Thoughts

Goals

2011-07-19T13:40:00.003-04:00

Even though I have not been enjoying this summer all that much and have pretty much felt pressed for time throughout most of it, I have decided to come up with a set of goals for the rest of the summer, some more long term ones to complete by the end of 2011, and truly long term goals for the rest of my life. Here are some highlights:

For the rest of the summer:
-Write a short story
-Read Atlas Shrugged
-Read the rest of Love in the Time of Cholera

For the rest of 2011:
-Knit (or crochet) a sock monkey or like animal
-Get gpa up to at least a 3.2

For life:
-Publish a book
-Graduate college with honors
-Go to graduate school
-Learn Spanish
-Knit (or crochet) an afghan
-Run a marathon or half-marathon.

The Learning Channel

2011-07-19T01:47:00.002-04:00

Even though my family has Verizon Fios, I'm pretty sure the only channels I consistently remember are 139 (TLC) and 639 (the HD version of TLC). I find this somewhat pathetic, but that's alright. We all have our weaknesses and guilty pleasures. And ever since I have discovered TLC it has been my biggest guilty pleasure. At first I used to watch a lot of A Baby Story, Bringing Home Baby, What Not to Wear, and I Didn't Know I was Pregnant (because that was what happened to be on when I stumbled upon the marvelous channel), but now I primarily watch wedding shows...Say Yes to the Dress, Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids, Four Weddings, and sometimes I do venture over to the Wedding Channel to watch Bridezillas, Amsale Girls, and My Fair Wedding. I've never been one of those girls who has fantasized over her wedding her entire life, but I love these freaking shows!!! I'm not even sure why...but all I know is all I ever want to watch on tv is wedding shows - all day, everyday. And of course, Pretty Little Liars, which is not a wedding show, but just another guilty little pleasure of mine.

One Year Later...

2011-07-19T01:24:00.002-04:00

It's been approximately one year since I last posted on this blog and ironically the last post I did was all about work and how often I was working at the time. It's funny, because it shows that not much can change in a year. I like work, working, having a job, making money, etc. but at the same time it all also drives me crazy because even though it's the summer I feel like all I do is rush around and I wish I was getting more of a good break in befor the insane craziness of school begins. I suppose some things never change. Same stuff, different day.

I Think I Should Update My Mailing Address to...

2010-08-02T12:56:00.002-04:00

...my place of employment. Why? Because I'm always there! I'm there 4-8 hours at a pop usually with a 10 hour or longer stint thrown in there and I generally end up there on my days off as well. I really don't mind being there so much since I actually do like my job though so it all works out.

I'm not really sure how Weight Watchers has been going so far...I don't think I've lost any weight and I'm hungry a lot of the time. I have been keeping to my points allowances though so in theory it should be working. And I'm also no stranger to the gym. It gets a little frustrating sometimes especially when trying to estimate foods based on ounces and pounds and cups because it's not always easy to predict the amounts, but I'm going to stick with it.

I've decided that I want a credit card even though the thought of one scares me. Credit cards can build up credit, but can also destroy it. I know that I wouldn't go crazy with a card though so I'm pretty sure I'd be able to handle it. And I would like to start building up my own credit since I am an adult and plan on managing my own life someday.

The Old Summer Feeling

2010-07-19T00:29:00.003-04:00

Throughout high school I honestly thought that I was depressed and would benefit from medication. I never took any, but I was so incredibly unhappy that I thought it would help. And then I graduated and college was no better, or at least the first semester wasn't. I wanted desperately to become someone who I liked better so I put myself out there and pledged a local sorority in the fall and at the beginning of the second semester I broke up with my high school boyfriend of almost four years because I realized that he was really dragging me down and making me unhappy and overnight I felt so much happier. The rest of the semester (aside from maybe a week tops) was wonderful. I felt amazing until I got home for the summer. Now I just feel like shit again. I also had lost about twenty pounds between February '09 and September '09 which felt pretty good at first, but it didn't take long to feel fat again. And then I ended up gaining all the weight back even though I didn't really change my diet or exercise regime which is really frustrating. Working out approximately five hours a week isn't enough to keep me fit?

I honestly wish sometimes that I had the discipline to starve myself or everything up, but I don't so it's pointless to dwell on those sorts of possibilities. I also am working 4-8 hour days at a local department store this summer so I need to eat enough to not spend all of work dreaming about what's for dinner or when lunch break is. To be at the "ideal" weight for my height I need to lose about forty pounds. My mom always says that part of it is just being confident with who you are, but every time I pass a mirror at work I get a horrible sinking feeling when I see my reflection. Something's gotta give and it's NOT going to be my attitude because there's nothing wrong with how I think. Accepting myself the way I am now would be completely unacceptable and fit right in with the stereotype of fat Americans and I refuse to be a part of that statistic. I also can't just take advantage of all the free time I have in the summer and start working out for more than an hour a day because I know I won't have the time for that once school starts up again which will lead to me gaining weight back which would frustrate me further.

Basically the point of this rant is to say that in an attempt to once again try to reinvent myself into someone I can accept, I just joined weightwatchers tonight. I don't really think either of my parents is really supportive even though I KNOW for a fucking fact that they think I'm fat, but I don't really give a shit if I have their support in this. They don't have to live with me, I do. So this is what I'm doing.

I apologize to anyone who reads this because I realize that it's kinda emo and oh-woe-is-me-ish, but I don't have many people to rant to who don't try to "help." So I putting everything here. :)

I pretty much feel uncomfortable in most public places now because of how I look. I can't help but notice how much heavier I am than pretty much everyone I see out and about. If I could sell my soul and trade every ounce of health to be as thin as I'd like to be and weigh what I'd really like to weigh, I'm 99% sure that I would do it without looking back.

Fun Facts

2010-04-25T17:12:00.002-04:00

-I like the color blue.

-I like things in multiples of 3 and 5.

-I'm scared to death of matches.

-I'll try walking pretty much anywhere.

-I have a thing for animals with floppy ears.

-I like to write.

-I like to read.

-I'm the least productive person in the world.

Snow Day Part II

2010-02-26T13:49:00.002-05:00

Classes were cancelled for today because of the snow! This is the second time this month...I do believe this makes this the snowiest winter that I remember. Supposedly RU usually doesn't give snow days this easily either, but I have to say that it has been snowing pretty steadily out there and with all the buses that are necessary to get to class, the day off is needed.

I really need to be productive today because I have so much to catch up on, but so far I haven't done anything but get dressed, go tothe dining hall, and turn on my computer. I was supposed to have a chem quiz today and stopped studying as soon I found out that classes were cancelled so I need to finish getting caught up/studying a couple of chapters. I also have this research proposal due on Monday for my writing class so I really need to work on that too...Especially because I emailed the professor last night saying I wanted to revise my question and she emailed back asking me to send her the revised question...

Sooo Busy

2010-02-24T17:52:00.004-05:00

I really thought I blogged more recently than the snow day, but it appears that I did not.

In other news, my boyfriend and I broke up last Tuesday. It just really wasn't working out...I feel bad saying it, but it's been really nice not having to worry about someone being mad at me all the time.

Overall I'm enjoying school a lot more this semester. So much more that the prospect of spring break makes me sad because I know I won't be able to see everyone. :(

Snow Day :-D

2010-02-10T23:31:00.003-05:00

We had a college snow day today! And it was really awesome except that the buses stopped running because it was snowing THAT much. The campus I live on has a lot of trees so it looks really pretty in the snow! Unfortunately, we still have classes tomorrow, but the morning ones were cancelled so I'll have more time in the morning, yay!

Getting Caught Up Sucks

2010-02-07T16:52:00.003-05:00

I like being home. I never thought I'd ever want to come home, but I do. I probably think about coming home about half the time that I'm away. This week kind of sucked though because I was still working and then I was up for over 40 hours with no naps or anything because I was trying to work on this stupid paper that I just couldn't get done and then I had class and then a sisterhood meeting and then I did poorly on two quizzes and then found out that one of my good friends from high school who had gone MIA and then reappeared has disappeared again.

I don't think this week is going to be any better either because:

a) I have a chemistry midterm on Wednesday. And unlike chem I, I have no high school knowledge to go on and I know nothing. I also don't know where my exam location is...The place is abbreviated "SEC." Luckily there's a girl from my floor in my section so I hope she knows...

b) The rough draft for the essay that I was up literally all night writing is due on Wednesday. Why does this suck? Because my draft f-ing sucks and I have a chemistry midterm the same day.

I want this week - scratch that - this semester over already.

Coming home this weekend allowed me to get somewhat caught up though...I am now caught up on readings for Consumer Media Culture and Principles of Literary Study. I still need to get caught up for Archaeology, but I'm not because I'm trying to study for chem. And I really need to work on that final draft and get ahead on the readings for CMC because I'm like 99% sure we're having a quiz this week.

Stupid Computer

2010-02-01T18:02:00.002-05:00

Actually, it's more like stupid internet because my internet is being really slow right now. I have to click multiple times to get anything to happen which renders using Facebook nearly unbearable. This slowness might be due to the fact that we no longer have a bandwidth cap here at school, but it might also be because my internet is just sucky right now. I know it's not exactly something I should be complaining about, but I have to leave for work soon so I have no patience for internet screw ups.

My bf and I had a nice weekend. And then he got annoyed with me Sunday morning which did put a damper on an otherwise pretty much perfect visit. I think it was the first time we didn't fight for most of the visit actually. We got dim sum on Saturday which was nice because that's something I only get when I'm with him and then after that I also got to see one of my cousins who lives in Philly because we met her for bubble tea. Saturday was also nice because it snowed so we got to walk around the city as it was snowing for a while. And I also think that this was the first trip where the trains didn't completely suck on the way back to Jersey.

My little sister recently did this really nice post about me on her blog which I think is adorable! So I just wanted to do a little shout out to her over at Dreams and Wild Things.

**And what was I saying about my stupid internet? Just as I was almost done with this post Internet Explorer felt the need to restart. Thank goodness for autosave!**

Pink Elephants and Philadelphia

2010-01-30T19:58:00.002-05:00

So on Friday my chem professor told my class this "joke" (but not in these exact words):
"You know two things; anyone can catch blue elephants and pink elephants like blueberry muffins. Even though anyone can catch a blue elephant you want to catch a pink one. To do this you go to the part of Africa where the pink elephants live and set up camp. Then on the first day you bake a batch of blueberry muffins and put them on a tray outside your house so a pink elephant will come and eat them, which they do. So on the second day you bake 11 blueberry muffins and put them on a tray and the pink elephant comes and eats them. And then each day you keep baking one less muffin until all that's outside is an empty tray. On this day the pink elephant still comes and since it expects blueberry muffins it gets mad and holds its breath until it turns blue. And anyone can catch a blue elephant."

And then he told us that that's how we have to approach chemistry, you take an impossible problem and turn it into something you can solve. Somehow, I didn't come away from the lecture understanding chemistry any better but I did come away from class with a new appreciation for the prof because hearing "jokes" from him is pretty cool even if they don't help at all.

Right now I'm in Philly visiting my boyfriend for the first time this semester. :) So far we've had a really good visit and it even snowed for a bit today! I also got to see one of my older cousins because she lives in Philly right now too.

Career Services

2010-01-28T00:02:00.003-05:00

So today I had an appointment with a counselor Career Services because I have no idea what to do and was hoping to get some feedback and maybe an inkling of what I'd like to do, but the guy was not helpful at all. I mean, I guess maybe the things he said would have been helpful if they were things that had never been said to me before, but yeah, not very helpful.

I'm also no longer even a little excited for any of my classes and can't wait for the semester to be over. Hopefully as the weeks progress I'll either just get used to the classes or more interested in them.

I also can't wait for work to be over (my last day is the 7th of February). It's going to be nice to have that extra time for readings and studying and stuff. I just really hope all the paperwork went through okay.

Sleepy

2010-01-27T00:32:00.002-05:00

I was so very very tired today that I almost fell asleep in 3/3 of my classes. Even the one that I liked. I managed to stay wide awake during work though because I had a mug of really shitty coffee during dinner. I think what happened was that I got even more behind on sleep over the weekend and on Sunday night so waking up this morning for my earliest class was hard, and then instead of taking a nap between that class and the other two (since I had like 4 hours) I went and got an allergy shot and then went for another hour long run which did not make me any less tired.

And now I'm just procrastinating because I was out from 2:30-11:30 for class and work and stuff and hadn't gotten a chance to go on a computer until 11:30 which is not helping me break the cycle of sleepyness because I still have lots of work to do...

Spring 2010

2010-01-21T23:28:00.003-05:00

Does it make me UnAmerican ro have never seen an episode of The Jersey Shore? According to one of my friends it does. But I don't have a tv at school so I don't really know where I'm supposed to be watching these shows.

The semester has been good and busy so far. Classes started on Tuesday and I already have so much reading to do. I'm not taking any calculus this semester, but I'm taking chem II which is going to be hard since it's completely new material (I pretty much got by in chem I by remembering most of what I learned in high school). I really need to do well this semester so I'm hoping that I can do well even though 3/5 courses are pretty much reading intensive and 1/5 is a science course that's known for its difficulty.

So far the gym has been really crowded (probably due to stupid people with New Year's resolutions that they won't actually keep). It just really pisses me off because I'm pretty sure that if I go in a month a lot of those people won't even be there anymore which means that right now they're just getting in my way and wasting my time. Not that other people don't have a right to go to the gym, it's just that it's really annoying to show up and see every machine occupied. And yes, you can reserve machines for 1/2 hour increments, but that require knowing exactly when you can get there each day. And I never know. So today I gave up on the gym and went for an hour long run instead. The only thing about running is that I'd prefer to go in the evenings or nights but can't because I'd be running by areas where people have gotten shot or raped in the past. Running is also a lot harder on your joints than the machines which is okay right now because I just got new shoes and still have orthotics, but it won't be great when the shoes get broken in and stop being as supportive.

Siblings

2010-01-15T00:11:00.003-05:00

So my little sister started a blog around the same time that I did last year. She blogged off and on until about July and then I guess forgot about it until this month. She updated a couple of times in the past week and I guess she looked at my blog too because she was like "You have followers..." So I was trying to explain to her how it works and offered to try to help her get followers and she said that she's rather get them naturally which I found kind of amusing.

