Reality versus Optimism

It's been a while?

2011-02-03T23:31:00.006-05:00

So it's been about a year and then some since I used this. Maybe if I used it more often I wouldn't have so many thoughts swirling about in my head and confusing me. I should use my diary as well, then I wouldn't talk to myself as much ;) Annnnywho, for my 4 faithful followers, and any passing stalkers, a brief update on life.

>>I turned 21 this past summer, spent most of July partying, and have actually become much more responsible about my alcohol since then. I suppose I got most of my partying out of my system. Also, I don't venture out much in the cold sooo...I just stick to the occasional liquor run at the store down the street from school. They know me. No seriously. They don't even ask for my ID anymore they're just like hey what's up how's school.
>>Speaking of school, I'm taking a semester off for right now. I'm taking one Spanish class at MC just so I'm not completely disconnected from academics. Meanwhile, I'm working on finding another part time job and living at home. Perks: more work=more money, living at home=more time with family, home cooked meals, access to car (albeit limited), not paying for groceries, mommy hugs, and seeing the boyfriend more often (in theory). Downside: I don't see my friends from school very often, going anywhere has to be a smidge more planned, since i don't have ready access to bus/trains like I did on campus, and I'm not supposed to keep food in my room.
>>For those of you who don't stalk my facebook, I have a boyfriend. I obtained him over the summer. We've been dating for about 5 1/2 months, and it's going great =) His name is Elliot Cruz (that's the short version anyway), he's 28, born and raised in Puerto Rico til Dec 2006 when he came to the states (apparently, the economy in PR makes the US economic difficulties look minimal), we me through work (We work for the same store in different malls), he's a strong Christian, and he treats me like my parents raised me to believe me I deserve. He also puts up with my randomness, my forgetfulness, and my spoiled side. He's super =) <3
>>My current part time job, while not providing overly much in the way of hours, is definitely cool. I work for Things Remembered, a gift and engraving store. We sell gifts and recognition products for all occasions, our biggest season is April through June, then we don't get busy again til Christmas. (I worked 30 hours in 3 days the week before Christmas. Highly unusual for a part timer). I really enjoy the products we sell as well as the engraving. Engraving is fun!! Come visit me and get things engraved!! We can engrave stuff from outside our store too. Gotta find another part time job though.
>>I'm going to Rancho 3M for Spring Break!!! Rancho 3M is a Christian Orphanage and school in Guadalupe, Mexico. I went there for a few misions trips in high school. I'm super excited. I'm going to be working to help build the baby home, so they can continue taking in abandoned infants. I'll also get to visit some friends of mine; a woman known to many as Aunt Sherry who will be our cook, our friend Maricela who teaches at the school at the Ranch, and Mari and my's friend Irene, a girl who stayed with my family during an exchange trip a couple years ago. Super exciting. http://www.rancho3m.com

I think that covers the major stuff. Now back to trying to make all the clothes I brought home from school fit in my dresser and closet.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the day: when meeting up with someone in a mall, arrange a specific meeting place. Otherwise you just look kinda dumb waiting for them to loop back around a common point.

P.P.S. Check out my friends' Emily and Lauren's photo blogs, they're super talented.
Emily: http://emilypatton.blogspot.com
Lauren: http://belle-photography.blogspot.com

Winter Break Thus Far

2010-01-13T21:01:00.002-05:00

The holidays are over, and we have entered the stage of winter break where I pretty much sit around all day doing nothing. That's if I even bother to get out of bed, which so far I've done every day. I've loved all the snow we've been getting! Sure it's a hassle to drive in but it's lots of fun to play in. What can I say, I'm a kid at heart.

The only real annoying part about the snow is it effectively eliminates my job at the golf course. Thus, I've started seeking other employment. I previewed/interviewed for a job at a clothing store in a mall nearby. I really like their clothes, and it seems like it'd be a fun job, but the manager in charge of the interviews is starting to annoy me. He's really not so great in the follow-up department. He was supposed to call me to set up the initial preview, but instead I had to call him ~2.5 weeks after turning in the original application. He *said* he was actually going to call me that day, but I wasn't convinced. The job preview was this past Saturday, and the manager told me he'd call me on Monday around one to let me know either way if he liked me. So Monday afternoon comes, no call at one, or in the hour following. I begin to think, maybe I misheard him and he just said Monday, but no call for the rest of the afternoon, or the following day, which was yesterday. So today was another lazy day. I called the store around 4pm, spoke to the manager, and told him, maybe I'd misunderstood, but I thought he'd said he was going to call Monday, and maybe my phone missed a call or message from him (my phone randomly does that at times). He said he hadn't called anyone Monday or Tuesday, but would call me back in about an hour when he had time to talk. ::Sigh:: Fair enough. So I wait. 5 o'clock comes, no call. 530, no call. 6pm I sit down to dinner with my family. Phone goes off a couple times during dinner, but nope, just a text message. Currently it's 930 and he hasn't called. ::Grumble:: If he doesn't call tomorrow, I'll probably call him back on Friday. I'm beginning to think I'm going to start applying elsewhere, as this is getting a touch ridiculous.

Tomorrow I venture to the eye doctor for the third time in as many weeks. The first time was my routine yearly checkup. We switched eye doctors this year, and I'm liking the new one so far. I told them my current contact prescription was not sufficient, as I was still having depth perception issues and distance clarity issues. After examining my eyes, they doctor said I needed a different type of contact, one that corrects for astigmatism. She also told me my right eye, in which I had previously not worn a contact, needed a slight prescription. So she gives me the new contacts, and for the first few days, they're great. I can see much better, my depth perception has increased, and there's much much less distance blurryness. I received the contacts on my second visit, Saturday Jan 2 (insurance wouldn't cover them unless we bought them in the new year) and for the first few days they were great. My right eye was taking a few days to get used to having the contact, but otherwise all was well. Toward the end of the week, the contacts started to irritate my eyes. Saturday, Sunday, Monday I was using the eye drops frequently to control the irritation. Tuesday I could't even get the contacts in without them hurting my eyes. I tried for about half an hour. I washed my hands several times, switched contact cases, changed the solution a few times, nothing. So I grabbed an unopened contact from my old prescription and put it in, then departed on my day. The vision quality was noticeably less, but the irritation was gone. Today I got the left one in, with only mild irritation, but it increased throughout the day, so I took it out and again put in one from the old prescription. I have another eye doctor appt tomorrow so hopefully they'll be able to figure out what's going on.

