i wish things would be like this time all year around. family togetherness, fires, bright decorations, lights, cold weather movies, hot chocolate, and all that christmas entails. the time between thanksgiving and christmas is by far my favorite time. the tree goes up, lights are scattered around the house, and everything seems to smell like cinnamon. i get to wear my big sweaters and my fuzzy boots topped off by my pom-pom ball hat. all is right in the land of katie. i love christmas. i love what we celebrate and i adore how we celebrate it. traditions, family, food, laughter, it's wonderful.


happy christmas.

Jack Bauer could take Chuck Norris in a New York Minute.

A friend emailed me this, knowing I'm in love with the show 24...which will be airing January 14th people...Jack's back.

If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and
he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

If everyone on "24" followed Jack Bauer's instructions, it would be called "12".

Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer
killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.

Jack Bauer's calendar goes from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools
Jack Bauer.

If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.

Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next
half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.

Jack Bauer's house has an alarm system -- not to warn Jack of
intruders, but to warn the intruders of Jack.

When Kim Bauer lost her virginity, Jack Bauer found it and put it back.

Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.

When E.T. phoned home, Jack Bauer answered.

When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists.
Jack Bauer hates lemonade.

1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.

It's no use crying over spilt milk... Unless that was Jack Bauer's
milk. Oh you are so screwed.

Jack Bauer is the 'i' in team.

Nobody says 'hit me' when Jack Bauer deals Blackjack.

Let's get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right
now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.

Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

Tony was once shot in the neck, rushed to the hospital, underwent
emergency surgery and was back on the job in just a few hours. Jack
Bauer still can't believe that wussy went to the hospital first.

Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves.

Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.

Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him
finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.

Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was
shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.

If Jack Bauer misspells a word, your dictionary is wrong.

Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.

Every mathematical inequality officially ends with "< Jack Bauer".

When President Palmer quit to start doing Allstate commercials, it
took him 43 takes before he could stop saying, "You're in good hands
with Jack Bauer".

Superman's only weakness is Kryptonite. Jack Bauer laughs at Superman
for having a weakness.

When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.

Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer
says something then you better frickin do it.

On a high school math test, Jack Bauer put down "Violence" as every
one of the answers. He got an A on the test because Jack Bauer solves
all his problems with Violence.

Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second
favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.

When Jack Bauer was a child, he made his mother finish his vegetables.

Jack Bauer removed the "Escape" button from his keyboard. Jack Bauer
never needs to escape.

During the commercials, Jack Bauer calls the CSI detectives and solves
their crimes.

In 96 hours, Jack Bauer has killed 93 people and saved the world 4 times.

Jack Bauer can get McDonald's breakfast after 10:30.

When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.

If you're holding a gun to Jack Bauer's head, don't count to three
before you shoot. Count to 10. That way, you get to live 7 seconds
longer.

You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.

There are no such thing as lesbians, just women who never met Jack Bauer.

Guns dont kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.

Finding Nemo would have been vastly more exciting had Jack Bauer been
looking for him.

If Jack Bauer was gay, his name would be Chuck Norris.

Jack Bauer doesn't play the game SORRY. Jack Bauer apologizes to no one.

There is the right way, the wrong way, and the Jack Bauer way. It's
basically the right way but faster and more deaths.

Jack Bauer knows Victoria's secret.

People with amnesia still remember Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer makes onions cry.

studying alone is for the betterment of humanity, or atleast the shreveport bossier area.

- i talk to myself. out loud.
- i chew on whatever sweatshirt/pull over/jacket i'm wearing
- i sing along with any and every song i hear
- sometimes i make up songs
- i talk to my computer
- take pictures of random items (so far it's the flowers on my bookcase, my van gogh painting, and my bulletin board collage)
- i sometimes hang upside down off my bed when i'm trying to recite things.
- i drink so much coffee i tend to get a bit shaky
- i could possibly scare small children.
- i know i scare my parents.
- i will play my guitar at random moments.
- basically look for anything else to do besides study.

oy. finals.

crazy kids.

as i was power walking to the school bookstore, to buy my scantrons for my finals this morning, and reciting piget's stages, maslow's heirarchy of needs, and jung's archaetypes, i looked up and had to stop. there was the big blue sign saying...