My mom's birthday was this past week and for her birthday I almost caused a house fire. I thought it would be funny to put trick candles on her cake instead of real ones so my siblings and I put 52 trick candles on a 7 inch cake. Needless to say chaos ensued and the smoke alarms went off and the white tablecloth was almost ruined. In retrospect it probably would have been a better idea to put one trick candle and 51 real ones, that way the 52nd good luck candle would have been a fake and we could have teased my mom about not being able to blow them all out, but at the time 52 trick candles seemed like a good idea for some reason. Probably because I was just really excited about the prospect of trick candles. My dad videotaped the whole thing though so I'm sure it'll be amusing to watch in the future!

So Far...

2010-01-07T00:02:00.002-05:00

So far at the externship the other girl and I have done mostly office stuff like laminating and cutting out letters with this machine, making hundreds of copies and organizing said copies, and taping stuff to bulletin boards. It's not bad at all though. I do end up with a headache though by the end of the day which kind of sucks because then I get home and don't really feel like doing anything, but I think it's still worth it. I like being in an environment that has kids present even if I don't really get to interact with them. Yesterday I did get to spend time in one of the classrooms though and during kitchen playtime this one little boy made me food and then after I "ate" it he brought me more which was adorable. Tomorrow we get to watch the director give a tour to a prospective parent I think so that should be interesting.

Yesterday I went to the mall with two of my best friends, Sonia and Marissa, and while Marissa was at Victoria's Secret Sonia and I went to the pet store and played with the puppies. I totally fell in love with this 3 month old cocker spaniel that I christened Edward after his sharp puppy teeth. I absolutely adore all spaniels (including my now 4 year old Brittany Spaniel), but I have always had a soft spot for cockers. And this little guy almost made me cry because he looked so cute and playful all cooped up in his cage. He had light cream and white fur and the most adorable floppy ears ever. His ears were a little dirty though (which happens with spaniels), which made me want to get him even more because I felt like he needed my care. :( Unfortunately I do not have nearly enough money for a pet, much less a dog, and since I live in a dorm there are rules prohibiting pets anyway. My dad also can't walk anymore dogs in the morning and since I'm not around there aren't any other people to really help him with a third dog so no more puppies right now. :(

Externship

2010-01-04T23:30:00.001-05:00

Today was the first day of my externship and so far so good! The other extern and the lady we are following for the week are both very nice so so far I'm happy with it all! I do have to get up kind of earlyish though, so I'm not going to post any details tonight but I probably will later on.

A New Year

2010-01-03T12:52:00.003-05:00

I have now officially had this blog for over a year. I don't really have anything special to say, but yeah. I got the Sims 3 AND the Sims 2 University Life Expansion Pack over break so I've been pretty addicted to those games and haven't checked anyone's blogs or blogged for a while...I also couldn't really think of anything to blog about...I do intend to read and comment all the posts that I missed though.

Recently I found that I have a great appreciation for the masterful way that Jane Austen wrote. I bought her novel Emma back when I was in middle school but could never really get into it. I picked it up again this break and I really like it now. Emma Woodhouse is kind of a self-assured brat though.

My boyfriend got me a blue Snuggie for Christmas which has spawned some amusing comments from my family as my dad was referring to it as a snugglie and my brother now calls the dogs "organic snuggies." He also got me a year's membership to the International Wizard of Oz Club so I'm really excited to get the info from that in the mail.

Last night I watched "Julie and Julia" and now I really wish my blog had some kind of purpose. I don't really think I'd have time though since school can be really busy, but I think it'd be nice.

I also start my externship at a local private school/daycare tomorrow which I am excited and nervous about. It's just for the week so then I'll have another week to chillax before the new semester.

Move-in day for the spring is 1/17 and an hour after move-in begins I have to be at work for training which I'm kind of bummed about. Over break I did pick up a job application for a Barnes and Noble run bookstore on campus though so I might try to work there instead (it would be on my campus and a safe walk from my dorm), but I haven't decided yet.

Happy 2010!

All I Want for Christmas is to get A's on my Finals!

2009-12-14T03:38:00.003-05:00

I went home for a bit over the weekend and totally meant to study and never managed too...I got too distracted playing Christmas carols on the piano (which is a lot more fun). I really can't wait to be done with this week because all I want to do is be home and playing with my puppies!

I wish there were more episodes of Glee to look forward to, but that's all done until April. The fall finale didn't disappoint, but I hope the writers focuse a little more on the plot for the second half of the season and work out some of the more impractical things and strengthen some of the other characters since the show's not going to last if it's only the music pulling it along.

After finals are over and I go home I want to:
-visit some of my old teachers with my bff who's in Atlanta right now
-catch up on the show Greek (I still haven't finished watching the first season)
-post Christmas song music videos on people's facebook walls :-P
-sleep
-play with my puppies
-run and increase the amounts of non-cardio exercises that I do.

Women's Leadership

2009-12-09T03:08:00.002-05:00

Now that I have less than 48 hours to write 6-8 pages and find 5-6 scholarly sources for my Women's Leadership final paper I have thought of a direction to take it in. And of course it's also about 3:00 am right now. I know I'll be able to get it done, but I'm not looking forward to writing this thing at all...The only good part about the paper is that it's kind of based off of an interview that we had to do and I interviewed a woman that I know back home who's heavily involved in Girl Scouts.

One of my friends who decided to completely cut herself off from every one of her friends early in the summer has finally resurfaced on facebook (under a different name though). It's a rellief to hear from her again but I wish I could see her and talk to her in person but her life is so completely different now since she's pretty much 100% on her own and has no help whatsoever from her family. I mentioned visiting her over winter break and she seemed receptive to the idea so I guess I'll start from there...I don't have any hard feelings towards her or expect (or think there's even a need for) an apology or anything but there are still things that I just don't understand...

gLee

2009-11-29T02:12:00.002-05:00

Is it just me or was the last episode of Glee kind of weak? Now don't get me wrong, I really like Glee, I like the musical aspect and I think that it's kind of cute, but I think they were relying too heavily on the music to carry the last episode "Hairography." Scenes like the one with the students from the deaf school were nice, but in my opinion seemed almost out of place and random. I didn't really think that those scenes did anything for the plot or really made any sense in the context of everything else going on in the other episodes. I also just didn't see much of a plot in the last episode...I think for the show to be stronger overall the writers need to focus a little more on character development and plot and not just rely on the music to carry the show and captivate the audience. Aside from that, I still really like the show and can't wait to see the last episodes in the season (even if that seems kind of hypocritical...)!

I really don't want break to end. :( I want to stay home and rest longer because I feel like I still haven't caught up on sleep from September. I also really wish that I didn't have to work, but I feel like I need the money because I like being able to buy things...And not have to ask my parents for money...

Two Thanksgivings

2009-11-28T01:21:00.002-05:00

This year, I got to have two yummy Thanksgivings. The first one was on the real day and involved going with my boyfriend to one of his family's family friend's houses and the second one involved staying at my house and getting to see my maternal grandmother and most of my cousins. Both days were nice, but now I feel like I kind of lost a day since both days were pretty much devoted to the holiday. All I can think about is how much work I have to do.

So far I've managed to do some chemistry studying and to interview this woman in my town and transcribe the five page typed interview. I still have calculus homework, a lot more chem studying and a rough draft to edit though...It may not really seem like much, but papers always take me hours upon hours to edit and the chem studying is for a midterm next Wednesday. And plus tomorrow I have lots of plans to see people that I haven't seen in months...I know I probably should just say no, but when you haven't seen one good friend in months (literally, months) and it's the other friend's birthday celebration, it's hard to say no...For multiple reasons...So in seven hours my friend Irena will be picking me up to go to some flea market in PA for a little while (it's not like I would be up at 8:30 otherwise...I can never manage to wake up early to study) and then I have this birthday lunch/dinner thing to go to so hopefully that won't be too long...And not to mention that I brought home about two loads of laundry that needs done...

An Ode to Webreg

2009-11-19T01:25:00.003-05:00

Oh webreg, why must thee suck so horribly? And why must thee servers be so slow to the point where it took nearly 30 minutes to process my request?

Well, I still got 5 out of 6 of the classes that I wanted. And by wanted I mean used as my back up for when pretty much everything I wanted was full. Even with my back up plan I still got pretty much everything I wanted. And what I didn't get I never really wanted anyway...I'm not going to need chem 2 and chem lab as an english major...But I was going to take it anyway in the event that I decided to go ahead with the bio major so I wouldn't be like a billion years behind in science courses. But yeah, my schedule is okay so far. I got closed out of chem but since it's a lecture class I may be able to get a special permission number for it anyway so there's still hope. So right now I'm registered for 14 credits for next semester which is one less than I had this semester and when I told my dad he was like "that's all you're taking?" What a loser. And he also tried finding a way to make the scheduling thing my fault and he didn't seem to really quite understand why I couldn't register until the last day when it's based on credits and I have none. Oh well.

I don't have any evening classes next semester which is good(for work and study purposes I like to have my evenings free.) My roommate was trying to get me to take an 8:10 am psych class with her, but I refused since I have trouble getting up for my 11:00 am class this semester. I did sign up for psych though, but the 11:00 class as opposed to the 8:10 one. I hope I actually like my classes next semester...

Scheduling is a Pain in the A$$

2009-11-15T14:51:00.003-05:00

Although getting a sheet with only a few classes to choose from was annoying, scheduling was so much easier in the spring. At APA Day they gave us a sheet, we checked off the classes we wanted, and they made the schedules for us. To register for classes this semester I have to use WebReg and it's very confusing. The actual process of plugging in the classes you want is simple so it's mostly a matter of getting the section you want. And making that section work in your schedule. WebReg doesn't tell you if the classes' times conflict so it's up to you to have a schedule that works and a back up plan in case all the sections you want are filled.

Right now I have a working schedule (that took like 3-4 hours to make) that gives me all my evenings (which is important to me especially if I keep the job I have now because it's only during the evening/night), but gives me 3 classes on Friday and is very precise. If any of the sections close I'm pretty much screwed. Except for general chemistry 2 and principles of lit study because those two classes each have 2 sections that meet at the same time so in the event that one closes hopefully the other will remain open. And since registration is based on credits there is a chance that I won't get all of my classes/sections because I get to register on what I think is the last day since I'm a freshman and will only have 15 credits.

My new schedule gives me 18 credits for next semester which I think will be okay because there won't be any calculus. And if I miraculously get my schedule the way it is my earliest class is 9:15 (which is earlier than I wanted but the only way that archaeology would fit in since intro to cultural anthropology wouldn't) and my latest class ends at 5:15. All my evenings will be open which leaves lots of time for clubs and make up shifts and studying and going to the gym. :)

The classes I'm hoping to take are:
-intro to psychology
-principles of lit study
-intro to experimentation (1 credit 3 hour chem lab :( )
-general chem 162
-research in the disciplines topic: college (basically expository writing II but cooler sounding)
-intro to archaeology

And then I might sign up for another freshman 1 credit seminar, but I'm not sure about that yet because there is no way that I'm playing around with this schedule anymore right now and plus I have to see if I even like any of the seminars being offered.

In my opinion, the best part of the schedule is no calculus. Since I've decided I want to be an english major as opposed to a biology major I no longer need to take calc II which makes me very happy. I won't need to take chem lab either, but since I could still end up changing my mind back I wanted to take chem lab and chem II to ensure that I wouldn't be behind in the sciences if I chose to declare a bio major next year.

I guess I'm kind of excited for my schedule. I really wanted to take intro to cultural anthropology another study topic for the writing course but it wouldn't work out with my other classes. Everything that I have right now fits together pretty nicely so I'm really hoping the sections will remain open...

SILVER Slippers and a Yellow Brick Road

2009-11-13T00:14:00.003-05:00

That's right. Silver slippers. Not ruby. The color of the slippers was changed for the movie The Wizard of Oz, which I find interesting. And yes, I am kind of completely and totally fascinated with the land of Oz and everything that comes with it. And there's more than just the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the corresponding movie, "The Wizard of Oz". L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books in Oz and since then many other writers have continued to write about the land of Oz and to my knowledge stay true to many of the characters introduced in Baum's book and stay true to the land of Oz itself.

I've never actually read Baum's original Oz book. I did find it for free online through my school's libraries though so I intend to read it over winter break or as soon as I have the time. I did read Wicked by Gregory Maguire though and the sequel Son of a Witch. There's also a third Oz book that he wrote, A Lion Among Men that I'm reading now (mostly at the gym). It's Wicked that really got me into Oz so I guess I'm kind of going backwards through my fascination by starting with spin off series and working my way back to the original author and books.

I also find the ways that the books can be interpreted very interesting. The original book can be taken as merely a story to please children and it can also be seen as a political commentary. My sophomore year history teacher actually told us a little about the book and about the silver slippers. He told us that the book in a way was a commentary on the gold standard the country was on for a while and how the Emerald City symbolized the green paper money that actually had no real value except what it was said to be. In line with this the yellow brick road was supposed to be the gold and the silver shoes symbolize something about the silver standard as well.

I actually found this whole wikipedia dedicated entirely to Oz today and it makes me really happy. It's not just an article, it's a compilation of everything about Oz, the books, the characters, the various authors, and stuff about the movies. The link is: Oz and I encourage everyone who stumbles upon this post to check it out because it's awesome! :-D

Maybe This Time

2009-11-11T23:48:00.002-05:00

I'm getting addicted to "Maybe This Time" (the Glee version). And now I really want to see Cabaret. The movie version. I'm not just curious to see it because of Glee though, I just like musicals. Life would be better/more fun if I could sing...

So far everything's ok with my new roommate. I feel bad though because she goes to bed (no joke) four hours before me pretty much every night...But I can't wake up so if I say I'll just sleep early and wake up early to finish stuff it won't happen. I mean, if I have something really important like a plane to catch or something I wake up but if I want to do work I can't. I don't get it...

Yeah...It's Pretty Bad...

2009-11-06T11:15:00.003-05:00

So I got a roommate. And she's really nice so I don't mind at all but now it's really clear that I need better time management skills. She was asleep at least 3 hours earlier than me last night. I don't want to be one of those bad roommates who wakes the other person up all night so I need to figure out a better system for getting things done. I mean, I really didn't need to go to bed at 4 last night, but because I've been busy with essays and stuff this whole week I was trying to get externship stuff done.