My list of things to do this winter break:

Reading: I've done a good bit but dropped off recently. Stupid internet...
Clubbing: hasn't happened yet. People are broke/lazy. Maybe next weekend.
Skiing: Hasn't happened yet. It's expensive, and nobody really has the money.
Ice Skating: Once so far. Love it. Need to do more. It's the same price/time as a movie, only you get to talk to your friends.
See movies. Sherlock Holmes check x2. Nine check. Still to see is It's Complicated and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Find a job: in process. See above rant.
Gain weight: I'm trying to gain 5-7 lbs. Nothing serious, just enough to keep me healthy. I've been making protein shakes 2x a day, a banana flavor powder mixed with orange juice. It's actually pretty good.

My social life has been somewhat increased over winter break, but I don't get out much, as Luke generally has the car. His working in college park takes priority over my scampering over MoCo. Plus I'll have the car all next semester, so it's not a big deal to let him have it for a month. After all, if he's driving it, he's paying for gas.

I'm super excited to be going back to main campus next semester. Sure it's only tuesday/thursday, but it's better than nothing, and I get to see people! I'll likely still be there on weekends as well. Yay for reconnecting and actually having some meaningful classes. Shady Grove was ok, and I made a couple friends, but it's not the same when I've been in Catonsville for 2 years.

Now I'm going to do some misc facebook, make my drink, and maybe eat cookies or ice cream.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the day: When planning a museum trip, make sure you look up the admission fee before you get there. Then you're not standing around going "huh, we don't have the $ for this, now where to?" Thankfully there are other free museums in DC.

New Year's Resolution

2010-01-04T19:21:00.004-05:00

Happy 2010! It's going to take me a bit to get used to writing 2010 on my papers instead of 2009, but I figure the same goes for most people.

So. It's that time of year when everyone makes "Resolutions" and sets goals to accomplish in the new year. Local gyms and vitamin shoppes must do well this time of year. Everyone has something they want to do or get done or stop doing in the next 365 day period.

When I was younger, my family had a New Year tradition. My brother and sister and I would all write down a number of resolutions/goals on a piece of paper, read it aloud to the family, copy it with the fax machine (the closest thing we had to a copier, yay fax paper), then burn one copy. I never really understood why we burned them, but we did it anyway. I don't remember much of what our resolutions are, or if we ever really kept to them, but it was nice to have a family tradition (even if I did scramble to come up with 10 goals at some point during the evening).

Nowadays, it seems like everyone's goals for the new year are somewhat cliche...there's the health related ones: lose weight, eat better, work out more, reduce or stop altogether the intake of alcohol/tobacco/other substances. There's the religious ones: go to church/religious services more, be more involved with a particular church/religious community, read x number of religious texts or books dealing with religious matters, read through the Bible/other sacred texts in a year. Academic ones are popular among students of all ages: Get better grades, get straight As, achieve a certain grade point average. Athletic and artistic goals are likely also common. To me, it seemed like everyone was doing the same thing, and half of them forgot all about it come February 1, if not sooner. So I said, why bother making a resolution? Why make one just to make one? Sure I want to eat better, take care of my body better, get better grades, read my Bible more, find a church in which to get involved, but I feel like a resolution should be something different.

Sunday morning I was sitting in church, and some of these thoughts were running through my head between songs during the worship hour. Then I had a thought. I caught sight of a shirt being worn by one of the guitarists on stage. His shirt had a logo on it from a youth ministry theme a few years back. The logo is simply one word: Liveworthy. Two words, a verb and an adverb, combined to make one command. As worship concluded and the guest speaker was introduced, I knew what my New Year's resolution was going to be. I sat down and wrote "Liveworthy" on the back of my hand. It was a reminder to myself [and a potential tattoo idea, we'll see, I tend to change my mind about what I want for a tattoo every few months], moreso than a resolution. A reminder that every day I wake up, go to work, go to class, go out with friends, my life should reflect who I claim to be. People should know there is something different about me. Not just becuase I go to church or go to a Christian fellowship group, but every action should reflect Christ in my life. It should be as natural and almost as obvious as acting like a female. I'm female, this is evident when people look at me, it comes out in how I act, talk, dress, carry myself, etc. So should be my faith. I claim that my faith is the all encompassing ring within which everything else in my life takes place, but it's all too easy for me to take it for granted and act just like any other person. Not even acting in ways contrary to my faith or morals, but just not actively acting in a way that does reflect who I am.

When I look back a year from now on how my life has gone, I want to be able to thank God that I was acting and living the vast majority of my life (ideally all, but I'm not perfect) in a way that causes others to pause and wonder, what is it about her that's different? Food for thought.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: Lock your car from the outside with your keys, not from the inside. This taken from a friend of mine who has locked her keys in her car 2x this past semester.

Why I Hate Women

2009-12-13T15:47:00.003-05:00

Most people who've talked to me for any length of time pick up on the fact that I firmly believe in the inherent superiority of women. I'm no bra-burning man hating feminist, I just believe that women are better in most categories of human existence, with the exception of brute strength. I love my girl friends, and they're the ones I turn to most often when I'm in a bind or just need to talk to someone. I also love my guy friends, and spend the majority of my on campus social life with my boys. One thing I really enjoy about guys is the overall lack of drama. Guys are generally simple, and while this can at times frustrate the daylights out of women who overanalyze their simplicity, it's refreshing. Anyway, enough comparing and contrasting. Rant time.