"stud id to tell sex books."

if only i'd had my camera. dang it.

katia loves her oche y her madre.

my dad is the most amazing man i know. not only has he spent 1/2 the weekend (which is his most valuable time for sermon writing) at the hospital with a family, but he also has been up since 1:45 am when another family went through a bit of a crisis. i always get worried when i hear his cell phone ring in the middle of the night. i know that something is very wrong and only the super powers of troy parker can fix, or atleast comfort. so, last night he gets in bed around 11:00ish and i hear the phone ringing at 1:45 then continue to hear the door opening, him brushing his teeth and then the front door closing. but, he still manages to do utterly amazing in church. every week i'll watch him on stage and i am baffled at the man i get to have as my father. not many people understand how lucky they are to have the parents they do. my parents are truly and completely amazing. trust me, we've had our rough points- but it's enlightening when you age how you begin to see your parents as REAL people. and i know that sounds so childish, but when you're young you see your parents as almost super-human, or atleast i did. i tell my mom all the time that i want to be her when i grow up. she manages an entire church, works a full time job, and still manages to get supper on the table. my dad has so many people watching him, judging him, and he leads so many people's lives without even batting an eye. both my parents are full of insecurities, my mom especially, but i have deemed it my job to be their encourager. i love to encourage people. but my parents most of all. i see the effect they have in peoples lives. i only hope i have half of that impact.

ahh. finals.

The time where you walk on your college campus and the students have become zombies. (myself included) Where you see the fear in the poor little freshman's eyes who can't bear the thought of dropping below a 4.0 GPA...the rest of us on the other hand lost that LONG time ago. Now unfortunately, spots in the local libraries have become prime real estate spots and coffee shops have been infiltrated with the hopes of young Kirkegaard followers seeming deep with their latte and philosophy books. No such luck. Ah, in it all I must just simply laugh. Wecome to finals.

get down girl, go head, get down.

my last few days:

- i absolutely love my family. even though they are justifiably insane.
- driving with a bee in your car. not fun. only enhances paranoia.
- having my professor use me as an example infront of my class of 40 people on the topic of freud's interpretation of dreams. according to him if i dream of any stick-like object i have penis envy. yeah. ok.
- having that same professor say, and quite loudly, the phrase "penis envy" in my face around 8 times.
- i'm told to get a trainable boyfriend. (i rather like this one)
- apparently, if you watch a scary movie- you are more inclined to have sex. (this isn't from experience, this is from a class discussion...only in psychology)
- if you smile at the starbucks guy- he gives you free coffee! :) :)
- there's not too much a krispy kreme can't fix.
- when work is boring, break out the OOPS adhesive remover and start to remove random spots around the store! or, try on every shoe in your size.
- having the strong desire to punch a newly married couple.
- inheriting battle wound blisters from the horrid rake and the infiltration of leaves in the back yard. i won!
- staying up waaay to late. but not caring.
- resuming big coffee with lindsay and LOVING IT!
- talking about the penis envy experience and making my dad feel really uncomfortable while my mom just laughs.
- my mother now wears a velcro boot thing b/c of her broken foot. but of course, she's the "silent martyr"...yeah. i'm laughing too.
- realized one of the most corrupt politicians came from my state. go huey.
- i'm very partial to ambiguous mahoganous relationships. like mine, lindsay's, and matts.
- i'm rather tired, so i'm now ending this

why? that's my question. why?

Ok, I was walking on campus today when I looked around at the people around me and I just had to laugh. Here are a few thoughts...

- Stiletto heels to class...why? I can barely make it up the stairs without falling in simple flip-flops.
- Why do more guys have umbrella's to protect their hair then girls? Honestly.
- A true smoker stands out in rainy butt freezing cold weather to get one last one in before a 50 minute class.
- WHY DO THE ZETAS ALWAYS CHASE ME DOWN?!?! I don't want to join a sorority. I don't like the thought of buying my "sisters".
- It cracks me up when I see girls come to class in their pajama's, but with perfect hair and make-up and they claim to have "just rolled out of bed."...come on now.
- Why does my cell phone go off more in the library then any other room on campus?
- I always pick the creaky seats.
- My teachers like to pick fights with me b/c they know I won't give the dumb blank stare back.
- My male advisor is shorter than me. I'm 5'3.
- I have to admit I find it rather amusing when I see someone run into a leaning tree limb while talking on their cell phone.
- I LOATHE getting stalked by a car for my parking space! I can hear the buzzing of your engine! GET BACK!
- You can spot an art student from a mile away. Dressed in black and carrying an oversized clipboard. (yes, I had one of those too when I was an art major...just not the dressing in black)
- People who take the elevator to go to the 2nd floor piss me off.
- I LOVE the people in our student union. they are soooo sweet!
- My history professor strikes poses during his lectures, I'm not sure why.
- My personality professor, doesn't have one. Amazing.
- Dodging an ex boyfriend is rather tricky.

my friend, it is all about the word play.

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
- Tom Stoppard

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
- Sir Winston Churchhill

"Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything."
- Floyd Dell
(I like this one b/c I'm realizing that it's really true.)