Today is the last day we can interview for externships for this school year. We have to participate in one at some point throughout college so I have 3 more years but I was really hoping to get one done this year. Right now I have the application done and half of my personal statement. Now to just simply finish my personal statement, proofread it, make a resume, proofread it, look presentable and interview before 1:25 so I can still make it to chem on time. Chemistry lecture is on my list of priorities today (shocker) because I skipped it on Wednesday to try to finish this other paper that I ended up finishing when it was light out again. Later I need to finish all of that stuff and do a shit ton of laundry. And at some point over this weekend I need to figure out my life.

Disappointment

2009-11-04T00:44:00.003-05:00

The Glee version of "Defying Gravity" was a bit of a disappointment. They sounded good and everything but their version just lacked...something. When I heard a short clip of the song I was really excited for it but the full version let me down some. :(

So Busy.

2009-10-21T16:09:00.004-04:00

When I first got my schedule I thought that I had sooo much free time (no classes until 4 on Tuesdays? Only one class on Wednesdays? Pssh that leaves like hours and hours of time to do random shit!) but I really don't. And I feel like I waste so much time sleeping...but when I don't sleep I fall asleep during class and I refuse to get addicted to coffee and energy drinks...And soon I get to think about next semester's classes! Yay! Not really. I don't know how to work the registration website (I've heard it's super complicated and they've already had multiple info sessions about it) and I have no idea what I should be taking. I wish I was doing better in my classes but I'm not really sure what to do about it in a lot of cases because I always have class or work during tutoring sessions for the subjects I could use help in.

On the bright side, I skipped chemistry lecture to donate blood today! Skipping chemistry is not nearly as bad as it sounds because the professor doesn't take attendance (it's a lecture hall of 300 people) and he posts all the notes online. So I donated blood and then went to this Science and Health Fair that was on another floor of the same building as the blood drive. I got a pin with DNA on it and some information about Public Health related internships. I definitely want to look more into the internships because they had some that had to do with health education and maternal and child health which would be topics of interest for me.

Work

2009-10-19T12:27:00.002-04:00

Highlights and Lowlights from Work(basically just phone calls that stand out in my mind):

-Some guy told me that he was going to tell his grandkids (who are currently like 3 and 4) to be telemarketers someday so that they can call all the people who've called him over the years.

-I spent like 20 minutes listening to this guy rant about the importance of health (stay away from soda and hamburgers kiddies!) and about the state of the economy and the world and just things like that. It was a very repetitive, long phone call. I didn't mind so much but the supervisor kept walking by saying just confirm the gift and hang up. That part was a little annoying.

-"You're from Rutgers and you're not watching the Phillies game? I'll give $40 again this year. You should be in a bar right now watching the Phillies game, that's where you should be."

-Something like: "Look I know you're going to say you're calling from Cook but I know it's not Cook, McCormick changed the name to SEBS. I don't have a beef with you, I know you're just a college student trying to earn some money, but I'M NOT GIVING A PENNY UNTIL MCCORMICK CHANGES THE NAME BACK TO COOK. I GRADUATED FROM COOK, NOT SEBS."

-One time I went through half a phone call with this guy being a jackass and saying things like "I can't understand you" and "Speak english." I wanted to be like look you fucking dickhead, I'm white and all I can speak is english. Go burn in hell. But I didn't say that. I'm not actually sure if I'd get fired for saying it or not, but I would never do anything like that. It was super tempting though. I know I talk fast, but every other single person understood me. And that includes foreigners with heavy accents and old people.

:(

2009-10-11T17:54:00.002-04:00

I'm back at school now (hence the frowny face title). I mean, I like it, I'm just kind of lonely and everything's still overwhelming and it was nice being able to visit home. There's just something nice about being home during the fall I guess. I also got to see my puppies and go shopping with my sister. I got two new pairs of jeans from Old Navy and they're a size smaller than the pants I bought just before going to school which I was very happy about. So now I have two pairs that are definitely my size, three that are one size up from that but still fit very well, and a bunch of pairs a size up from those that need to be gradually phased out of my wardrobe. It sucks that jeans are so expensive. If they hadn't been like $29.50 or whatever I definitely would have bought more. I'm also hoping to go done one or two more sizes. One definitely. I'm pretty sure that one more pant size down would be an ideal size for me (of course I'd love to be two sizes down just to be able to say I'm that size, but I don't know if it's realistic...but then again I never thought I'd be able to get this far so we'll see :) ). It's nice to be relatively happy with how I look. But then there are always tiny people everywhere and I've never been tiny...no one in my family is really tiny either...some of my cousins, yes, but in my immediate family not really. My younger sister is a lot smaller than me but she's not one of those really tiny people. And our parents aren't tiny either, my dad's like 6 foot 5 and pretty stocky.

In other news, REGINA SPEKTOR WAS ON SNL AND SHE SANG "EET"!!!!!! I love that song! I really want to get her new album...So far I've only heard a couple of songs off of it but I really like them. I also still want her earlier albums like "11:11." I have her last two (before this latest one), but her earlier stuff and her stuff now is also amazing so I want them all! Probably won't happen, but we'll see about that too!

Other random stuff:
I got more plants for my room! My dad bought me some plants that don't require much light which is nice because I like having living things in my room! So now I have three plants: a cactus in a pretty blue pot, some kind of evergreen in a basic pot, and some kind of larger, leafy thing in a pretty earthy pot. Just knowing I have the plants make me a little happier. :)

I have work tonight. :( It's not so bad, I mean the time goes by quickly and everything but I want to just finish homework and get some sleep tonight (I got up for 8:45 church this morning when I'm used to waking up at ten). Work usually goes by pretty quickly though but then the bus takes forever to come when I'm trying to get back since they run less on weekends and even less on weekend nights.

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

2009-10-10T23:25:00.003-04:00

Well, I had no intention of going home this weekend (to stay overnight) or any other weekend for that matter until Thanksgiving, but that didn't happen. So I'm home right now and it's actually nice :). I got to see my little brother's soccer game, be the model for my little sister's photography project, go shopping with the little sis too, and eat homecooked food! And I also get to see my pets and not feel lonely. But I refuse to be lonely at school. It's not like I don't have friends, I just happen to have class or work during the ideal time for dinner and during any clubs that I wanted to join. This will not prevent me from having a social life on campus; one way or another I will meet more people and actually get together with them on a regular basis.

11:03

2009-10-07T22:31:00.002-04:00

And then in a continuation of a crappy 2 weeks I woke up at 11:03 for a 10:55 class. I should be able to make it on time to these things but I can't. It's just become so hard to get up in the morning...it's so frustrating. And I'd really like to get on a schedule where I wake up early and go to the gym then instead of trying to squeeze it in later in the day, but I am NOT waking up at 7 if I'm going to bed at 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 in the morning. Not if I can sleep in until 10:00/10:15.

The crappy weeks may even have spilled over to work as well. I was calling lapsed donors 2-5yrs today instead of donors 2yr. The difference is that the people who have donated consecutively for a couple of years are a lot more likely to give again than someone who gave some random gift in 2005 but not since then. And my supervisor told me at the beginning at the night that I should shoot for 3-4 gifts an hour with an average gift of $200. I got five gifts total. And 7 refusals. It's not that I really get that discouraged by refusals, I mean, I AM a telemarketer and all it's just that they rank you based on your statistics at the end of your 3 shifts a week. The rankings are: hitting, average, below average, warning, and new. Since I'm no longer new I'm ranked with the other things now. So far I haven't gotten any warning weeks, but they said if you get two warnings in a row it's grounds for termination. I really do not want to be fired from a telemarketing position. I mean seriously. And it's not like you can really help it if people hang up the second you say who you're calling from...

Midterms

2009-10-07T01:53:00.003-04:00

All my midterms are over for now!!! Yay!!! I also brough a pretty little pink cactus back from home with me on Saturday so now I'm not the only living thing in the room!

I really wish my schedule was more conducive to being involved at college. As it is right now all I do is go to class and work. I'm not actively a part of any clubs or organizations. I am doing this 3 week volunteer thing on Fridays though, but it's short term. I generally either have work or class during the times when a lot of clubs are meeting. :(

Final Paper Due Today...

2009-10-05T22:43:00.002-04:00

...and so I was up until 5:30 trying to fix my draft. I went to see the instructor during her office hours last Monday and tried to keep in mind everything she talked of for an "A+" paper. Unfortunately, I'm getting the impression that they don't really want to give you an A on any papers or in the class unless you go to tutoring though (at least it's free). But regardless of my impressions I still took the time to make a barely 4 page paper with 5 body paragraphs into a 5 1/5 page paper with 3 body paragraphs and a completely new thesis and conclusion. I also reworked the body paragraphs to make them conform to the bull shit "quote sandwich" structure we're supposed to use (this structure calls for 4 pieces of "bread." Who in their right mind eats a sandwich with 4 pieces of bread???)

Things are looking up at work slightly though. We called donors tonight so I got 12 pledges which totaled somewhere in the realm of $650. The kid next me made about $5,000, but he's a veteran so he got better cards to call. It was still exciting to have the pledges almost outnumber the refusals for once. And it was also good for my Scarlet Society stats. Scarlet Society is this game where you get points (if you want) from a supervisor for every pledge that you get and whoever has the most at the end of the semester (or the top 3 highest) get to bid on prizes like game systems and fairly expensive electronic things or get a cash bonus. I'm hoping to somehow get a cash bonus. I doubt it'll happen though because I let people get off too easily on the phone, but I can certainly hope. Money is good. And speaking of money I got my first paycheck on Friday and it made me and my bank account very happy!

On a not-so-happy note, however, I have a calculus midterm tomorrow night. :( I'm thinking that I should be able to do okay though since I already had calc I in high school.

There's also a pledge event for a non-national sorority called Kappa Zeta Psi tomorrow night at 9:30. Because they're a non-national sorority they don't have to adhere to the same rules as a lot of the other sororities and it's really obvious on their flyers because they advertise drinking and partying. Most sororities also are done with informal fall recruitment by now.

Worst Week of College Yet

2009-10-03T15:34:00.003-04:00

This week was by far the worst week of college yet. I've been so tired because I'm still kind of sick (it's been like 2 weeks now) and haven't exactly been able to catch up on sleep for like 2 weeks because last week I was in Philly and had to get up at like 9 for breakfast/brunch plans. And then I had a final paper due for expository writing so I was until 5 editing the rough draft. And then was late to expos. And the I was late to calculus on Tuesday because I bought my friend dinner because she said she hadn't eaten yet that day. There was a chem midterm Wednesday night (9:40-11:00 pm) so I didn't really get much done that night...It was my first college midterm and my first chem test since junior year of high school so I didn't feel like doing much after it. Unfortunately, I had a lot of work due on Thursday so I was up pretty late. And then was 5-10 minutes late to expos. And like a couple minutes late to a seminar and 5-10 minutes late to calculus. All the lateness made me feel really bad because I try to be early to all of my classes...And even after being up late some of the nights I still had to finish homework the day it was due and in some cases during the class...

I also got even more behind on laundry. I have 3-4 loads of laundry to do today. It's kind of ridiculous. But laundry's not the only thing that suffered, I also had time to go to the gym once since last Friday. I finally went today but working out didn't make me feel any better this time (nor did the other time I managed to go this week). Generally going to the gym makes me feel better so it's kind of weird that I felt just as crappy after going both times.

And my reaction to everything has been to cry all week. I wake up and am late to class, I start crying. I go to chem and find out that I might have missed an assignmet, I start crying. I'm up really late and feel bad about it, I start crying. It's pretty bad.

Oh, and I also spilled hot chocolate on some random kid on the bus. And on his cell phone. And I spilled laundry detergent all over the washer when I finally managed to find some time to do some laundry earlier.

On a happier note I got to go home and eat dinner and get ice cream with my family today. It was nice seeing them since my week was all blah and everything. I also got to see my puppies which was nice because I miss them a lot sometimes since I can't just call them up on the phone or explain to them where I'm going.

Oink Oink

2009-09-27T23:16:00.002-04:00

My supervisor tonight noted how much trouble I was having trying to breathe properly and told me I should go get checked out for swine flu. No joke. I think my allergies are just really bad in my dorm for some reason because I don't feel sick at all, just congested.

I had really nice weekend other than the maybe sickness though. I spent most of the weekend in Philly visiting my boyfriend and it was very nice. I love being in a big city to begin with, I got to spend 100% of my time with my bf, I got to meet lots of people, I got to see a friend of mine from high school, and I got to see 3/5 of my cousins. My bf also took me out to lots of restaurants. On Friday I took the 5:30 train to Philly and my bf made me dinner (fettucine alfredo with chicken)and then after dinner I got to meet some new people as well as see some again, on Saturday we went to dimsum with some of his friends, got bubble tea and pastries, went to the DiBruno Brothers (a giant cheese store basically), went to a small mall, went to the Gallery and met up with my friend and some of her new friends, got Ethiopian food for dinner, and went to a party, and on Sunday we went out to brunch with 3 of my cousins and one of their cousins from the other side. All in all a very nice weekend. :)

A Lot of Livin' to Do...

2009-09-23T23:59:00.002-04:00

I think I've always viewed college as a fresh start. A chance to be someone that you actually want to be, someone you can be happy with. But that's not always easy to do and old habits die hard. I don't think I was ever happy with who I was in high school. I was never very popular for one thing, no I wasn't some kind of friendless super geek either, but I was never part of that "in" crowd and I frequently felt stupid. Not just intellectually stupid either, but stupid for being certain ways, for thinking certain things, for dressing a certain way, for looking a certain way etc. And I was always on the quieter side, always on the shyer side. I don't know if people actually thought I was shy or not because I felt like they always thought I was weird in some way. And because I felt this way I was never really happy with who I was and am not happy with the person I am now and I never really found my niche. Unfortunately, I don't know how to change anything now that I have the opportunity. I'm here with something like 50,000 other people who don't know me and yet I still feel the same way I always have. And this scares me. I mean, is it even possible to be happy with who you are? I never thought I'd be happy with my weight but I am for the most part. It took me 3 years and the gaining of 20 some pounds and then the loss of it all to appreciate where I had started from. So does that mean I can be happy with the rest of me too?