Sometimes I REALLY do not like girls. They are dumb as rocks! They're incredibly stupid sometimes and it drives me nuts! This doesn't change their superiority but holy cats is it annoying when otherwise smart girls act incredibly stupid, generally as regards guys. I'm sorry, I must have missed the memo where we were told we have to stoop to their level in order to make them like us. The vast majority of girls will tell you they want a guy who challenges them, not someone they feel like they have to dumb themselves down for.I would think guys feel the same way about girls. Maybe it's some sort of prime time TV stereotype where the guys go for the ditzy cute girls? Stupidity is only cute for so long. Then it gets annoying. I jsut don't understand why they do it.

It's not just intelligence either. What really bothers me is when girls somehow magically forget their self worth and self esteem because of a guy. Now if a guy is currently or has recently treated her like sh....crap [trying to keep this PG], then yeah she's entitled to a few moments of fragility. Breakups or a bad fight or something, then sure her self esteem might take a bruising but it shouldn't stay like that. Girls should NEVER let a blow to their self esteem make them feel like they are less than amazing for any period of more than a week. You get hit, you fall down, you get back up, shake it off, and keep going. To me this is common sense, like when you get a bad grade, and you're disappointed, but you resolve to do better next time. So it should be for relationships. Despite this, I see so many girls settling for guys who by no means deserve them. Girls who stay with guys who emotionally/psychologically/physically abuse them. Girls who get dumped, then go back to a guy who dumped them. Girls who ignore every reason staring them in the face of why the guy they are with is worthless, but continue to do so. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?!

When did my species lose our sense of self worth? Where are the women of the past who were willing to fight for everything they believed in? Where are the women's suffrage leaders? Where are the women fighting for equality for minorities? Where are the women who weren't afraid to turn a guy down if she knew he was less than she deserved? Where is the spark, the fight? It seems to me like my generation is full of women who don't even know how to make a guy work for them anymore. Granted, our over sexed, gender neutral culture has taught us that a girl needs to do the leading and the chasing, that it's bad to stay single for long periods of time, that girls have no identity outside of a boyfriend, and most terribly, that a guy will not stay with them if they don't give themselves up within a couple dates. Now, regardless of whether someone practices extra martial sex or not, I'd think most everyone would be in agreement that any girl who thinks that if she doesn't have sex with a guy she's dating right away won't be able to keep him around is sadly mistaken. If a guy does give off this impression, he's nowhere near what she deserves. The level of intimacy in a relationship should be agreed upon by both partners, and neither one should feel like they have to give more than they are comfortable giving in order to make a relationship last.

I saw a movie a couple months back with my sister entitled "He's Just Not That In To You". The concept of the movie was teaching a girl who was overly eager to find a guy that she needed to calm down and let the guy come to her. The basic moral was, if a guy is not initiating contact with you, he's just not that in to you, and it's not going anywhere. I wish, I sincerely wish, this movie could be shown to every girl between the ages of 13 and 30 who is in the market for a relationship. It frustrates me beyond words when I hear a girl say "I need a guy". No. You do not NEED a boyfriend. You want one. It is your natural human desire for companionship and a life partner, but you do not NEED someone else to be happy. Yes another person with whom you share the intimacy of a relationship adds happiness to your life, but it is possible to be happy without it. Especially when half the guys around are worthless. I don't know why girls settle for less than they deserve. Is it that they don't think they can do better? Is it that they forget they deserve better? Every girl should believe in herself and her worth. Every girl is special, and if a guy treats her as anything less than the best thing that ever happened to him, he's a tool, and not worth it. I speak from personal experience and from watching others. If a girl doesn't feel cherished and loved and special, why should she bother?

There have been songs on the radio in the past few years that send a message that it's ok to be single, or to not want/need a guy. Examples include "Single Ladies" by Beyonce, "U+Ur Hand" and "So What" by P!nk, "Single" by Natasha Bedingfield, "I'm a Survivor" by Destiny's Child, and the classic "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Sure some of these songs also emphasize a bit of revenge, but they ultimately send the message to girls and guys of all ages that it's ok to be single and that if someone isn't what you deserve, you don't need to sacrifice yourself for them.

I wish I could take all girls 13-30 and have something like a week long conference to teach them how to fight for what they are worth. I want to teach every girl that she is special and she should only date a guy who makes her feel like that. I also want to teach girls that you should have a little spunk, and a little fight. I'm a firm believer in not letting a guy get a hold of you right away. Guys were created to be hunters and chasers, and if they're not willing to do it, they don't really like her that much. Effort should go both ways, but the initial effort needs to be 90% from the male. When I see girls who date worthless guys, or who keep going back to guys who treat them badly, in some stupid denial that "it'll be better this time" or who give themselves physically and emotionally to a guy right away, I feel like slapping them and saying, "where is your spirit?! Where is your fight? Where is your self worth?" Kelli Pickler has a song entitled "Don't You Know You're Beautiful?" and I love the message. While it's not specifically about being single, it's about telling girls that the pressures of perfect beauty that are portrayed on TV and magazines should not dictate out self worth, and that every girl is beautiful and special. Love love love it. More songs like that should be written and played on the radio.

*Sigh* Maybe someday I'll start some sort of educational course for girls and teach them to stand up for themselves, and teach them that they are special and beautiful and that they should never feel pressured to give themselves up right away or to play dumb for a guy. For now, I have to study.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: Backing up in the dark in the rain up a narrow driveway is a bad idea. Particularly when said driveway has a ditch on either side of it.

It's One of Those Days...