"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."
- Hermann Hesse

"Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content."
- Louis L'Amour

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."
- Mitch Hedberg
(I don't really feel this way, it just made me laugh!)

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
- Voltaire

"It's never just a game when you're winning."
- George Carlin

"When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong--or absolutely right."
- Albert Guinon

"Astonomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things."....like my car keys.
- Unknown

"Reget for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
- Sidney J. Harris

"The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion."
- G.K. Chesterton

"At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies."
- P.G. Wodehouse

"Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real."
- Iris Murdoch

"I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on."
- Beryl Pfizer

"My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
- Oscar Wilde

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."
-Winston Churchill

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight."
-Phyllis Diller

"She was a woman who, in between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table."
-Henry James

"Laziness is nothing more then resting before you get tired."
-Jules Renard

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I thing I ended up where I needed to be."
-Douglas Adams

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt."
-Abraham Lincoln

"I will prepare and some day my chance will come"
-Abraham Lincoln

"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A friend is one before whom I may think aloud."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I walk the line."
-Johnny Cash

so, i'm slightly in love with quotes.

Reminiscent of "those" days.

It's really amazing how far I've come the last few years. I was flipping through my notebooks from a couple of semesters ago and it reminded me of how great God is. I fought depression for about 3 years solid, and I found somethings I wrote in those notebooks that just magnifies where I was in those moments. It's scary, but at the same time relieving knowing I'm as far from that now as I can hope to be. Sure, I have my bad days...but who doesn't? These few excerpts are just a part of a long journey. Every day I look in the mirror and thank God for me still being here. Here's for some interesting reading:

"I am no one special, everything about me you can relate to someone else. I am viewed as a mess, unorganized, and everywhere. I am only me, that's all I seem to be proud of. Nothing I've written, drawn, or painted is waved about for people to see. I want to exist in what people expect, nothing more and nothing less. If I set myself up too high, I will always feel I have failed. I'm content being a mess, it's the only thing I can claim."

"Loneliness destroys the soul, it pushes it to it's limits. The feeling of longing is the break down. Sometimes the long becomes so powerful it dies."

"The soul is empty and completely dry. The abyss inside my being. My hallow existence seems so light, but heavy is all my heart has ever known."

This one I wrote after studying Sylvia Plath. I wrote this as if her point of view when she commited suicide. See, depression + suicide....God is great.

I'm caged inside my own skin
Pushing and punching to be released
I see this figure in the mirror
Lost and bewilderment screams in my eyes
When will I be set free?
Your chains and bounds tie me to this hell
They laugh at me when I struggle
My prison beneath my clothes
The fair walls are a lie
I pray for my freedom to come
My body has become a machine
Producing ACTS 1 to 5 that they long to see
Pearly whites shining in the flames
The applause echoes through the cells
I can feel the freedom coming
Alone I sit in the chill
A sweet fragrance floats through the gate
I'm warm for a moment
My head is becoming heavy
Today is my liberation
My body becomes as stone
But my heart as a feather
Breathing in the sweetness of freedom
I tease and play with her until finally
I am free.

Yeah. God is amazing.

a day of remembrance and outrage.

today is a day i think every american has cemented in their heads. we can probably all remember where we were, what we did, and how we felt when it happened. i, personally, was in my room getting dressed for school when my dad knocked on my door and called me to come into the living room to tell me i'm witnessing history. as we were watching the second tower was hit. i don't think i will ever forget how my mind felt like it turned off. staring at an event that i could not even fathom. sure, we've all heard the stories of pearl harbor (which was made into a horrible film. josh hartnett and ben affleck do not equal a great cinema experience no matter what people say) and all the war stories. but, this was different. this was my generation being viciously attacked on home soil. i remember the rest of the day was spent gathered around either a television or a radio. teachers had to sneak in radios into classrooms because our school system wanted "everything to go on as normal". normal? what's normal about thousands of civilians dying on a tuesday morning? what's normal about the president of the united states flying to the air force base 10 minutes from my school because of this event? this to you, school board associates, is normal? that being said...

every year on september 11th i google images of the event. i feel i need to remind myself of how vulnerable we felt, but also, how it seemed to drop barriers between us. it gave me a new outlook on the human race. or, it did until i found the picture imbedded in this post. i couldn't believe it. i don't think i've been so enraged over a picture. it was published by some british company as propaganda against tony blair. and, i understand, it's propaganda. activists will say anything to swing a vote. sometimes, there's a line you do not cross. and that's a large blinking one. maybe i'm overly sensitive, emotional, or (as my father calls it) just trying to pick a fight...but i just don't understand it. compassion has been compromised for politics. again.