Update for February

HI Everyone,

So here is a little update on what has been going on in my life for the last little bit.

The semester started and I am enjoying my classes. Here is a little highlight of each:

Experimental Food Science - We get to make a food product and test it in the lab for different nutrients (protein, fat, moisture, ash) and then package it and market it. Its pretty fun so far. My teacher said that one group from two semesters ago got approached by a large company to buy their idea and they are gonna "make millions" (my teacher says). So my group is making "Veggie Nuggets" for kids. They will be like a veggie patty (but with more veggies and less filler) but in nugget shape so kids will like them. Hopefully it will work out! I wanna make millions :-)

Advanced Nutrition - Lots of fun, this is the stuff I like. We took our first test and I got 96%. The lab component is pretty fun too. We do lots of case studies and run tests on our own blood. Its neat!

Nutrition Through The Lifespan - Really interesting. We are talking about nutrition through pregnancy...which should hopefully come in handy some day in the not so distant future (no, not making an announcement, just wishful thinking)

African American Music - really interesting, however I am much more of a science girl than a humanities girl - so I am taking this as credit/no credit.

I have been really busy with all of my classes and then my club. We had someone from food network contact us to set up a challenge for this show called "Chefs Vs City" and so I worked pretty hard to get the producer all the information he needed. I helped him design a challenge for the show...but I haven't heard back from him in about 6 weeks. So I have kind of kissed that idea good bye, but there is always a possibility that that can happen.

Other than that, I have been training for the Rock n Roll Marathon (and the La Jolla Half Marathon) with my friend Tracy. It has been a lot of fun. We got up to 10 miles the other day (without stopping) and I was so excited because it was the longest I have gone before. It was neat too, because we went on a Saturday, when there was a race going on (we were just about 10 minutes ahead of the pack) so there were aid stations and people cheering us on the whole time. We even crashed the little festival after our run (and got all the free stuff!) I think all of my running has inspired Jeff to join in too. He went running on one of my 5 mile runs last weekend, which was the longest he has been before, and I think he got hooked from it! Today he was talking about bringing stuff to go run on his lunch hour :-)

So, speaking of Jeff...He has been doing well. The band is getting hot again. They replaced the drummer and bassist with two new people, so Jeff has been practicing like crazy with the band to get everyone up to speed. They played their first show together at The Casbah last weekend, and it was AWESOME! Their drummer is this awesome chick named Darla, and she stands up and plays the drum machine and a real drum. It is neat to watch her do her thing. Hopefully next time they play, I will take some video or pictures so you can see them in action.

In the little spare time we have, we are enjoying our time together. Right now, I am obsessed with Lost and the musical The Wild Party. Speaking of Lost - if any of you who watch Lost would like to read an amazing column about each week's show, check this out:

http://www.ew.com/ew/package/roundup/0,,20313460_20345242,00.html

It is entertainment weekly's Doc Jensen's Lost Recap. He always gives insight and adds things that you never noticed or connected together before. It is great! I highly recommend reading it each week.

Well, that's about it. I will post more later (maybe :-)

I hope you all are doing well, and I'll talk to you later!

-Amanda