2009-11-19T13:48:00.002-05:00

So it's dreary and rainy and blah outside and cold....kinda like the last time I updated. I feel like doing anything but my work, surprise surprise. My major thought is mostly "where is my life going?" seeing as how it's the middle of November. Thanksgiving is ONE WEEK away. When did this happen? Well no sense in looking back. Time to focus on getting things done and wrapping up the semester. Which reminds me, I need to register for classes this weekend. It's probably going to take some doing. I have to figure out where I'm taking my UMBC classes, and which advisor to talk to, then I'm sure I'll have to deal with some hassle from MC. Oh the joy of going to two different schools.

I'm listening to Christmas music again :) I was on a Wicked kick for a bit, due to last week's episode of Glee, then last night I was listening to Glee music (they already have a volume two of songs coming out!) Thanksgiving will be interesting. We're having it at our house this year, woot! But we're doing it with Dad's side of the family. Which means odds of seeing my mom's parents, who we really only see twice a year, are slim to none, and we're not seeing our cousins. Sad face! But we get to see the little cousins who we almost never see, and Grandpa is leaving the dreary confines of Buffalo for a day or two. Also...JENNIFER IS COMING!!!! This makes me very happy :D

In other news, I quit facebook for two weeks. Well, at least one week. If after the first week, I've sufficiently kicked the habit and relieved myself of my need for facebook, I'll try checking it once a day. If I still feel like "zomg fb need!!!" then I completely leave it for another week. I'm on day two so far, and I'm doing alright. No severe withdrawl, which probably means it's not as much of a habit as I think it is, I'm just letting it take over my life too much.

Christmas shopping is on hold for right now due to lack of funds. Thankfully, I already picked some up last month when the padres were out of town. Lack of funds being due to draining my bank account and borrowing money after my car got towed last week in Baltimore, and the towing company charged me $250 dollars to get it back. $250?!?!?! What kind of bullshit is that?! -_-; Freaking Baltimore. Nevermind that they relocated the car to the middle of nowhere in Overlea, MD. I suppose it's not techinically in the middle of nowhere, as it was on route one, just off of 695. Not quite bfn, but close for how deserted the place looked. Maybe it was just the weather.

Speaking of lack of funds, I need to start looking for another job. Blue Mash is currently employing me about 6 hours a week. This is what I get for working at a seasonal establishment. I did a little math (amazing, right?) and that's $45 a week, $90 a pay period, $180 a month. Before taxes. Even without taxes, let's see what that gets me. $100/month goes to my parents to repay my $1200 debt incurred over the summer. So that leaves me with $80. Gas is about $25/week. So that gets me 3 fillups per month, with $5 left over. This is going to get less, as it gets darker sooner every day. So yeah, right now I'm not even making expenses. Thus why I need another job. I should print a resume and go ask around at the mall.

That's pretty much life right now. I feel like baking...I really should work on my paper though...we'll see.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When parking in Baltimore, just b/c you can't see a sign saying you can't park there, doesn't mean they won't tow you because there's a sign 30 yards away facing the other way.

47?!

2009-10-16T12:34:00.004-04:00

Today's title refers to the forecasted high temperature for this area. 47 degrees Fahrenheit. 47! The record low for our area is 51! So said the man on the news last night. It's freaking October and it's snowing in the northeast/midatlantic states, and it's in the 40s here. So odd. Maybe we'll actually get snow this year? Cold weather and a family guy episode have inspired me to listen to Christmas music, so that's what I've been doing :D I stocked the 5 cd changer full of Christmas cds and just let it play...yum. I'm also listening to TSO and Josh Groban on my computer. Happiness. The leaves are changing and being colourful! It's exciting, although it doesn't reall feel like autumn with how cold it is. The leaves aren't nearly as pretty as they are up north this time of year, but still nice.

In other news, I met a girl at school who I'm now tutoring in Spanish. Turns out she's a Christian and I know her brother from IV at UMBC. She also recently started attending Cov. Small world? I think so. She's cool though, I like her. We had lunch at Chipotle yesterday after tutoring, since she had lack of cash to pay me she offered to buy lunch with her credit card, which I agreed to, since I'd probably just spend the money on food anyway.

Weekend happenings will be limited by the dreary weather unfortunately. I'm sure Tori and I will find some way to entertain ourselves despite the drizzle. Maybe we'll see a movie or go shopping. Sister bonding time =]

You win some, you lose some. It was fun while it lasted, and it's a learning experience.

Now time for a nice hot shower, and maybe some hot tea or cocoa to take off the chill.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: Drinking hot chocolate while folding laundry is a bad idea, particularly when you attempt to drink it over a pair of freshly washed white pants. Go me.

Just checking in...

2009-10-09T22:01:00.002-04:00

So yeah I still haven't gotten into the habit of updating regulary. One of these days I'll get around to it, hopefully. Anywho, I'm in Rhode Island for the weekend, having myself a fantabulous time despite an overall lack of sunshine. It's really neat up here, reminds me a lot of upstate New York where I used to spend my summers. Pretty trees in the fall, small houses, friendly people, small towns, mom and pop stores, nearest wal-mart or home depot is about half an hour away. Apparently it's real touristy in the summer.

It's been a pretty chill day so far. For some reason I woke up around 8am this morning, probably due to the whole not sleeping well my first night in a new place thing. Rode around on the bike for the morning/early afternoon seeing the sights and theorizing with the bike store parts guy about possible issues with the bike Jeremy is in the process of fixing up. Once the rain started coming, we ditched back to Jeremy and Andre's place, and just watched tv for a couple hours. Their house is heated by woodstove, so it gets really toasty. I like it. Went out again around 6 to get food and go to the grocery store so I can cook dinner for Jeremy and Andre tomorrow. Jeremy's a little nervous, saying "You're telling me you can cook but you also said you could drive so...". I think it'll all work out. I may have bought a bit too much chicken but if so, they can freeze the leftovers and use it again. You can never have too much chicken on hand.

In other news, everyone up here are dirty Red Sox fans and Patriots fans. #fail. So they were none too happy about Boston's 3-0 loss to the Angels last night (really, the angels? that's like the Redskins losing to the Lions...oh wait...) Tonight's game is currently tied at 0-0 middle of the third. Not so impressive Boston. Yankees--Twins are tied 3-3 in what appears to be the 11th inning if I'm reading that right? Ouch. Get it together NY!

