.

I finally bought a Beatles record (I've been wanting one for a while, but didn't want to pay shipping or risk a warped album), as well as an Imagine Dragons record. Barnes & Noble is carrying record albums, which is pretty awesome, but a bit expensive, of course.

Then, on Sunday, I hosted a Star Wars marathon!

We started with episode 3, because people didn't have enough time to watch all six episodes, and made Star Wars gingerbread and sugar cookies.

I don't want to give away all of our secrets, but it was pretty awesome, so maybe you can try to be invited to my Star Wars party next year, if you're lucky enough to be my friend and in Lubbock on the first weekend in May.






So, in summary, I have not fallen off the face of the planet, I had a fun weekend before finals (which you are welcome to be jealous of), and I'm planning to be a little more consistent now, but we'll see how that goes (again). I have a couple weeks between the end of this spring semester and the beginning of the first summer session, during which time I plan to be working and moving and reading comics and writing posts.

Off to prep for my mock press conference in PR Writing tomorrow,
The Purple Writer

I'm all about that avocado.

No, for real, I might even be a little obsessed.

Avocados are yummy, good for you, easy to make fun recipes with.

What's not to love about them?
(Unless you're allergic, in which case, I am very sorry.)




I bought a bag of avocados at Costco two weeks ago. Then I checked them last Sunday and all but one had ripened at the same time! Well, I love avocados, but that's quite a bit to eat in a few days if I didn't want them to go bad.

Therefore, I went to Pinterest to find recipes using avocados. There were some expected recipes, some interesting ones, and some that were completely ingenious. I realized that I had nowhere close to enough avocados to make all the recipes that I wanted to try, so I will just need to keep buying avocados in the future.

But here are some of the recipes that I tried, with pictures, of course!

Avocado, Bacon, and Cheese {ABC} Puffs

Now this just sounds fantastic, right? Combining creamy avocado with crispy bacon and delicious cheese? Unfortunately, I did not have any bacon, because if I bought the stuff I would just end up eating it, and I try to avoid that situation.

So, my puffs were just avocado and cheese, but they were still super yummy.

These morsels of savory goodness were super easy. I used one of my mini cupcake pans to hold the shape (and was therefore able to cook them in my toaster oven, which I use whenever possible).

I cut crescent roll triangles in half, and pressed them into the cupcake indents. Then I took cubed (or rectangled is more accurate, I suppose) avocado and cheese, and just layered them in. I picked up the overhanging bits of crescent roll and pinched them together at the top. 

Including the 10 minutes to cook at 375, this recipe probably took about 15 minutes altogether. Not too shabby if you're pressed for time or if hunger catches you by surprise.

Guacamole Grilled Cheese

Now, putting avocado on sandwiches shouldn't be a new concept for you. I particularly enjoy avocado slices on hamburgers  and clubs. But this slightly different recipe combines the richness of avocado with the classic grilled cheese sandwich.

Now, I didn't have all the ingredients the recipe called to be added to the mashed avocado. I had the fresh onion and garlic, as well as salt and pepper, of course, but not the tomato or cilantro or jalapenos (which I would never add anyhow). I compromised by adding a tiny bit of salsa.

Making the grilled cheese was pretty straightforward. Heated up a skillet, put butter on the side of bread touching the hot surface, layered on the cheese and avocado mush, put on another piece of bread, flipped the whole monster after a few minutes, and I was done! 

Now, I could have used my faithful toaster oven, but with how much of the guacamole I put on, there probably would have been an explosion or some other kind of mess. 

This is an easy, yummy, twist on a comfort food.

Although, if we're talking about simplistic, comfort food, why not just eat straight guacamole?

All you need are some chunks of avocado, some salsa, and a bag of chips.

Now, I know I'm kind've cheating by using store bought salsa, but if we're talking about saving time, as long as you have fresh avocado, it will still taste great.

Step 1. Mash up the avocado.

Step 2. Add salsa.

Step 3. Mix.

Step 4. Eat guacamole with chips.

Step 5. Be happy (and eat more guacamole with chips).

The brownish-green goop may not look so appetizing at first glance, but once you start eating it, there's no going back. It takes about 3-5 minutes to make a delicious (and mostly healthy) snack. Whether you have the guacamole just to color your favorite chips or use your chips to scoop up giant mouthfuls of guacamole, this is a perfect way to feed your stomach while pleasing your tastebuds.

If you're interested in some of the other avocado recipes I found, they will be in my "recipes to try" board on Pinterest. Go check them out. :)


Trying to decide what avocado combination to use next,

The Purple Writer

Am I a 'Gleek?'

I watched the [final] finale of Glee this weekend. Like many other people, I started watching Glee because I heard about it all the time, and stayed through all the drama and plot holes for the music.

Glee is a show full of fun music and drama-loving characters in the glee club at  William McKinley High School. There are tears, love triangles, and halls filled with vocally-gifted, angsty teenagers.

Glee was a show I watched when I was bored, or wanted to pass a couple hours. I never thought of it with any particular fondness or attachment. But looking back at it, Glee actually did make an impact on my life. Specifically, there was the time when Cory Monteith died.

I've always been awful at knowing and recognizing celebrities, and I can only remember the real-life names of maybe 10 of my favorite actors (most of them BBC actors, of course). But I remember checking out of a grocery store in July 2013 and seeing magazines with Finn Hudson's face and headlines about his death. Well, the death of the actor who played him, Cory Monteith.

When the fifth season aired that Fall, and Finn was in one episode and then not the next, it hit me. He was dead. I had watched several shows up to that point in time, and gone through multiple para-social breakups with characters who were written off those said shows. But this time I knew that the death of a character I liked was because of the death of an actual person, who had his own dreams, skills and overall potential.