Still Hopeful/Waiting, College is NEVER Boring on the Weekends, and Rushing

2009-09-23T00:17:00.008-04:00

I received an email a couple of weeks ago regarding my paperwork for my Gold Award. It didn't say anything much, just that they had received my paperwork and would be reviewing it on the 21st and that they would contact me within a week about their decision. Well, the 21st was yesterday. Yesterday. And I still haven't heard anything!!!!! I know I should just be patient, I mean, I'm sure they're very busy with other stuff during this time of the year, but I really, really, really want to know. I spent my entire summer on this project. Every second that I didn't spend knitting I felt guilty about. And yes, I only knitted 8 blankets myself, but I spent over 120 hour on the project when the minimum is 65. And I had a limited about of time I was working with since I started kind of late and had to finish before I left for school. The lady at the hospital seemed really thankful for the blankets though, so even if I don't get the award I feel like I really did impact many people's lives. I do hope I get it though because I did work really hard and it would really be a great achievement.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

College really is never boring. Even on the weekdays there's always something do. Always. But the weekends are especially interesting because of all the parties and the number of people who are out and about, especially at night. This past weekend was particularly eventful because one of my best friends from high school, Marissa, came over and she wanted to go meet drunk people. Even though it took her forever to find my residence hall and to get ready we still got over to College Ave at a time when many, many lovely people were still out and about (between 2:30 and 3:00 am). We didn't even go to any parties, just walked between the two bus stops and met an interesting assortment of characters. And guys are not choosy at that time of night since it's near the end of all the parties and everyone's drunk so even though we were both wearing sweatshirts and jeans we still attracted a bunch of attention. Within 5 minutes we got asked where we were going and invited back to some apartment. I pretty much completely ignored that guy and so did Marissa. At the other bus stop we met a really funny drunk guy and his friend though. I pretty much stayed quiet most of the time we were near them but Marissa chatted a lot. The blonde one was obviously a lot more trashed than his friend and we got invited back to their suite too. Marissa told them her real name and I told them my name was Kayleigh and the dark haired guy kept telling his blonde friend our names wrong because he got confused really easily which was pretty amusing. The blonde guy also announced that he doesn't actually go to the school but just comes to find girls to hook up with and that he was really drunk so he needed to either get laid or get in a fight. Marissa told him to use his hand. He called her a bitch. I gave his friend a tissue later on and the guy started walking around with his head leaned back and the tissue balanced in his nose because he said it was scented. He was like "you must be really loaded, you have scented tissues!" I don't have scented tissues. I do keep gum in my purse though so I guess the gum scent may have rubbed off on the tissues (which I know sounds weird, but I swear it happens). At the first bus stop we also saw a guy climb on top of the bus stop structure. Like actually be on top of it. And then climb down using this tree next to it. And then fall and hit his head on the concrete when he tried climbing back up. We also met this kid named Michael who was really really friendly. And he was obviously just a really friendly drunk, he didn't even try hitting on either of us. I confused him when he asked what day it was because I told him it was technically Saturday but really Friday night. He was too drunk to follow and held his head and was like "huh? So what day is it? I'm so confused." So then I just told him it was Friday and he was like "I have to get back and sleep so I can get up and get drunk for the football game!" He was waiting for a bus back to Liv and after a while it appeared that particular bus had stopped running (it was 4 am) so Marissa (against my better judgment) basically offered to give him and two other guys a ride back. And then when we parked to let Michael out, her car broke down. It wouldn't start and was leaking gasoline all over the street. Naturally the other two guys split and we were like freaking out. We ended up calling AAA and 911. 911 because AAA said the car couldn't be towed until the fire department had cleared it since there was a fuel leakage. We had to wait outside of the car (in the cold) until her boyfriend came with his car, the RUPD came, an inspector came, and the tow truck came. I think we waited less than an hour for the tow truck though which wasn't too bad. So we got the car towed to her house (without waking up her dad), went out to breakfast, and got her boyfriend to drive me back to my dorm and take her back home. I went to bed around 7:40 and didn't wake up until 2:15. It was my first college all-nighter and it didn't even have anything to do with schoolwork. Go figure.

Saturday night wasn't quite as eventful, but it was just as enjoyable. My little sister came to spend the night with me. So I took her to 4/5 campuses and to the dining hall for dinner, and out to a party. We only stayed at the party for about 2 minutes though and neither of us had anything to drink. I just really wanted to show her what a party was like since we were raised in a bubble. No one I knew personally in high school partied and it always shocked me to find out that someone drank occasionally. To me, high school drinking and partying existed almost exclusively in books and movies and tv shows. I mean, I knew it happened, I just never saw it. I only ever caught bits and pieces of conversations about parties. So I just really wanted to show my sis one. Not to try to corrupt her or anything, but just to expose her to how a lot of people spend their weekends; to see how the other side lives. But yeah, we only stayed for 2 minutes and then got hot chocolate at Au Bon Pain and caught a bus back. And then I took her out to lunch on Saturday and she came with me to buy a Vera Bradley id holder and one last book for my seminar class.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Earlier tonight I attended a rush event with my friend Emily. It was for Alpha Chi Omega and it wasn't a bad experience. I was kind of nervous about going (but really, really curious), but it wasn't bad at all. It was kind of nice. The vp of recruitment, who greeted us, was really nice and all of the sisters seemed nice too. I mean, I know they kind of have to be at these events since the whole point is to generate interest in their sorority, but it made the event not too scary. The last person I spoke with wasn't as friendly, but I think she was just bored because she looked bored. Either that or she just really didn't like me. She also like kind of pushed on my back to get my to move to the door at the end. I was only hanging out because I was waiting for Emily though, not to inconvenience her. And yeah, the ending was really rushed (maybe that's why they call them rush events :-P), they had a raffle and then said they didn't have anything else for us and then everyone basically hurried out. So then Emily and I went and got bubble tea. :) After going I'm really curious to see if I could get a bid. I was never one of those popular kids in high school or someone who's exceptionally beautiful or always dressed super stylishly so I'm really curious to see if anything would come out of attending.

New Bloggity Blog

2009-09-18T23:44:00.002-04:00

New Blog! This new one's not just mine though, it's for a friend of mine and me to share and write our college stories on. It's new so there's not much there yet, but the url is www.soniaycarmen.blogspot.com.

My Life as a Telemarketer

2009-09-16T22:13:00.002-04:00

Actually, the job description never said "telemarketer" anywhere. But basically that's what I'll be doing 3 days a week for 3 hours a shift. The shifts are a predetermined number of hours and at a specific time so there's really not much control there. And I think as the semester progresses the shifts become 3 1/2 - 4 hours. Right now my days are Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. The only other day I could possibly work would be Friday since they're not open on Saturdays at the moment and I have late classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Today was actually supposed to be my first day being a telemarketer but I never made any phone calls. There were 3 of us starting today (most of the other newbies must have started yesterday or Monday) and even though we had a 6-7 hour job unpaid job training session on Sunday they gave us an hour long refresher. It wasn't too bad, but then this boss guy comes in and says that there aren't enough seats for us on account of half the computers being down so we could just go home and still get credit for the shift (but only paid for 1 hour). So instead of calling people to ask for "gifts" and "support" I got to get ice cream from Cold Stone and get back to my dorm early. :)

Now to get back to the ever-increasing pile of work sitting on my desk, dresser, and in my messenger bag...

Busy Busy Busy

2009-09-14T20:16:00.002-04:00

I still love college, but I'm really busy!!! And I just got a job (my first day is Wednesday) and the more I think about it the more complicated it seems to make everything...But that's ok because I'll figure it out somehow. And hopefully I'll be able to see everything in perspective better after I actually start!

I Love College

2009-08-31T20:24:00.002-04:00

I love college. It's the best place on earth. Still no roommate, which is ironically kind of lonely...Especially on the first day because everyone else had at least their roommate to hang with before they met other people. I'm enjoying it more now though. I still don't know many people here in WBC though so I've been spending most of my time in Katz. or with girls from Katz. Pretty much everyone I met at orientation is there.

Yesterday was crazy. It was our third night so I really wanted to go out to a party because a lot of other people were and I didn't really want to just stay holed up in my room all night long. So I went with Lauren to pick up my friend Em on Liv. and even though we left between 8:30 and 9 the buses were all ready packed. And because it was the weekend the buses weren't running as much. And since there's no bus directly from C/D to Liv. we had to catch the EE to College Ave first and then the L to Liv. And it seemed like we hit it pretty lucky at first, we got off the EE and there was an L there waiting so we hurried up and got on and even found seats only to have the bus driver tell us that the bus was closed for the night and that we all had to get off. So we actually ended up waiting quite a while for the next L bus. And luckily we met a girl on the bus who wanted the same stop as us because neither of us was very familiar with Liv., especailly in the dark. After meeting Em it was hard catching a bus back to College Ave too because there were probably at least a hundred people at the bus stop trying to get there. One of the A buses even passed up our stop because it was already too full from the other Liv. stops. Luckily we managed to push our way onto the next L bus that came. And by push, I mean push and shove. Literally. And we were basically standing illegally in front of the yellow standee line on the bus with a bunch of other people so we couldn't even hang onto anything and kept almost falling over everytime the bus stopped or made a turn. And the bus smelled like liquor because a lot of people had pretty obviously been pre-gaming it. And there was this drunk guy in front of me who kept falling asleep on everyone's shoulders. He was so out of it that the girls he was with convinced him that he needed to get off when the bus stopped at Busch. And more people kept trying to get on the bus at Busch too. Probably about as many as were waiting at Liv. The bus was so crowded that the bus driver called the RUPD to come and kick people off the bus. Unfortunately, we were some of the people kicked off because we were standing too far forward and there was no where to push back to. Stranded on an unfamiliar campus that I had only been on once, we asked the police officer if there was any way to walk back to College Ave because party or not we had to get there to at least catch a bus back to C/D. The guy told us about this bike path and this group of guys seemed to be going that way so we followed them at a distance for a while. We ended up losing the guys though because the bike path went through this dark area with ravines and woods on either side, and a broken blue light and branched off into two areas. Feeling unsafe and sort of lost we called the RUPD to ask for directions, but I think the guy on the phone thought we were drunk because he just told us to go back to the bus stop. We ended up taking a taxi and Em and Lauren didn't feel like partying any more so we had the taxi drop Em off at Liv. and because I didn't feel like just going back to the dorm I called everyone in my phonebook who was on campus and finally got a hold of my roommate from summer orientation, Vic, who had just caught a bus with Mandy and this other friend of hers. So I ended up paying $20 for a taxi back to C/D just to catch another bus back to College Ave. We ended up going to one party. It was in the basement of some random house so it smelled and all the lights were off except for some flashing lights or something and there weren't many people so we only stayed for a couple of minutes. We tried going to a second party, but couldn't get in for some reason (what party turns away freshmen girls, seriously) so we ended up going to Au Bon Pain and just catching a bus back to the dorms. I think I ended up getting in around 2 (the buses stop running around 2 so it's not like we could have stayed much longer anyway).

It was crazy, but it was fun. It was quite an experience at any rate. And now classes start tomorrow :(. I don't have any before 3:55 though :), but I have a job interview at 11:15 am and calculus until 9 pm :(. Hopefully all the classes go ok...I went exploring today to look for my classes and I'm really glad I did because I couldn't find my math classroom without two people giving me directions and two random guys taking me right to it. The guys were nice though, Tate and Eric I think their names were. Tate was friendlier than Eric though. Hopefully I'll be able to find everything okay tomorrow though!

One Day More

2009-08-27T15:10:00.003-04:00

I believe I have approximately 17 hours left at home. And still no roommate. Or at least no known roommate. And I got confusing emails from the school about recitations and labs and how labs start this week but you have to sign up for them separately and now I'm very confused. And I have no idea where my classes are, but I have until Tuesday to figure out which class is on which campus and which bus will take me where.

I finished my Blankets 4 Babies project yesterday. I went with my mom in the morning and we dropped off 81 blankets for the babies. We actually had to go into the NICU to drop off the blankets and to walk in we had to scrub our hands for 2 minutes with soap and sterile one-time use scrub brushes, put on yellow gown things, and put our belongings into plastic personal belongings bags. It felt so weird to be in there. We didn't actually go over to any of the babies because we stopped at the front desk but we were in the same room as all the preemies. I felt out of place and like I was intruding and was somewhere I shouldn't be. The lady who accepted the blankets us was very nice though and after we handed over the blankets my mom and I were reading all these nice stories posted outside on the wall. A bunch of people had made scrapbook pages talking about their child's stay at the NICU and how the child fares now. It was nice to see. And ever since then I've been working on the paperwork that I have to submit to council and haven't packed much at all.

Lots O' Stuffs

2009-08-24T17:18:00.002-04:00

I have a job interview! It's not until September 7th though and it's a phone interview, but I'm still excited. A job would be good. Money is money and money during college = good idea. Hopefully the annoyingly intense cough that I've had for a week and a half now will go away by then. And hopefully I'll have good cell reception from my dorm room.

Speaking of dorm rooms my family and i visited the dorm building after church yesterday. We didn't go inside or anything, but we saw the entrance. And how far away the entrance is from any parking lots which may make move-in a little harder. The entrance was pretty though, prettier than the entrance to the residence hall I stayed in during orientation.

Also speaking of dorm rooms I still don't have a roommate. Move-in is on Friday and I still have no clue if I have a roommate or who she is. I wouldn't mind not having one, but I would really like to know before I get there. It would not be fair to either of us to show up to find out that we have a roommate especially because everyone else has known theirs for weeks. And known that person's phone number and email address and had the opportunity to facebook friend them and even possibly really friend them. I just don't want some kind of Glinda-Elphaba situation.

Not speaking of dorm rooms I finally have all the blankets (I think) and now just need to take pictures, drop the blankets off at the hospital, and fill out a ton of paperwork. I was really hoping to drop the blankets off tomorrow, but I keep getting the answering machine of the Nurse Manager (who I was told I needed to speak to about dropping off the blankets). The longer I wait the more I worry that the lady's going to tell me that they don't actually accept those kinds of donations after all or something like that.