That's about all for now, updates on school when I return from my lovely excursion.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the Week: Don't blame community college not teaching you good study habits when you didn't do your paper you've known was due for 4 weeks. Sometimes I wonder about people...

Withdrawl

2009-08-18T17:40:00.003-04:00

Two straight weeks of being together constantly. 5 days of relying on facebook, texting, and phone calls. Withdrawl. I was doing ok til I came down to play pool. Last time I was down here playing pool was before he left. Gahhh I miss him! I need to practice so when he comes back I can own him. Well not really, more like so I don't fail miserably. As for foosball, I'm fairly sure I'll still get beat there. 2 1/2 weeks to go. Has it really only been 5 days? So little time so much we'll want to do when he's back in town. I might be going to the wedding he's dj-ing that sunday, we'll see how things turn out and if he's allowed to bring a guest. That then of course requires me finding something to wear. Easier said than done.

I'm currently on the phone with him...sorta. His mom called like 2minutes after he called me so he's talking to her and I'm chillin on the other line. Annie is on my lap trying to sit between me and my computer. Not working so well. I may just hang up and have him call me back since it's using minutes. I hung up and texted him saying call me when you're done with your mom, she has priority.

Other random stuff: went school supply shopping, got a planner in purple (woot!) and other stuffs, meds are clearing up the staph infection on my legs really well. Only bummer is they make me itchy and the skin around my mouth feels kinda weird, like dry or something. Idk it's whatever, not annoying enough to pay more money to change meds. If it becomes and issue I'll call them for something new. School starts in a couple weeks.

Time for some pool then seeing if Luke wants to go to dinner/drive me to Frederick for moon pies.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: USE YOUR FREAKING BLINKERS! Seriously people, it's not that hard.

Countdown: 17 days

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

2009-08-14T23:53:00.002-04:00

God promises that when we obey, we will be rewarded. On occasion, these rewards are more tangible and visible. When I decided that the right thing to do was to honour my parents by agreeing to live at home this semester, I didn't want to do it. I felt that it was the right thing to do and felt God's peace about my decision when I did agree though. My reward was God bringing me a wonderful Christian guy to hang out with for the last two weeks. "Officially unofficial" is the only formal title we put to it, since he's moved to Rhode Island for 5 months to take a job. I'm not terribly distraught though. He'll be back a couple times in September for some dj jobs he committed to before leaving, plus hopefully sometime around Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we'll be in constant communication.

It's times like these that I really reflect on how good God is, when He chooses to send us very tangible reminders. At the beginning of the summer, I was very uninterested in anything like a relationship for various reasons, and was despairing my overall luck with guys. I had no clue that 2 months later I'd be a little more than friends with a guy who is not only fun to be around and easy to talk to, but also a Godly example. Not to mention that before he moved, he lived abaout 10 minutes from me...not important but definitely convenient when we were staying up til all sorts of stupid hours watching tv and having adventures.

School starts late this year. Most of my classes start Sept. 1, my Korean class actually starts the 8th. Doing the two campus thing will be interesting. Weds morning 9am class will be tough but so far it's my only early class. None of the other days have class before 1pm which is good and bad. It's kinda what screwed me over last semester. I was up til 4am every night cause I didn't have to wake up til 11am. I imagine my parents won't let me sleep that late living at home, and I won't really have all the freedom to be out and about horribly late, though I will have the car. Luke is going to Maryland but I keep the car since I'm living home going to school. There are perks!

God is good. Job 34:10 I keep written on my wrist as a reminder that "Far be it from the Almighty to do wrong." It is a constant reminder to me when I'm frustrated that God knows what He is doing and has a plan. cf. Jeremiah 29:11.

Peace Y'all.

[21 days and counting down]

Thunderstorms

2009-05-28T17:20:00.002-04:00

Thunderstorms remind me of being a little girl. I remember sitting in my brother's room as a preteen with my brother and sister, counting how far away the thunder was by how close it followed the lightning. (I still do this!) I remember as a very young child being told that thunder was the angels bowling. I remember how my brother and sister used to be scared of thunderstorms, and would go running to my parents for comfort. I remember laying in my bed watching the lightning flash across the midnight sky. Thunderstorms remind me of summer, of power outages, and of early fall tornado season.

There was one particular night where the storms were really loud and unsettling for everyone. I don't recall if they were conncected to tornado season or not. I was probably 11 or 12 years old. The storms were loud enough to wake my siblings (who could sleep through doomsday). At some point the two of them had gone to my parents' room, disquieted by the storms and unable to sleep. I'm not sure when this was during the night. All I know is that at somepoint, I guess it was after my parents had gone to bed, my mom came to my room and asked me if I wanted to come into her room and sleep there, instead of being alone in my room. Although part of me thought I was too old to be scared of thunderstorms, I happily accepted the invitation. I went with my teddy and my blankie to curl up on the end of my parents bed. Being the last one to arrive, I didn't get to be up close by everyone else, but it was still ok. There we were, the 5 of us, sharing one king sized bed, waiting out the thunderstorms.

I don't remember much else about that night. At some point I probably went back to my room, either for lack of suitable sleeping space in the bed, or becuase the storms were over, or both. I imagine my dad was up early for work, a bit more tired than usual. I doubt anyone got much sleep that night, but looking back, I don't think I would trade it, nor would the rest of them I hope. It's a memory I'll carry with me for a long time, if not forever.

May Angels Lead You In

2009-04-02T18:01:00.002-04:00

Today, April 2, 2009, marks six months since the passing of the person who had the most effect on the first 19 years of my life apart from my immediate family. That person is my Grandmother, my dad's mom. She died from complications of a stroke on October 2, 2008. She was the best person I've ever known. She was and always will be my role model and my hero.