That gave me a change in perspective about the relationship between characters and actors, and my own para-social relationships with those individuals.

But to get back to the show Glee itself, I have not liked the most recent season(s).

First off, the show is about a glee club in high school, but then it started following key members of the glee club after they graduated and moved to New York and their college and careers. It was a little strange, but there was still plenty of singing and dancing, so I decided to suffer through the 'college phase,' and kept watching Glee, if you want to call it that. (In general, I would forget to watch it for a month or two, then catch up when I was bored, as opposed to my actively watching shows as soon as they came online each week.)

Season Five should have been the end of Glee, or so I think. It had a lot of unnecessary, post-high school drama, but it seemed to end on a good note. Everything was tied up with a bow: a little breaking of the 4th wall and some snappy musical numbers.

But then, I was surprised when I found out there were new Glee episodes to watch. A sixth season was airing!
This sixth season essentially ripped open our finally-scabbed over cuts that come with the end of a show, and yanked us back into the Glee universe. There was more painful drama, a worse plot (if possible), and in general I think the sixth season should not exist. I have not heard a single person say they loved that Glee was back, or were so excited for each new episode to come out. Not a single person.

The only good thing to come out of season six was the two-part finale. They took the time to really wrap everything up, tell us where the characters were heading, and end for good. This time, there should be no new-season-that-breaks-every-promise-made-in-the-previous-finale or questions about whether or not the show actually ended. This finale was beautiful, made me cry, and is the end of a show to which I gave a good portion of my time.

There may be a lot of hate towards Glee, but it was a fun and very colorful show. I am glad I watched it, but I am also glad there will be no more.

Off to watch other shows,

The Purple Writer

I have a job now.

Well, it's really an internship, but I get paid for my 20 hours a week, which is more than I expected for my first internship.

Beginning this February, I have been a Social Media Intern with the Office of Communications & Marketing at Texas Tech University. (Not the College of Media & Communication, although it seems many people make that mistake when looking up phone numbers.)


I get paid minimum wage, but this is basically my dream internship:
-> I am getting experience in managing social media accounts, which is what I would like to do in the long run.
-> I have a great boss and coworkers.
-> I sit next to the window in our office (a small room with three desks for us social media interns), and although it is very dirty, it has a gorgeous view looking out over Memorial Circle.
-> I enjoy what I do (writing tweets and posts, finding content, monitoring our streams and feeds, analyzing and comparing our stats with the universities we 'compete' with in the social media world of follows and interactions, and so on).

If nothing else, you should probably be jealous of this window that I sit next to for 20 hours each week. Lubbock has its dusty days and not-so-pretty days, but the campus is well-maintained, and the sky is almost always a beautiful sight. 

Mostly because West Texas is so flat in general, we get a lot of sky. A normally 'pretty' sight of clouds or color is simply transformed out here. You'll know what I mean if you ever see one of our gorgeous Lubbock sunsets. 

It's Spring Break this week, so campus is pretty empty, beside the visitor tours and staff members, but it's a great feeling to look out of my intern window on a normal day and see the streams of students flowing through Memorial Circle. 

Beside being the center of a lot of traffic on campus, the World War II monument, the Pfluger Fountain, as well as the grass which should not be walked on, come together to make a beautiful memorial for fallen soldiers and veterans of all wars. 

So, I'm taking 12 credit hours, working my internship, and living my life. 

I should be blogging more often (especially after I posted in January and said I would be better about posting more regularly), but that hasn't happened. Maybe I will be motivated to be a better blogger now, but who knows.

I'll leave you with a photo I took for one of my first assignments at this internship.

I went out and took pictures of the first blooming tulips on campus (for the #TexasTech Instagram account, of course). Have I mentioned how great this job is?

Off to increase my social media presence some more,

The Purple Writer

I'm crazy for pistachios.

I mean, I really, really love pistachios. Salted, unsalted, as a flavor of ice cream, and now in cookies.

Yes, cookies. I made pistachio (and chocolate) cookies today.

The thing is, I didn't think about how annoying it would be to shell and then chop two cups of pistachios, without a chopper or blender.

Yeah, that was pretty annoying

But, you know what makes any tedious chore more enjoyable? Definitely listening to music. 

Now, normally I'll jam out to Disney and Broadway songs while in the kitchen, whether cooking, baking, or cleaning. Seeing as I have 3 hours and 35 minutes of Disney songs, add that to my 9 hours and 5 minutes of Broadway songs, and I could literally listen for half a day without repeating a song. . . and I have done that before. Maybe a few times. 

But, sometimes I want to mix things up, and today, for the pistachio shelling and chopping, I started out with this fantastic song, which could practically be my theme song as an English major and too-often a grammar-policewoman.

If you're thinking of skipping the song, then don't. It's probably the best thing about this post.

But, why, you may ask, was I making chocolate chip cookies with pistachios in them? Well, I like to bring some baked goods to our Enlgish Honor Society meetings, when I can. 

Meetings are almost always better with food around. If you're hungry, you can have something to eat. If you're bored, you can have something to eat. If you're overwhelmed, you can have something to eat. If you're new, you can have something to eat. Also, just about everyone loves cookies, because they are generally delicious, and the perfect size to hold as you move around to talk to or avoid other people.

That is what my chocolate-pistachio cookies turned out looking like. They are pretty good. The pistachio is subtle, so it's not super strange. They're basically good chocolate cookies, with a hint of pistachio.

I got the recipe here, so you should definitely go check it out.


Going to eat a cookie, now that they've cooled,
The Purple Writer