I also finally finished reading what I think may be the first non-school-assigned book since maybe Breaking Dawn. The book is called The Awakening and it's by Kate Chopin. In a nutshell it's about a woman named Edna Pontellier who goes through this spiritual awakening when she realizes she loves a man that she can't have because she's married and it's the 1800s. The ending is kind of weird. And by weird I guess I mean ambiguous because it's suppposed to be Edna drowning, but it's never actually stated that she drowns, only implied. If I hadn't read the sparknotes for the book a while back I don't know if I would've caught the whole drowning thing. Probably would have though because there's nothing else that could possibly happen when the ending is that abrupt. As soon as I finished the book (which was only 157 pages but took me weeks to read) I immediately started one called Plain Truth by Jodi Piccoult. I already have over a hundred pages read in that one so I guess my reading speed probably just had more to do with my lack of interest in what was happening in the other book.

I Want Money

2009-08-19T14:46:00.002-04:00

So I just applied for what's basically a telemarketing job. Supposedly the starting pay is $10.50 an hour though. Since I made $6.50 an hour after taxes at my last job it seems like a lot of money. Plus the website said you only have to work 3 shifts a week. The shifts are 3 1/2 to 4 hours each and are all like 6-10 pm.

I now have 78 blankets for my project. I'm so happy that the final number surpasses my goal because I feel like it'll show that the project was successful to council. Now I just need to organize my paperwork and take more pictures and call the hospital to schedule a drop-off date.

Also, on our morning walk my mom, sister, and I came across a whole bunch of paintball casings on and near this one path we like to take. At first we were all kind of confused because there were just all these random things lying around but then my sister recognized them as paintballs so then we had fun looking around for filled ones and stepping on them.

School Supplies :)

2009-08-14T00:00:00.002-04:00

I went school supply shopping today and you know what the first thing I got was? Laundry detergent. It was weird to think of that as a school supply, but I guess that's just one of the mant differences between high school and college. I also bought cheap-o pens, a stapler, paper clips, and a hole punch along with a couple of notebooks and a set of sharpies. I feel like I should just buy all of Office Depot or Staples or something because it's really hard to think of things I'll need since I've always been able to find just about everything in my house. Since I already have all of my sheets and blankets and stuff I think the next two stops are going to be Bed Bath and Beyond for an allergen controlling pillow case thing and Best Buy for a printer (can't guarantee that I'll always have those expos papers written in time to print them out at the computer labs).

I also still don't have a roommate. I'm undecided as to how I feel about this because it would be nice to have my own room, but I don't know anyone living in the same residence hall as me and it might be harder to meet people. If they are going to assign me a roommate though, I'd like to know soon and not on move-in day.

And while no news of a roommate came today, what did come was my new id card. My id pic looks really funny though because it looks like they had to squash my face to get it to fit in the little picture box because in real life my face does not have the same shape as a basketball. And neither does my friends. I was over at my friend's house earlier and she showed me her id pic and it was just as squashed looking as mine so I guess that's just how they do them. I wish we could have seen the picture ahead of time though and that I would have known we were even taking pictures during placement tests because this id is going to last for the next four years...

And I Actually Had Fun

2009-08-10T21:59:00.002-04:00

I actually had fun meeting my boyfriend's friends over the weekend. And the party was really nice. The girl's grandparents had the party catered at their beach house and all of the food was really good. And I didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable and alone as I thought. Apparently every time I walked away for a moment my bf's friends asked him if I was scared of them though. I have to admit that I do get intimidated by people sometimes, but mostly I'm quiet when I meet people because I get kind of shy in those kinds of situations.

We left from my house between 1:30 and 2:00 and it was about a two hour drive to VC. When we got there we brought all of our bags and stuff in (the beach house had 3 floors and 6 bedrooms) and visited with people for a couple of minutes before going to the beach since there was some time before dinner. The beach was really nice. The sand was perfect; it wasn't pebbly or smelly or anything like that. And the waves were really nice and the water was pretty much the perfect temperature for ocean water. After spending about an hour on the beach we came back to the house and got ready and then we all walked over to her grandparent's beach house a block or two away for the catered dinner and cake and everything. And then when it got to be late we all went back to her family's beach house to hang out and play Apples to Apples and Never Have I Ever. It was interesting. And I believe we all went to bed around 3 with plans of going to the beach the next day.

It was pouring when we woke up so it was very obviously not a beach day unfortunately. But it did stop raining around noon so we went to Ocean City instead because it has a nice boardwalk and was really close to where we were. We went on the log flume there and shared an order of friend oreos and a large Polish water ice. And just kind of walked around and looked around in some shops. My bf bought me this pretty blue and silver ring that has all these little rhinestone (or something like that) flowers on it. After spending a couple of hours there we went back to VC and got subs and left for home home. All in all it was a nice weekend. It was nice to finally be able to meet some people that my bf hangs out with at school.

And on a totally random note, now that I'm all caught up with Secret Life (thanks to Hulu and YouTube) I've started watching Degrassi (I can't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post or not). I like having something to watch when I knit and so Degrassi it is. Speaking of Secret Life though I hope my sister remembered to tape tonight's episode...

And on yet another random note, I still have no roommate. I honestly wouldn't mind having a single (I share my room now so some space would be nice :) ) but I don't want to meet my roommate and learn who she is for the first time on move-in day...

Blankets and Stuff

2009-08-06T21:44:00.002-04:00

Right now I think I have 54 blankets because I picked two more up today. I also have another one started and my boyfriend has been making one for me and some other people have been too so I'm not really sure how many I'll have overall. The one I'm working on now is white and hopefully there's enough yarn in the skein to finish it. I do have pink yarn that's about the same weight if I need to add more though.

I still don't have a roommate. I checked the website a couple of times today and each time it only gave the residence hall and the room number. No roommate. I would love to have my own room, but I don't think it's going to happen because the school's very large and I think some students even had to be put up in hotels at one point (meaning I don't think they'll leave a double room as a single when it's supposed to be a double).

I still don't really feel like doing anything. I bought The Awakening by Kate Chopin at Barnes and Noble last week because it's only like 157 pages but I still haven't been able to get through it and haven't felt like reading much. I used to read nonstop when I was younger but ever since high school started I haven't read nearly as much. I think the last book I began and finished for pleasure was Breaking Dawn. And that was released a year ago. I may have read one after that but I really can't think of anything. Part of it this summer is the whole knitting project because every time I'm not knitting I feel like I should be so it's hard to do anything else with a clear conscience.

I am doing something tomorrow though. I'm going down the shore with my boyfriend, friend, and her boyfriend for dinner and the boardwalk and stuff so that should be fun. And then Saturday I'm going to my boyfriend's friend's 21st birthday party at her grandparent's beach house. I haven't met her or anyone else who's going to be there yet so I feel like it's probably going to be really awkward. My boyfriend really wants me to go and meet the girl and stuff though so I'm going. Hopefully that'll be fun. I'm not entirely convinced because I always get really shy when I'm meeting people for the first time and so every meeting feels really awkward and kind of uncomfortable.

Knitting and Stuff

2009-08-06T00:04:00.003-04:00

I just finished my sixth baby blanket. This one is a pretty shade of mint green and is by far the softest yarn I've worked with so far the whole project. The yarn is also kind of thin so the blanket's kind of a loose knit because of the needles I used, but I think it's okay. I need to find a new show to watch now that I'm all caught up with Secret Life though because it's a lot easier to knit when I have something fun to watch/listen to at the same time. Something other than Avatar or Johnny Test or My Life as a Teenage Robot.

My week thus far:
Sunday - I went for a bike ride through the woods by Farrington Lake with my dad when there was a storm quickly approaching instead of going to church. It was fun. And then I hung out with my boyfriend and we went to Walgreens for the RedBox and rented He's Just Not That Into You and then to Great Wall for pastries. And then we just hung out and watched the movie and knitted together and stuff. And we went to Seafood Empire for dinner. It was nice. He's Just Not That Into You was a cute movie. I liked the way all the different characters were linked.

Monday - Monday was my little brother's 13th birthday. He got a bunch of legos from all of us and a moose antler from my dad's mom and sister. An actual moose antler. It was an interesting and unexpected present. I had to drive to get him a variety box from KFC for lunch because that's what he wanted and we never go to KFC so I think I took about 5 times as long at the drive through speaker thing because I had no idea what they had there. After lunch we ended up going bike riding along the canal at my brother's request and that was pretty cool especially because the canal was shaded for the most part. Then we went to Fuji (a seafood/sushi buffet) for dinner when my dad came home because that's what the boy wanted. I think he had a nice birthday, he seemed happy with everything.

Tuesday - Yesterday my mom made us go for our annual "family" picture. It's not really a family picture because it's just of my sister, brother, and me, but that's how my mom wants it. We even get new outfits that we aren't allowed to touch before picture day and new color schemes every year. It's been our routine since my brother was little. After we finally got out of the picture place we had to go pay my first semester tuition bill for college. My mom was dreading having to go over there, but aside from the money aspect it was pretty painless. Then we went to Taco Bell and then I went to my bff's house and we watched Thelma and Louise and ate paneer and this really good Indian bread that I can't spell the name of. She had work at 7 so when she had to go I went over to Community Park to meet my mom and sister at this National Night Out thing. There was lots of free food and even more apparently before I got there. My mom and I just kind of walked around because my sister had volunteered to paint faces/hands and we had to wait for her to be done.

Wednesday - Today, my mom and I spent a lot of time in nurse's and doctor's offices trying to get forms sorted out for school for my sister and some copay thing for allergy shots sorted out for me. After the allergist's we did go to the mall though and got pretzels and drinks from Auntie Anne's and my mom bought me this hair straightener that's supposed to curl the hair to if you hold it a certain way. I hope I can figure out how to use it okay because I would love an easy way to curl my hair. Last time I tried curling my hair the iron didn't do anything and I held it for 30 seconds each time. I also went to Charlotte Russe and bought two tanks from the clearance rack and one full priced purple cover thingy that I like a lot. I'm happy with everything I got. Then I took the dogs for a walk and we all went to the pool. I was really bored at the pool. I haven't really felt like doing anything lately so I was really bored. I brought my knitting with me, but didn't have much yarn left of the skein so I couldn't knit for long.

Tomorrow (well, I guess it's actually today now isn't it?) morning I have to pick up some more blankets that someone made me and then hopefully I'll actually feel like doing something. I haven't even felt like showering for a long time because everything just feels like a chore. I do shower though, I would never just not shower especially because I've been running and walking in the morning so I definitely need to get clean after that. I'll probably start another blanket and experiment with the hair straightener. And look for another show on Hulu or something. Maybe I'll see if they still have Dollhouse episodes up. I will also probably check the housing website a million times because I still haven't found out my roommate while everyone else in the world has. Everyone I went to orientation with has been discussing room numbers and roommates on facebook, but all I know is my building and room number. No roommate yet. My sister seems to think that there may be a small possibility that I won't have one, but I sincerely doubt it since there are about a bajillion people going to the same school as me. It's a fun possibility to dream of though.

Today

2009-07-29T20:47:00.002-04:00

Today I put on makeup to go to Blockbuster. My life is that boring. I mean, my mom and I drove to Community Park today to walk, but I didn't go anywhere else except for the brief visit to the high school for this Summerbration program where the kids from this certain camp-like program show off what they've accomplished throughout July with my sister. And we only went because it was within walking distance and she had been volunteering with some of the classes.

I did get over 3 hours of knitting in today though which I know seems lame, but since it's for my project it's important. And while I was knitting I watched 3 episodes of Secret Life. My favorite episode so far is Season 2 episode 4. In it Amy seriously considers adoption and Ricky's dad is rearrested.

The Most Ridiculous Show Ever

2009-07-29T00:12:00.003-04:00

So today I finished watching the first season of Secret Life and the first episode of the second season. And again and again my thoughts that the show is ridiculous were reconfirmed. Many times. Why do I keep watching it if I find it so ridiculous? Because it's so ridiculous. All the ridiculousness makes me laugh.

The second season started out with some promise, but quickly turned insanely ridiculous. The episode opened with Amy's mom telling Amy that she won't watch the baby while Amy's at school and band practice and basically has the same life as before (probably because the mom also seems very open to the idea of giving the baby up for adoption) which was somewhat realistic I thought, except for the whole expecting Amy to pay for childcare solely by herself. Although I thought asking Amy to look for a job was more realistic, I don't seem to recall there being many jobs available to 15-year-olds. Especially 15-year-olds in states where they can't get licenses and both their parents work. But anyway, in reaction to her mom's requests/demands, Amy decides to marry Ben for real and go live with him and his rich father. How is she getting married? Well, they're getting fake ids (and her 13 year old sister is also getting one so that she can be a witness) and going to a quickie marriage chapel in town. And at the end of the episode the "marriage" had gone smoothly. I laughed so much.

To me, Amy just comes off as kind of whiny a lot of the time. The only time I felt a little sorry for her was during the first season when Adrian thinks the pregnancy's entirely Amy's fault and asserts that Ricky should be blameless. But aside from that she seems kind of whiny. So far in the second season it's apparent she had the option of trying to find a couple to adopt the baby, but opted not to do that and still thinks that her life won't change at all even though she'll have a baby to take care of and in the third season she seems to think that she should be able to go unsupervised to Italy with her boyfriend and infant.

But enough about Secret Life because I'm not going to turn this into a blog about the show.

I picked up 3 more blankets today for my "Blankets 4 Babies" project and am almost finished with my 5th one. The ones I'm doing seem so plain next to the ones being donated, but I only know how to knit the basics even if I can do them well.