When Grammy died back in October, I was completely heartbroken. I was devastated beyond anything I'd ever felt or have felt since. I did not understand how someone who had always been an integral part of my life could be taken from me and everyone who loved her. I honestly had no comprehension of how I and my family were supposed to continue with our lives. I was sad, confused, and angry.

Life does go on, and here I am 6 months later, going about my life. Ultimately, I know that Grammy is in Heaven, singing with the angels, because she had placed her faith in Christ, and knew Him as Lord and Saviour. I know she's happy, and that it was the best thing. I would so much rather her be in Heaven and free from her earthly pain than trapped here as a vegetable, which was essentially the case for the few days she was alive following the stroke.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I'm not always going to understand why things happen. Sometimes, the answers are revealed later. Sometimes, we never know. God has a plan, and I might not always, or even usually, understand it, but I have to trust that he knows what He's doing.

I miss my Grandmother every day, more than words could ever express. I know that she is watching over me every day, and that I will see her again. I love you and miss you so much! Sing for Jesus now. <3

Currently listening:
Hear You Me--Jimmy Eat World
Go Rest High--Vince Gill
I Still Miss You--Keith Anderson
Probably Wouldn't Be This Way--Leann Rimes
When You're Gone--Avril Lavigne
Holes in the Floor of Heaven--Steve Wariner

Sunshine, Muffins, and a Cat Named Semper--Spring Break Day 6

2009-03-20T22:49:00.003-04:00

Waking up is hard to do! My first thought upon waking up (well, opening my eyes and trying to make thoughts become words) was ::OMG SUN!:: We woke up a bit later than originally planned, but in our defense we went to bed decently late. We did still wake up in time to make muffins for breakfast, which my grandparents greatly appreciated. After reviewing the NCAA initial matchups over orange juice, coffee, and muffins, Steph and I made consistent progress with the rest of our getting ready/packing without being rushed. I managed to snap some photos of the pergala my grandparents are building over their back patio with the sunshine and a little bit of green grass. As we left, my grandfather gave us 3 CDs he had made of dance music. He's a part time dj, so he has quite a variety of music. Every once in a while, I'll let him know if something new comes up in the country world that he might be able to use. Steph and I were quite excited with the CDs, as we're both huge fans of dance music and random dance parties. (Videos we WON'T be putting on youtube...)

After we said our goodbyes, we hit the road for a nice sunny drive to Morehead City, North Carolina. On the way, we stopped in Jacksonville to have lunch with Steph's cousin's wife Lauren. Steph's cousin Jordan is a Marine stationed in Jacksonville; he and his wife (both originally from MD) have lived there since November, when they were transferred up from Georgia. Apparently, the Marine base in Jacksonville, Camp Lejeune, is the largest Marine base on the east coast. Spiffy. We chatted with Lauren for a while, and met their dog Casey as well as their cat Semper. After a bit of talking and looking through wedding pictures (Lauren and Jordan will be celebrating their two year anniversary this summer...so cute!), we finally got to eat. Between our cooler and Lauren's kitchen, we pulled together some sandwhiches and cookies to hold us over for the next few hours. As we were getting ready to leave, we were surprised by Jordan coming home early from work. We hadn't expected to see him, but he apparently was able to finish early and had good timing ariving back at his house. Snapped a few photos, said hello/goodbye and it was back on the road for Steph and me.

Jacksonville had been about 2hrs from my grandparents' house, and it was only another mile or so to Morehead City. We found our hotel (conveniently located next to a grocery store!), checked in, and proceeded to relax for the rest of the evening.Videos on youtube :)

Quote for the day: "She likes to be pet with your feet" ~Lauren

Peace y'all.

It's not raining!--Spring Break Day 5

2009-03-18T21:31:00.002-04:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day, belated at this point, but it's the sentiment that counts! Steph and I both wore green to commemorate the day. A recap of the day...

Being rather tired from our adventuring the day before, we slept in and had French Toast brunch around 1300. After food and getting ourselves cleaned up, we decided to take an easy day and stick close to Calabash. Our first stop was our trusty friend WalMart. We needed a few more misc things and decided we could buy them cheaper at WalMart. Steph was on the hunt for a charm to add to her charm bracelet. She wanted something that represented our journey through North Carolina (and some diversions into South Carolina--woohoo Myrtle Beach). The previous day's hunt hadn't turned up anything that Steph really loved or felt was worth the money. WalMart didn't turn up anything either, but we still were able to grab things like lip gloss and other girl things. Also, I found Peeps :D They have orange ones now! Oh sweet marshmallow and sugary goodness!

Anyway...after WalMart, we went back over to Sunset Beach so Steph could seef it without the rain and fog. Despite the clouds, we did catch a glimpse of the sunset on Sunset Beach :) We dropped by the Sunset Beach gift store to browse quickly then headed back over to Calabash. We met up with my grandparents at a cute little pizza joint called Tony's pizza. It actually reminded me alot of a little pizzeria near my house where I like to go with my parents when I'm home. After dinner, Steph and I stopped into Calahan's so I could grab a snow globe. I used to love collecting snow globes when I was little, but these days they're hard to come by. I was quite excited to find one :) I want to start collecting them again, so everywhere I go I'll be searching!