I also went to the beach today with my mom and siblings. We went to Point Pleasant because my mom doesn't mind the drive and she likes the boardwalk. My brother spent most of the time in the water and my sister and I spent some time with him which was nice. Then after the lifeguards left we got dinner at Jenkinson's Pavilion and my brother spotted 3-4 cats that we figured were strays and he decided to follow the cats around and try to pet them and feed them weird bits of food with a couple of little kids that looked like they were at least 5 years younger than him. We usually walk the boardwalk more than we did today, but we got kind of cold. The beach houses along there are fun to look at though because a lot of them have some really neat architecture. And then when we came home I showered and washed my hair for the second time in the day because I went in the water. All in all a fun day. :)

Belated Birthday/Graduation Celebration

2009-07-27T00:31:00.002-04:00

So because I felt like May and June were really busy months this year I chose to celebrate my birthday 2 months and 3 days late and get a group of friends together for dinner and a little hang out. So on Friday I met like 9 other people at Chili's. And everyone was more on time than I was for my own dinner because I spent what felt like a gazillion hours trying to curl my hair (unsuccessfully) and then driving to pick up a friend who lived in the opposite direction of the restaurant. Normally it takes 10-15 minutes to get to her house, but because of traffic it took 25 minutes. I got to her house at about 6:06 when I told people to meet me at 6:00. I really did have every intention of being there on time, but I wanted to look a little nice and then when I sat down in the car one of my dress straps broke so I had to go change. One of my friends called me from the restaurant asking where I was and I just completely lost it and yelled at her and totally freaked out. It was pretty bad. But the rest of the night went smoothly. After dinner everyone came back to my house to make s'mores (with actually fire roasted marshmallows)and have cake. It was nice seeing everyone, but one of my best friends couldn't come because she had work so I was kind of bummed about that because she's impossible to make plans with.

Nothing to Say?

2009-07-27T00:25:00.002-04:00

I feel like I have nothing to blog about because there's no school or job. I don't even remember if I usually blogged about those things, but for some reason I feel like I had a lot more to say before school let out.

My younger sister now has her learner's permit and has been driving my mom around a lot. It's weird to think about her driving because she's my baby sister. My mom doesn't want her to drive my brother or me around yet though which I think is kind of funny.

Secret Life

2009-07-22T22:34:00.002-04:00

I've been watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager since we finally have the channel and have determined that it's the most ridiculous show ever. It's more like The Secret Life of Those Who Watch Shows Like "16 and Pregnant." For one thing I think the show almost glorifies the whole teenaged mother thing. Yeah, Amy complains and says how hard it is, but never does the show give off the impression that this lifestyle is bad and that 15 year olds shouldn't be having sex freely with multiple people and getting pregnant. And I've never heard the word sex used so much before. Ever. Even when people talk about it they never say 'sex' ever 3 seconds. And I saw the very first episode today and it waas pretty ridiculous. Amy dressed very nicely for band practice, her friend put a sign saying "Poop City" on the bathroom door, and Amy and her friends devise a plan to trick Ben into thinking the baby's his and marrying Amy. But aside from all the stuff that I think is kind of dumb I think the show's kind of funny. It makes me laugh. A lot. And it seems like a lot of people watch it, so why not. One more thing to talk about.

Ouch >.<

2009-07-20T14:20:00.002-04:00

No matter how beautiful new running shoes are they WILL hurt my feet. I didn't even run this morning because my heels were too rubbed raw with blisters just from walking. Breaking in shoes is painful :(. And I got blood all over one of the shoes and a new sock. Oops. If I remember correctly my other running shoes gave me blisters at first too so there's still hope.

I <3 New Shoes

2009-07-20T00:10:00.002-04:00

I got wonderful new running shoes today! The last time I got new running shoes was four years ago when I was running track and since I started running again a couple of months ago I figured it was time for a new pair. I wanted another pair of Asics so we all went to Sports Authority after lunch and I got new shoes! I tried on a range of Asics in all different prices and this pair wasn't the most expensive, but to me it felt the best. When I first tried the shoes on I felt like I was floating because of the gel cushioning that Asics uses and I didn't get that from any of the other shoes I tried on (and I only tried on Asics). I haven't actually run in the shoes or anything yet, but they seem like they fit really well so I'm excited. I'll probably end up getting blisters though because I usually get blisters from new shoes. :/

Summer Orientation

2009-07-15T18:33:00.003-04:00

Originally I did NOT want to want to go to summer orientation. At all. But now that I'm back home, I wish I could go back...Only I wish I could have stayed in my dorm building. We stayed in the usual freshman dorm but when school actually starts I'll be in the residence hall especially for science and math girls. But yeah orientation was a lot of fun! A lot of the ice breaker activities were kind of dumb, but it was really nice meeting all those people!

Bruises

2009-07-09T22:29:00.002-04:00

Today my mom woke me up at 6:30ish to go get blood work done. We got to the place at 7:02 and it was already packed. And then it took them 3 tries to find a good vein. The first lady poked me once and got like half a vial of blood, but I guess I wasn't bleeding well or something because she took the needle out and went to get a different person to work with me. The next lady had to poke me twice. The first time she kept wiggling the needle around and was then like "there's no vein here" and then she managed to find something to prick that bled enough. I was surprised that they had trouble though because I've donated blood twice and both times they though it'd be difficult to find a vein, but found one their first prick. The very first needle stick on my left arm looks like it might bruise a little.

Then we got Burger King for breakfast (for like the first time ever) and then I went for a power walk with my mom and then ran like usual (both things together totaling about an hour). Then my mom wanted the house clean because this makeup lady was coming over at 7 so I swifered a couple of rooms, but mostly just lazed around all day because I felt really tired and sluggish. Then I went to Kohl's with my mom and sister and when we were checking out my little brother called to say that the dishwasher was all bubbly. He had wanted to make himself a fried egg sandwich, but the pan was in the dishwasher so instead of just handwashing the pan he decided to run the dishwasher and put in Ivory Liquid Soap instead of dishwashing detergent. So when we got home we had to find the shop vac and vacuum all the bubbles out of the dishwasher.

Then a little while later the Mary Kay representative came and we got to try on some cool makeup. My mom also bought me some stuff, some blush, eye shadow, lip gloss, face wash, and mineral powder foundation. It was pretty cool. I don't wear makeup on a regular basis and don't/didn't really know how to apply it well so I enjoyed the little makeup party thing.

Blankets 4 Babies

2009-07-07T21:54:00.002-04:00

I'm knitting and collecting hand-knit/hand-crocheted blankets for the premature babies at a local hospital. It's for my Girl Scout Gold Award and I'm really excited for the project. I like being able to make things with my hands and I was really happy when Council approved the project. I'm worried that they won't approve the final papers and actually award me the award though because I didn't follow my original project plan exactly. For example, I never emailed stores asking for donations because my grandmother sent me a huge box of yarn and I made some money working and I never emailed the senior center. Partially I didn't email the seniors because the women seemed hesitant to approve the project because I said I wouldn't be making all the blankets myself and partially because emailing too many people would make collection hectic. I got a warm response from school district employees though so I think I should be able to get the 50 blankets okay.

I am really worried about getting the final papers approved though...but I'm trying not to think of that and focus on the project because I think it's a nice project.

Blogging

2009-07-06T23:51:00.002-04:00

Haven't really felt much like blogging since school ended...I guess I'll use this post as a general overview of what I've been up to.

Graduation was on June 19th and it was nice. It took an hour just to call names though and I was dead last. My maternal Grandmother was even able to come in for it. If was nice seeing her and it was an even nicer visit because I didn't have finals for three of the days she was there so I got to spend some time with her before work and we even went out for breakfast once.

I didn't really get much done the next week...Gardened some at the Girl Scout Butterfly Garden, hung out with friends, went to a friend's graduation (she lives in a different town), hung out with friends, packed for vacation, finished the first blanket I was making for my project, and went to three graduation parties on the same day. Oh, and found out that I have summer reading. For this women's class I have to take we have to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

We left for New Hampshire on that Sunday at 6:30 am and got back two days ago around 8 pm. We didn't even go to any fireworks shows or anything though since we had spent the whole day in the car. Vacation was nice though. We were in a cabin on a lake and we brought the dogs along and went hiking and swimming and stuff. And we also visited Mount Washington one of the days. It was fun and I learned how to skip rocks! Our dog Heidi also ate one of my dad's fishing lures and miraculously pooped it out the next day! That was a relief because if it hadn't passed it probably would have meant tons of vet bills...

On vacation I also got in over 20 hours of knitting. Unfortunately that meant only like one and a half blankets though...I need 50 overall...So far I've made two, my sister's made one, my grandma sent nine, and this lady donated seven crocheted ones. I think I'll get them all done in time though, I just need thicker yarn and bigger needles.

I gardened more today at the Butterfly Garden. My lonely rose bush has a rose bud now which makes me very happy. I like roses when they're on rose bushes. It looked like someone had been over there earlier in the day because the front of my plot was soaked. It was as if someone had just dropped the hose there while they went to turn it off or something because the rooster comb plants looked like they were going to drown. After we planted the one plant we had come to plant I took an empty 20 fl. oz. water bottle and tried to scoop as much of the water away as I could and dump it on the parched marigolds and rooster combs at the back of my plot. I managed to get some much water redstributed, but there was still a lot there when we left. i would have worked at it longer, but my mom and I were going to go to the allergist (for my shots) after the quick planting and she wanted to go before we got too hot and sweaty and dirty.

One Day More

2009-06-14T19:36:00.001-04:00

One more day of finals! Then I get to stay home until Friday, which is graduation. I might have to go in one of the days though because I still haven't heard anything about cap and gown pick up or graduation practice...

Pokerface and Influenza A

2009-06-11T19:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday at work a bunch of the second grade girls were discussing the lyrics to "Pokerface" and it was hilarious. For the chorus instead of "can't read my can't read my no he can't read my pokerface" they were saying something like "I can't fly I can't fly I can't breathe without my pokerface." And when I tried correcting one of the girls I was informed that I was wrong and don't I listen? And that "Pokerface" is the most popular song in the world. I was cracking up. And then I asked them to sing it for me and they all started singing and jumping around/dancing and I laughed so much. It was great.

So far there have been no confirmed cases of Swine Flu in my school district, but a lot of people have been out with the regular seasonal Influenza A among other things. My brother and sister have both been sick (not with the flu) and one of my friends was sick with something other than the flu and another one of my friends has been out for two days allegedly with a 104.8 fever yesterday. And there were like 140 kids out from the elementary school where I work at today. I'm not really worried about the flu because I'm healthy and have only two days of school left (and then the rest of the final days I have no exams so I can stay home) before graduation next Friday. The flu thing does bother me though, but only because my maternal Grandma was going to come in for graduation, but she's 80. We can't bring an 80-year-old to a town with a flu outbreak, it wouldn't be right. So now there's a good chance that she won't be coming in. I was hoping she would be able to because if nothing else it would just be nice to see her, but it seems like it probably won't work out.

Senior Awards Night :)

2009-06-11T19:48:00.003-04:00

Although it was incredibly long Senior Awards Night the other day was actually quite nice. I got three awards, one for Spanish club, one Education Association one, and one for Girl Scouts. Added up the money wouldn't really make a dent in the cost of college, but would definitely buy books! Aside from the monetary aspects though it was really nice to get those awards. The E.A. one and the Girl Scout one were really nice to get. Along with the money I got a bouquet of pretty flowers for the Girl Scout one. And there were yummy lemon squares and cookies served afterwards!

Not the Ideal Prom Night

2009-06-09T00:03:00.002-04:00

It rained every day for the entire week last week and Friday, prom night, was no exception. It rained for our Junior Evening last year so now I have two sets of indoor prom pictures. Oh well. I was really disappointed about the weather because I really wanted outdoor pictures this year. Plus we were meeting for pictures at my friend's house and she has a small ranch.

Overall last year's prom was better. It was just more fun for some reason. There were some really good times during the weekend but most of it was kind of eh. We went to the beach on Saturday and then on Sunday I went with my family to a Polish festival. Everyone at the festival seemed to speak Polish. Except for us. The food at the festival wasn't bad and it was nice seeing different costumes and stuff.

Happy Birthday Heidi! :)

2009-06-04T22:23:00.003-04:00

Today (June 4th) is my puppy Heidi's fourth birthday. I still remember when we got her at 8 weeks old and she could barely sit still for a couple minutes during the car ride home. She was so cute. And I was so happy to get her because I had always wanted a dog, but my parents had always said no. Owning Heidi has been an interesting experience. For the first couple of weeks that we had her (until school started) I woke up with her at 4 am when she wanted to go outside and made sure that she didn't get stuck up the stairs (she could go up before she could go down) and cleaned up her messes on the floor. And then my dad would get up to walk her after school started because my mom didn't want me, a fourteen-year-old out alone, but I continued walking her after school. Heidi's a sweetheart. She loves to curl up with people for naps and loves to have her belly rubbed and she gives the cutest puppy kisses!

This is Heidi not too long ago being spoiled and sitting on a fold up chair in the driveway. There are better pictures of her (I've used them in previous posts), I just don't have any saved on this computer and facebook isn't loading an album of my sister's correctly so I'm stuck using this picture...

A Hiatus

2009-06-01T23:15:00.002-04:00

I got back from the band trip at like midnight between Wednesday and Thursday and haven't felt like blogging/haven't really had much to blog about. I wanted to have a post commemorating the arrival of June and graduation month though so this is it. I will eventually blog again when I'm not trying to study for an important biology test.

Packing :)

2009-05-26T00:01:00.001-04:00

I think I'm finally done packing for the band trip tomorrow (well, really later today...)! I'm kind of excited because with the long weekend and everything it comes to 5 days of no school which feels like summer! Yay summer! Yay graduation! Yay college!

We Weren't Last!

2009-05-25T12:18:00.003-04:00

Today, for Memorial Day, my little sister and I ran in this 5k run/walk at the new community park. 3.4 miles did not end where we thought it was going to. Not knowing where the route ended kind of almost killed us at the end. When I run I like having a goal and that includes either having a time goal or having and end in sight. Our time ended up being 35 minutes and I forget how many seconds, but it wasn't too bad of a time I don't think considering she's a sprinter, I'm out of shape, and we're both used to running at night when it's dark and cooler.

After that I had to quickly drive to marching band to get changed and bussed back over to the park to play the Star Spangled Banner and the Armed Forces Salute. I couldn't find any spare clarinet flip folders lying around the band room so I had to play trombone which made today the first time I've played trombone since Christmas break I think. And I was sight reading the Armed Forces Salute because I had intended on playing clarinet.

Finally now I'm home and get to sit down and chillax. I grabbed a bagel from the table that was still set up when I got back to the park for the band stuff. Another girl from the band had also run the 5k earlier too and it was nice to have someone to talk to about it and snitch bagels with. Actually, it really wasn't snitching bagels I guess since it cost $20 to register for the run. I actually wasn't registered though (I didn't have enough money with me to pay for 2 people) only my sister was, but I took food anyway. I hadn't had time to eat breakfast before running.