So a nice, chill, relaxing day required some evening entertainment. Stopped home at my grandparents' house to freshen up and dump our bags, then headed down to visit the guys again. We brought along a bag of our chips to eat and share, since the guys, being typical guys, had a house full of drinks and not much in the way of food. Upon our arrival, there wasn't much going on. Gridiron Gang was on TV and was passing for entertainment while a few others stood around talking or moseying around their rooms. We watched the last half hour or so of Gridiron Gang (for those of you who haven't seen it, it's your typical underdog football movie), then quickly set to work rectifying the lack of entertainment and energy level. Steph had brought along her iHome, so after some courtesy Irish rock in honour of St. Patrick, we put on some dance music and tried to move some energy through the house. When our dancing didn't catch on right away, despite popular tunes, we knew what we had to do. Enter Mr. C the Slide Man. We put on Cha Cha slide and hollered at everyone to join us. Lo and Behold, it worked! We were quickly joined by about a third of the guys, as well as one or two of the other girls. The Cha Cha Slide ended, but the fun was just beginning. We joined in a game of cards that goes by several different names. For my purpsoses here, I'll call it President. We played cards and listened to country music for about an hour and a half with Steph taking several wins. Around 0100 we said our goodbyes and departed with the music, sorry guys, but the iHome came with us and leaves with us. If we had any doubts as to whether we made ourselves likeable, they were quickly removed. As we were leaving, a couple people asked if we were coming back any other nights. When we informed them that no, sadly we couldn't, as we had to continue our travels, the news was not well recieved. Leave it to us to bring the party.

On our way out of Myrtle Beach, we stopped by a WalMart (quickly becoming our favourite road trip store!) to grab more sodas for the road, and some treats for my grandparents as a way of saying thanks. Breakfast muffins and brownie mix--yum yum. We headed home, did laundry, and packed/ consolidated as much as we could of our stuff. Sleep was not far from us, and once we were prepared to wake up and do only what was necessary, we crawled into bed and proceeded to dream land. A fun and relaxing wrap up to the first half of our spring break adventures.

Quote for the day: "He sounds like a hippo giving birth" ~Danny

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the day: When giving someone directions, use street names. "That street that runs next to Calahan's" isn't terribly helpful when the store sits on a corner and fronts two streets. I love my grandparents :)

The Adventure Continues! Spring Break Day 4

2009-03-18T02:54:00.006-04:00

So I'm a day late in posting this but I was too tired to post when I got back last night. I'm going to regret staying up to post tonight, but I know if I don't, I'll forget things.

Day 4 was our big adventure/shopping day. Despite the rain, we headed down to Broadway at the Beach, a touristy place in Myrtle Beach with boutiques, restaurants, and other entertainment. It took us a while to get there, because we got a little lost on the way. Surprise surprise. What day is complete without us getting lost, especially if I'm driving? Once we finally arrived, we hit up a few stores, then decided to grab pretzels at Auntie Anne's before heading to the mall to make the most of our time and limited money. Since it was a rainy day, there were a decent number of people at the mall, but not crowded. In the food court, I made a wonderful discovery. I found Chic Fil A!!! This made me very excited, as I was lamenting the loss of chic fil a fries while away from school. (Side note: if zombies ever attack UMBC, they better leave Chic Fil A intact). We managed to browse a variety of stores before the mall closed at 2100.

Once we were done shopping, we called for directions to the house in North Myrtle Beach where we knew some of my friends from UMBC are staying this week. Upon arriving on their street, we drove up and down for a bit, but found the house. Apparently in South Carolina, they don't believe in posting house numbers in visible areas. Go figure. In any case, we hung out there talking to the guys and playing games till around 0130ish. We said goodbye, headed back to my grandparents' and went straight to bed. We grabbed our electronics and other valuables, but left most of our shopping stuff in the car since we were tired and just wanted to sleep.

That about sums up Day 4 of our wonderful adventures. More to come! As always, video diary of the trip is being continued on youtube if you search Stephanie and Devon's Spring Break Adventures.

Quote for the day: "No tienes nada!" ~Me and Steph

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the day: Put numbers on the house where they're easily seen by day or night from the road, not from 2 feet away.

Knick Knacks, Jigsaws, and Rummy--Spring Break Day 3

2009-03-16T00:53:00.003-04:00

The adventure continues! Yay!! Today was very relaxing, which was what we needed after two days of driving. We slept in, Steph til 1100ish, me till 12ooish. By the time we had eaten breakfast, gotten cleaned up, and eaten lunch, it was about 1530. We set out for Sunset Beach, the local island beach where my family vacations every summer. It was cold, rainy, and misty, but we had lots of fun and of course, took many pictures and continued our video diary. We only took 4 videos today, and the saga continues on youtube. Search for Stephanie and Devon's Spring Break Adventure :)

The misty fog from the drizzle was actually a very nice touch, in my opinion. It made for some neat pictures. A little photo shop to up the contrast on some of them gets the full effect of what the camera couldn't quite capture. After galavanting around the beach and frolicking in water so cold it'll give your toes hypothermia (lol I love you Steph) we zipped over to Calahan's. This store is hug, and pure beach touristy goodness! Everything you could want in a beach tourist shop and more, including a whole wing of Christmas items, lots of salt water taffy, and a fudge counter. We found a kitty in the Christmas section!! Her name was Spooks; she was black with white on her paws and chest. ADORABLE!! She was very friendly :) I didn't buy anything, as I didn't have money on me, but I established a couple things I'd like to get when we go back (which of course we will!) Today was preview shopping, which actually helps you save money on impulse buys. Heaven knows I could buy 90% of that store if I had the money!! OH, one of the cool things I saw there...THEY HAVE SNOW GLOBES!!! I can never find those anymore. I used to have a whole passle of them when I was little, but nowadays it seems like nobody ever has them, except maybe at Christmas. They make good Christmas gifts, esp as a gag gift (hehehe...).

We returned home to my grandparents' house in time for a lovely dinner of Turkey, broccoli, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rolls. So yummy! After dinner we chit chatted with my grandparents for a while, then cleared the table and went to work on a jigsaw puzzle. This puzzle is very unique, in that it is not a rectangular puzzle! It's sea turtles and some other aquatic life, and the puzzles peices are odd shapes. Parts of the puzzle go every which way, and it was tricky, but Stephanie ended up finishing it after we took a break to play rummy and eat Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Chunk ice cream.

Tomorrow, or rather later today by this point, Steph and I will continue our adventures in Myrtle Beach. We're waking up earlyish to have breakfast and head down to Broadway at the Beach, then the mall. Shopping here we come!!!