At the run we also found out that this run is the first of a series of runs and that the next one is in September (I guess for Labor Day). My sister and I now have plans to run all of them together. :)

Right Now

2009-05-25T00:06:00.001-04:00

Right now I should be working on this huge lab report/term paper for bio. But I'm not. Well, I am, but on and off...I wrote like 3 paragraphs so far and cited 3 different sources so I guess that's good...

Busy Birthdays

2009-05-22T23:55:00.002-04:00

So I turned 18 on Thursday and I was really incredibly busy the whole day. I woke up, went to school, skinned a cat (for a cat dissection lab), went through the rest of the school day, copied music, rushed to work, rushed home, rushed back to the high school for a band concert, and then eventually at like 10:00 at night I got to eat dinner and cake. It was still a good birthday despite all the rushing though. All the little kids at work loved me because I brough my group mini cupcakes to celebrate. :-P

Why I Didn't Post Yesterday...

2009-05-20T22:22:00.002-04:00

I was going to post about this incident yesterday (because it happened yesterday), but I felt too badly about it...At work yesterday I accidentally fell on a little girl's hand.

At work I prefer playing with the kids to observing them because when I was little it made me feel special to have older kids/counselor-type people play with me and if it makes the kids happy I want to be able to give them that. I usually play with the K-2 kids because they're the ones who know me best and the older ones are usually off doing their own thing and so yesterday near the end I ended up playing with two kindergartners, a girl and a boy. The boy kept trying to put me in the "dungeon" and the girl kept pulling me in the opposite direction. This went on for a while. I'm pretty sure I told at least one of them not to pull, but the pulling continued and eventually we got over to this set of metal monkey bars and so I grabbed onto the bars and so the boy kept trying to pry my hands off to pull me to the dungeon. At this point the girl was holding onto my waist which made it so that my balance couldn't have been perfect and so during one of the boy's prying attempts all three of us fell. And I fell on the little girl's hand. The boy was perfectly fine. I was so afraid that her hand was broken because I'm so much bigger than 5/6 year olds, but she ended up being okay. I didn't want to come home and be able to post of fmylife.com: Today, a little girl I work with came in with her arm in a cast. She had broken it yesterday when she was with us. I fell on her which caused her to break it. FML. <- Thank goodness that no post like that has to exist! Either way I still felt really bad because I'm sure her hand and wrist hurt. Her mom said that she was fine almost immediately after leaving though which is good. And yeah, I was so worried about that yesterday that I couldn't post.

I went to the store earlier to buy mini cupcakes to give the kids tomorrow in honor of my birthday. Celebrating occasions with little kids is fun because they usually get way more excited than I do and the energy is contagious.

Bio Test

2009-05-18T22:33:00.002-04:00

There's a bio test tomorrow. Not Friday like somebody had told me. And I had other stuff I wanted to do tonight besides study for bio...Like plan out my lit presentation, finish the book I did the summary on, knit, practice clarinet, do the calc driving project, and study for math. And I'm feeling too tired to study, but I need an A on this...

Summaries and Academic Planning and Advising Day

2009-05-17T13:56:00.002-04:00

I finished my stupid summary at like 1:30-2:00 am Thursday night. A summary. We didn't even have to analyze anything but it took forever! And it came to 8 full pages with a little bit on a 9th. It was ridiculous. And then I was too tired to read over it when I was done (and had other work to do) so I just printed it out as it was (and after I added in all the accent marks >.<) so I'm sure that I'm going to get marked off for a bunch of stupid mistakes. Oh well.

Yesterday was the longest APA day ever. It was from 9-3 which was only a little longer than the insane placement tests. They had the pep band play for us when we all had to meet in the gym at 9 and it was so loud. Pep band music + 9:00 am on a Saturday...Both of my parents came too and while everyone was in the gym she texted me something like "I could just see you up there playing" which made me feel like I should join pep band or something next year even though I kind of want a break from marching band-type stuff. I got to learn about how to get certified to teach in this state and about what classes the bio director guy thinks we should sign up for first semester. The bio guy said to sign up for Calc I, Gen Bio I, and Gen Chem I for your first semester. That's 12 credits right there. And they gave us a 16 credit limit. And you have to have a writing course (and those are 3 credits). I couldn't sign up for the classes he recommended because the credit amount was going to be over 16 with the expository writing class and this Women's/Gender Studies I have to take based on my residence college.

And when we picked out our classes the Dean reviewing our forms wouldn't even let me hand mine in with 18 credits marked on it. I mean, I understand why they give us a limit for the first semester, but I really wanted one more class. I had to take sociology out and so right now I'm signed up for 15 credits. I might add a FIGS though which would add one more credit.

Classes for next year:
~Expository Writing I (unless I get a 4 or 5 on the AP Lit exam and then it'll be Expos II)
~Calculus I (I already had calc I this year in high school, but I had trouble with it earlier in the year and figured it would be best to not try to test out of it and just take it again)
~General Chemistry
~Women's/Gender Studies
~Byrne Seminar - Autism in Literature and Culture

And like I said I might add a FIGS, Exploring Health and Medicine or Exploring Sociology or something. I picked gen chem instead or gen bio because to be a biological sciences major it seems like you actually need more chemistry than biology. And to be able to take orgo sophomore year you have to already have had chem I and II and there's no bio prerequisite for it that I'm aware of.

Advising Day

2009-05-16T00:37:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is the advising day for RU where (I think) we get to pick out our classes for next year. I would be excited, but I no longer think that I want to major in biology and I've been planning that major pretty much since I was a freshman. I don't know what I'd rather do instead, but I just don't feel real excited at the prospect of organic chemistry and physics and all those types of classes. I would think that I'm just being lazy, but I honestly think that a major that leans more towards psychology or sociology would interest me more. I work at an aftercare program after school and I love interacting with the children and observing the way they interact with each other and some of my favorite children to work with are the ones with Autism or other disorders/conditions because they interact in an entirely different way.

I know that it's perfectly normal to change your mind about majors, but it just feels weird to even consider it because I've been stuck on biology (well, a double major, biology and education) for such a long time. I also don't want to disappoint my dad. He's an engineer so he prefers math and strict, traditional science majors. And considering that he's paying for the college education, disappointing him is somewhat of a concern...

A Terrible Person

2009-05-14T20:15:00.003-04:00

I feel horrible. I feel like a terrible sister and a terrible person. Why? Because I'm missing my sister's orchestra concert because I have a three-page summart thing due for lit tomorrow...My mom told me to stay home and my brother's home too because he just doesn't like concerts. I feel terrible.

And I also feel terrible because even though I've been walking more and running I feel even fatter and more disgusting than usual. And tired. My legs feel dead all day (not sore, just dead) and so I walk around feeling zombie-ish and incredibly fat. And prom is coming up. I was a little late for work today because I had to go buy prom tickets ($60 each) for a prom that I don't even know if I want to go to anymore. I'm just going to look/feel fat in my dress and probably not like how the rest of me looks either. Oh well.

I should really get back to that summary now...I'm having a hard time concentrating because I feel so badly about everything though...

Running

2009-05-12T23:31:00.002-04:00

I went running again today around 9:40 and for part of the time I kept imagining ax wielding murderes running from the woods in the dark to decapitate me. Not good images. I ran for longer this time, more time and made the route longer. I went running yesterday too and my muscles weren't sore at all today, but my joints (knees, ankles) felt kind of tired. My shins also kind of hurt a little off and on.

In the book I'm reading for english class Fermino Daza just caused the death of one of his lovers because he wrote something in red paint on her stomach and when he husband saw he slit her throat. That book I'm reading for a project and in class we're also reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I don't like that one as much because it's set in a mental hospital.

"...one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest."
-Children's fold rhyme

Just Stuff

2009-05-11T22:03:00.002-04:00

http://thoughtsandyarn.blogspot.com/2009/02/missing-page.html
A link to a blogpost dedicated solely to my boyfriend. Since I've never bothered to blog anything nice apparently. I always kind of avoided blogging about you at all sweetie. Didn't think it was fair to you. Definitely don't have like a dozen encrypted posts about how much you SUCK. And on your blog you wrote that you encrypted the posts to save me from mean comments that people might leave. That's not true. As I remember it you encrypted those posts after the "27" things one where there was not one positive thing about me and I said something to you. I knew I should have printed those things out before you deleted/encrypted them.

In my defense, when I do nice things for you you go through such efforts to cancel them out immediately. You make it impossible. I make you a powerpoint with pictures and everything about how much you mean to me? You send the same thing back to me within an hour with the pictures and names changed. I buy you pastries from Great Wall? You spend even more. I leave $20 in the car after getting lectured about how I never chip in for dinner? You refuse to take it. And I made you a video of me singing. Yes, singing. And put it on facebook even though I'm pretty much tone deaf because I was trying to cheer you up after a bad day. All those profile pics of us on facebook? Because I know that makes you happy. And what about the other hello videos I left on facebook after getting the netbook with the webcam? And the time that I randomly showed up at your house with rice krispies? *sighs*

You want a post about how much you've done for me? As you wish.

I have the sweetest boyfriend in the world! He used to drive to come get me before I had even a permit and now that I have a license he still comes to pick me up so that we can spend extra time together! And he'll randomly buy me bags of skittles and put up with my friends when they want to hang out with us! I'm sorry, but I really can't do this right now.

No comments on this post please. My boyfriend is NOT and asshole. He was just stressed out the other day and I never should have said anything in the first place. Sorry sweetheart. It's not like I needed a new phone anyway. I was just being a spoiled brat. Wanting a new phone because your other one is almost 3 years old and you like the new ones better is stupid. I apologize for my stupidity.

But btw, I don't even like skittles that much anymore.

And I'm sorry I never argued for more money from my mom after she starting making me feel guilty for asking for money for dates. I should have gotten a job sooner.

Bleh

2009-05-10T21:47:00.002-04:00

From the time I woke up on I felt like I was on the verge of tears most of the time. Not good. Bleh. I feel off like that frequently on weekends but I guess everyone has "those" days.

I wrote down on my housing agreement back in April that I was requesting special housing for a medical reason (allergies, need air if possible and no carpet), but I have neglected to fill out/send in the form yet...It's been weighing on my mind a lot...

I also have a bunch of stuff to do for lit, well, I guess it's really not that much but for some reason it just feels really overwhelming.

I think my mom had a nice Mother's Day. She hit her head really hard on the sharp edge of the wood slab/counter which kind of marred the afternoon I think but I think that overall it was a nice day. My dad made her breakfast in bed before my sister and I were even up so then instead of just keeping our mom company our wonderful little brother had to come and crudely wake us up to do the job. I didn't really mind though, I mean, it was Mother's Day. I got my mom a set of amethyst earrings and a necklace from Macy's and I think she likes it. She has other amethyst jewelry (because my dad's bought her jewelry through the years), but this set was a little simpler so maybe she'll be able to wear it out more. Less flashy things require less of an occasion. She also got a lavender plant (my dad bought it for my brother to give her...his (my brother's) presents seem to mysteriously disappear a lot...), a calla lily plant, and nice cards. Oh and I rubbed her feet with massage lotion not that long ago after unloading and loading the dishwasher. And we went out to dinner too, but the restaurant was really crowded and ran out of plates (it was a buffet). We also went to a flower sale earlier in the day at some local gardens and walked around a little bit which was nice.

Flyer

2009-05-09T22:50:00.003-04:00

I made my flyer for my Gold Award! I'm happy to have it done. I mean, the project is no where near done (I need 65 hours and I have 2), but the flyer is done which is good.

I bought my mom a Mother's Day present today! I hope she likes it and isn't too disappointed...

My sister had her birthday party today. I was gone for most of it because I went Mother's Day shopping, but I think the millions of girls she invited had fun. (Okay, she didn't actually have millions, but it seemed like a lot!) The weather held too! The forecast was for thunderstorms but it was actually sunny and warm the entire day! A couple of her friends even chipped in and bought her Rockband which is pretty cool.

.

2009-05-08T18:48:00.003-04:00

The lit ap test was okay...I really had to go to the bathroom for the whole first section though, (which was an hour long not counting the time it took to fill out the numerous parts of the form) so I probably didn't pay as much attention to some of the later questions as I should have. The essays were okay. I used the formula Princeton Review says not to though because every time I tried anything else on the practice tests I froze up and couldn't think of anything else to write. They gave us 2 hours for 3 essays and I don't think there was a single person in there who wasn't done with plenty of time left over. Well, except for maybe one or two girls...

I also got a new phone yesterday...it was a nice surprise after the ap test and everything. It's a Samsung Impression and it was a two for one deal so my sister got a new phone too. I was really excited at first, but then my boyfriend pretty much told me that the news ruined his day, was going to make him fail the final he had today, and that the phone is a waste of money on me because I don't understand how OLEDs work. And then after hearing all that my dad asked me if I liked the phone and I ended up bursting out in tears and couldn't respond.

We have a final project due in lit class soon and now that the ap test is over I decided to stop neglecting it and went to the MRC during lunch to check the reference books for literary criticisms on Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Love in the Time of Cholera. Our library doesn't seem to have many literary criticism books that were published after the '70s and the book was written in 1988. It's a good thing we're allowed to use all internet sources.

Today at work I let two kindergarteners fix my hair and the one little girl practically tried strangling me and took all of the clips out of my hair and then proceeded to dig one of the clips into my head and tell me she was trying to get the blood out. It was a special moment.

Exhausted

2009-05-06T20:14:00.003-04:00

I woke up this morning and felt so exhausted that I almost burst out crying. And then I proceeded to feel like a zombie pretty much all day. I got like 6 or so hours of sleep so I don't really know what's wrong...I take Zyrtec D everyday for allergies though and a side effect is drowsiness so that could be it I guess...

I'm so nervous for my test tomorrow. And kind of regretting signing up for it. I don't think I'm going to do very well so I feel like the $80 were wasted.

I also can't decide whether or not I want to go on the band trip (overnight) to Hershey or not. I don't like marching, I'll be really embarrassed if a. I have to pee a zillion times on the bus or b. I fall asleep on the bus and have pictures taken of me, roller coasters make me nauseous because of allergies (I think), and I'll have no one to talk to really because the friend that's going is terrible at being around more than one friend at once (she lacks the ability to not be a bitch and talk to everyone).

Today at work one of the kindergarten boys that I like a lot came over to say bye to me before I left which was adorable! My back was turned because I was watching my group so he had to come over and tap me to say good bye which was so cute.

A Relaxing Day Off

2009-05-05T20:38:00.002-04:00

Was it a relaxing day off? No! I woke up the same time as I normally do because it was my sister's birthday and then proceeded to force myself to take 2 full practice tests (consisting of 55 multiple choice and 3 essays). I was so tired all day but I couldn't let myself sleep because I didn't take off to sleep. I did horribly on all the practice tests though so I don't feel any more confident for the test at all.

I still went to work and it was kind of funny walking by the school when I didn't go. At work I got called a "life ruiner" by this one little girl because I told her she was out after dropping the ball during silent ball. The same little girl also asked prior to that if I was trying to make their lives miserable. She's a pretty little girl and her mom is so nice, but she has a little bit of an attitude. Another little girl also had an interesting reaction to getting out. She said something to the effect of "I'm going to kill myself so I won't be back here if I lose again". I know it's not funny, but I couldn't help but laugh because these kids are 7-8 years old.

My sister got some interesting books for her birthday that I'm going to have to borrow eventually. One is called The Barefoot Sisters: Southbound and is this autobiographical account of two sisters who allegedly hiked the entire Appalachian Trail barefoot. The other is a book about how to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Tomorrow :)

2009-05-04T21:12:00.002-04:00

It seems like my mom and dad are willing to let me take off tomorrow! No, I'm not sick, I just want an uninterrupted day to take practice AP lit tests before Thursday. A lot of people take off before AP tests and this way I'll be able to study in peace and still go to work and come home and study for the test that I have in bio on Wednesday (and get to bed at a reasonable hour).

Tomorrow is also my little sister's 16th birthday! She'll be able to drive soon, which is so weird...She seems excited for her birthday which is good. I hope she likes all her presents and has a good track meet after school!

How I Really Feel

2009-05-03T22:15:00.002-04:00

Last night before my bf and I left our friend's house he ended up talking to her dad for quite some time about colleges and aid. Our friend, Jenna*, is going to the same university I am next year, but it sounds like she's going pretty much for free. Her mom works for the school so she gets free tuition automatically and it sounds like her room and board is going to be free too because of scholarships she got based on her SAT score. The only good thing my SAT score has gotten me is automatically placed into expos (which means I didn't have to take the English placement test). So I stood there on the verge of tears for the twenty minutes or so that they were talking feeling the worst I had in a while.

I'm really tired of feeling stupid all the time. And it doesn't help that my bf got a nearly perfect score on his SATs and that he's going to school with thousands of people that are smarter than me. Even the drunken sluts that he sees on campus are smarter than me and yeah sometimes that bothers me. And I always feel so stupid in my lit class too because everyone else always seems to make more insightful points about the novels we read or be more knowledgeable about current events or just be more knowledgeable in general. I don't think I'm doing that much worse than everyone in the class. In fact, I know that there's at least one person doing worse than I am (or at least was a while ago) and still I feel like what I say gets less thought from the teacher and other people in the class.

And I'm also tired of how no one can ever make me feel better. My friends, bf, and parents all make me feel worse most of the time. I really wish I had one person who was able to understand everything instead of just the friend who shrugs it all off or the dad who tell me that basically my life will never amount to everything because I've "already hit my peak."

The Yarn Part of Thoughts and Yarn

2009-05-03T17:43:00.003-04:00

The pictures are uploaded backwards, so to see them correctly and the set of progression pics look at them from the bottom up.

This is something I triple crocheted to be turned into a pencil bag to keep in my Vera Bradley bag, but I never finished it so it's just a huge, pink rectangular thing.

Happy that I was successful, I proceeded to crochet another flower, but with more difficult yarn this time.

Attempt Four at crocheting a flower. This attempt was successful.

Attempt Three at crocheting a flower.

Attempt Two at crocheting a flower.

Attempt One at crocheting a flower.

This is what the final project of what I started below is supposed to look like. (The pics are out of order and I don't feel like fixing them) I'm aiming to make 50 blankets and donate them to a local hospital for my Gold Award. Hopefully I'll receive donations of blankets and won't have to make all 50 by myself because that would cost a lot.

This was an hour and 44 minutes of knitting. It took that long for that little bit of work because of the 3 rows of moss stitch in the beginning. The moss stitch is knit one stitch purl one for the whole row and the only way I know how to do that is to change the hand I have each needle in after every stitch.

Hmm

2009-05-02T16:09:00.003-04:00

Apparently RU does not have a Swing Dancing Troupe. Hmm perhaps I'm meant to go there and start one. I actually don't know how to swing that well (or know that much of it), but after seeing my boyfriend's show last weekend I do think that I'd like to learn because it looks like it's a lot of fun. After I couldn't do the Rockathon I've started to believe more in fate and that things happen for a reason because if I had done Rockathon I never would have gotten involved with the after care program and wouldn't have a job right now. I can just see the Christmas newsletters from the old playgroup moms though:

Matthew's* at Georgetown and he met President Obama!!!

Penny's* at the University of Maryland and is number one in her class!

Jason's* at Cornell and is involved with ground-breaking research - he's on the verge of discovering a cure for AIDS!

Jan's* at NYU and has already been involved with several protests concerning the War in Iraq!

And then my mom's...
Carmen's at RU...Yes, it's a state school...She's futilely trying to start a Swing Troupe...

I have my college email now which is kind of exciting, I guess and joined the RU '13 network on facebook.

The TBC earlier was because my boyfriend came to pick me up so we could hang out together for a while. We made chicken fajitas for dinner and then went to a friend's house to play Guitar Hero.

Friday Stuff

2009-05-02T10:35:00.004-04:00

Last night I went out to the Grease Trucks with my boyfriend, a friend of his from high school, and her husband. It was interesting. I pretty much stayed quiet the whole time because I don't really know what to say to people a lot of the time. I got a Fat Darrell sandwich this time and it was really good and then we went and got bubble tea and that was really good too. After we got all of our food we went back to his friend's house to play Mario Kart on her Wii and the one race that I participated in I did so badly that halfway through I handed the controller over to my boyfriend. Basically I just kind of felt stupid the whole night.

Kids really do say the funniest things sometimes. At work on Thursday a first grader told me that I was actually pretty when I don't wear my glasses or something to that extent and yesterday the head counselor for the second grade wasn't there so the head guy for the first grade had to stay with us until our last kid left because the other girl and I are both under 18, but it really doesn't take 3 people to watch one kid so the other girl said I could leave and as I was walking away the little boy started shouting "No! Carmen stays! Dani* leaves!" I started cracking up. He continued to shout for pretty much the entire time I was walking down the hallway to leave.

I also wanted to mention how the H1N1 Influenza, formerly known as the Swine Flu, has prompted the postponing of all school field trips. Yesterday was Physics Day when all of the physics kids go to Six Flags to "learn" about roller coasters and physics, but the trip was postponed/cancelled because of the flu. I think every physics kid was pretty upset.

I really can't believe that it's May already. Graduation is a month and a half away which is so weird to think about. And I just can't help but look back on the year so far and feel like I've wasted so much valuable time and slacked off so much. It's also weird to think about my sister turning 16 in a couple of days and being able to get her permit and me becoming a legal adult in a couple of weeks. I'm actually not excited for my birthday at all. I feel old and like my life is over and that there's really no point to anything anymore because I've wasted my entire life doing nothing.

Vlogging

2009-04-30T23:17:00.003-04:00

I don't think I'd ever have the courage to make a Vlog post. Every time I hear my voice on some kind of tape or video I die a little and want to go all Sylvia Plath on the world. Plus I don't like seeing how I look in the webcam. The webcam makes me look even uglier than usual which is pretty depressing. I have made a couple of "hello" videos and posted them on facebook for my bf though in an attempt to be sweet. He probably just thought that someone else gave me the idea though.

Speaking of videos, I actually posted a video of myself singing on facebook once to try to cheer my bf up. It was a video of me with crazy hair extensions in singing along to a karaoke track of Ingrid Michaelson's "The Way I Am". A lot of my friends commented the video asking me if I went crazy afterwards.

In other news, I went for another run today. It was the same route as I did the first day with nothing extra since it was an hour later than usual. Eventually I will be happy with the way I am, even if the only time I feel satisfaction is when I'm on my deathbed.

Obituary: Jasper Mouse Unknown-4/30/09

2009-04-30T22:00:00.003-04:00

Jasper was a lively fellow and his life had purpose. He fathered at least 26 children and 8-10 of his great-grandchildren are still living. While the details of his birth are unknown, it is known that he was purchased at a township in Hazlet sometime in October. Chosen for his black coloring he was brought into a high school AP Biology class to fulfill a duty; reproduction. Jasper and his two albino wives (Lily and Alice) lived happily together in a tank with a large water bottle and green lid until Alice had her first litter. Jasper was then moved into his own cage and soon after brought home so that he could escape the infamous "death tank". Collectively, Jasper and his two "wives" conceived 26 children. None of their children or grandchildren are living now.

Not unlike the circumstances of his birth, the details of his death are relatively unknown. He was last seen alive (with plenty of food and water) around 3:00 pm. R.I.P. Jasper.

Eggplant

2009-04-29T23:56:00.002-04:00

"Very well, I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant" (Marquez 71).
This is my new favorite line from a book. Ever. It was written in a note from Fermina Daza to Florentino Ariza in the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Wall Ball

2009-04-29T20:53:00.002-04:00

Today I played wall ball and basketball with some of my second graders and the little girl said "Come on now, more action" to me a bunch of times. It made me laugh.

I woke up half an hour early this morning to meet with my lit teacher to ask for writing advice because I expressed concern about doing well on the ap test and he said to come in early and bring old essays. He said that my writing sounds very colloquial and that he would give me tips, but when I got there and he read through the essays he couldn't find any examples of my writing sounding that way. I woke up half an hour early pretty much for nothing.

Under the Cover of Darkness

2009-04-28T21:44:00.003-04:00

I went for another run/jog today! My legs felt tired the whole time because they haven't fully recovered from the Sunday run, but oh well. I this this run might have been slightly shorter than the other one even though I went a slightly longer route so I guess that's good. But then I came home and drank soda and ate chocolate.

At work yesterday I got called Miss Kennedy, Caroline, and Kristine. None of those are my real name or even that close. I didn't mind though because I love all of the kids. Our games of freeze tag have become quite large and confusing now and often end early because people stop playing, people leave, or I can't properly keep track of everyone who's playing.

I just noticed that my younger sister is also blogging right now. She's on the other laptop (the faster, but webcam-less one) and I find it kind of funny because she's sitting right next to be, but I didn't notice until a second ago (that she was blogging).

17 Minute Run/Jog

2009-04-26T20:55:00.002-04:00

I just got back from a run/jog a couple of minutes ago. I've never had much luck with running (I ran track as a freshman and a year of pain followed), but I'm pretty out of shape and want to lose weight and stuff so I figured I'd try again. I chose a specific route and ran/jogged for about 17 minutes. I went pretty slowly, but it's a start.

It's also nighttime right now so I have homework I need to finish and didn't really feel like I had the time to attempt anything longer. Plus I never really feel safe at night...but I don't want people to see me running so daytime is out...Bleh. I feel really sick now because I came home and drank water right away...I know better too...

I <3 Cities

2009-04-26T00:45:00.003-04:00

I also <3 my boyfriend! He had a Penn Swingers (swing dancing group) show tonight and it was great. He wasn't in that many numbers because of how hectic his schedule is this semester, but he did really well in the numbers he was in. It was also really cool seeing him tap dance! I really hope he continues Swingers next year and that he's able to be in more numbers because I really enjoyed watching him! And it was also nice to be able to meet some of his friends afterwards even though I wasn't able to go to the after party (parents wouldn't let me stay overnight).

Another cool part of the night (besides being in Philadelphia and watching the show) was dinner. He took his mom, brother, and me to an Ethiopian restaurant before the show which was awesome! The food was really good and it wasn't ridiculously expensive.

It was also nice just to be there in the city. Philly always has a nice feel to it and Penn has a nice campus.

A Purpose

2009-04-24T23:04:00.002-04:00

I love my job. And the kids seem to like me, I mean they ask me to play freeze tag with them every time we go outside now. I really like being there with the kids. I feel like I have some kind of purpose now. And when I was little I would have wanted the counselors to play with me so I feel like I'm doing a good thing.

Hematite

2009-04-23T23:42:00.002-04:00

So yesterday my dad came home from work with a random present for me, a theraputic magnetic hematite bracelet. The bracelet is supposed to help with various aches and pains, but I was still hurting today. My thigh muscles kept on freezing up everytime I tried to run and play and stuff. I still managed to tag the kids a bunch of times during freeze tag though.

The bracelet itself is actually kind of pretty with these small, round, turquoise pieces interspersed between groups of shiny, dark gray pieces. It kept getting caught on things all day though because of the magnetic-ness. www.marshallsmagneticjewelry.com

Sleep.

2009-04-22T23:43:00.002-04:00

I'm so exhausted. I want to sleep. My eyes are burning. But it's not even midnight yet and I have a calc test to study for...bleh. The stupid ap test is coming up and so we're doing this 3-day (I think) practice test to help prepare the people taking it. Unfortunately this one's for a grade too which means that I actually have to put some effort into it. Grrr. I can't remember anything we learned...

I also couldn't remember what day it was today. I stopped and stared at the time sheet for work for what was probably a good minute before finally having to ask someone if today was Wednesday or Tuesday.

Little Kids

2009-04-21T22:14:00.002-04:00

Today at work one of my favorite kindies pretended to run away from me when I went to talk to him, but then he came back, motioned for me to lean over, and whispered "you're here for me, right?" So of course I told him yes and he seemed happy with that. It was the cutest thing ever!

I also played/attempted to play "Star Wars" and freeze tag with some kids from the group I'm with, but I wasn't a good addition to either game today because I had been having trouble with my thigh muscles freezing up on me all day which made it extremely painful to run well...