Quote for the day: "I think my toes have hypothermia!" ~Steph
Quote #2 for the day: "Muy si!" ~Devon

Peace y'all.

Stephanie and Devon's Spring Break Adventure

2009-03-15T00:25:00.003-04:00

So we're wrapping up day two of our lovely adventure. It was fun but tiring. Thankfully for me, Steph was the one driving today, so I'm less tired than yesterday. I got the fun part today...navigation. Woohoo for Devon learning how to read a map!

Today started around 1115. Well, my day did. Steph was up around 0930. She also went to bed about two hours before I did, so it all evens out. I was tired but finally dragged myself out of bed in the interest of watching the UMBC vs Binghamton basketball game. It was the America East Championship, and the winner continued on to the NCAA. Unfotunately UMBC lost ::cry::. Then again, I don't think anyone really expected us to even make it to the Conference Championship this year since our team didn't have last year's success rate. It'll be Binghamton's first trip to the NCAA, so congrats to them for making it that far, but I'll still be rooting for whoever plays against them.

Once the game was over, I finished my homemade breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee (the essential), and got myself cleaned up for the day while listening to Queen (<3333 so much). Packed up my stuff, did the dishes, said goodbye to my uncle, my cousin, and my uncle's wife (step-aunt?) and hit the road with Steph around 1530. Since Steph was driving, I got to do the video diary. Yay!! We took 9 videos today, bringing our total to 15 videos in two days. You can see them on youtube if you search "Stephanie and Devon's Spring Break Adventure". Woot.

So once again, it took us about much longer than originally planned to reach our destination. From Lake Gaston, up on the border of VA and NC, to Calbash, on the border of NC and SC, should have taken about 4.5--5 hours including stopping for gas/ice/krispy kreme. We took 6 hours. Blehhhh. We got a bit discombobulated when we were on the highway. We got on the right highway, southbound interstate 795, but shortly after getting on, there apparently is a split with 795 and eastbound NC state route 264. We eneded up traveling aproximately 45 minutes east toward the coast when we were supposed to be going south toward Calabash. Joyous. In any case, we found a road that would take us back down where we needed to be and got back on track. All in all, it was just another part of the adventure. Plus it was kinda scenic...we got to see some horses and very rural areas of NC. Finally got to my Grandparent's house just before 2200. My amazing wonderful grandmother had kept meatballs and sauce warm for us since whenver she ate dinner, and fed us after we arrived. Nothing like warm food to take the edge off after a long day of driving in the rain.

So I think that about covers day 2...Music enjoyed today included Queen, Kelly Clarkson, The Jonas Brothers, Lifehouse, The Killers, David Archuleta, and various artists/songs from my "f*** you" playlist including All American Rejects, Dixie Chicks, Simple Plan, and many more! Going to finish up some AIM convos now and head to sleep. Hooray for sleeping in! More updates tomorrow.

Quote for the day: "We have ourselves and a camera. There will be entertainment!" ~me

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the ~~week~~ day: Don't assign the half-deaf guy at the gated community guardhouse the responsbility of talking to people as they come in. It makes it rather tedious and frustrating for both parties when you're saying something over and over again, and he's not hearing you over and over again, even though he's less than 6 inches from you.

SPRING BREAK!!

2009-03-14T02:16:00.003-04:00

So today was day 1 of the Adventures of Stephanie and Devon, Spring Break '09. Not that it feels all that much like spring, but hey, a little rain won't stop us from having fun. We've got cameras and country music, we're good to go. currently we're watching a very quality movie called "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Fabulous!! I'm a discredit to the fairer sex when I admit that this is my first time seeing this movie. I am greatly enjoying it though. How could anyone dislike a movie where the very premise is a woman playing games with a man? Granted he's playing games with her too, but what's the fun in playing games if you're playing alone? It's only really fun if they fight back.

Back to the trip...Steph and I left College Park shortly before 2pm this afternoon. According to GoogleMaps, our trip to my counsins' house on Lake Gaston in North Carolina was expected to take a little over 4 hours. Add in Richmond traffic, and we were probably looking at closer to 5ish hours. The end result? 7 hours. GAH!!! It took us over three hours to get from College Park to Fredricksburg, VA, a journey that's usually 2ish hours (1.5 with the way I drive >_>). We averaged about 12 miles an hour for most of that part of the trip. Thank God for music and "Would You Rather". Once we finally made it to Fredricksburtg, we stopped for gas then drove around for 15 minutes trying to access the WalMart we'd seen from the road. As luck would have it, due to one way streets and no u-turn intersections, it took us rather a bit to finally make our way to WalMart. Once there we bought drinks and snacks for the road. We had chips in the car but wanted someting a bit more substantial since we were not going to arrive in Lake Gaston by dinner as originally planned.

Of course no road trip adventure would be complete without getting lost trying to get back to the highway. Have I mentioned I fail at city driving? Long story short, I got confused (oh so shocking) coming out of the parking lot and got lost for a bit, but thanks to some friendly cashiers at a CVS we were able to make our way back to the highway. The benefit of our little detour was that by this time, most of the traffic had thinned out, and we were able to go somewhere around the speed limit for the rest of the trip. Steph fell asleep for a bit, but I eventually had to wake her up once we got to the border of VA and NC so she could navigate for me.

The rest of the trip was fairly easy, except I discovered that my driver's side windshield wiper is not clearing properly, and is conveniently leaving a not so clear splotch right in my line of vision. Joyous. I mentioned it to my Uncle and he said he'll take a look at it tomorrow (or later today by this point, seeing as it's after 3am). Spent the evening chilling out watching TV and chit chatting with everyone since we've been here, very relaxing. We'll stay here for most of tomorrow/today and head down to Calabash, NC to crash with my super awesome grandparents for a few days.

Okay, sleep now as I'm very tired and my battery is dying on my laptop. I'll charge my baby overnite then write more as our adventures progress. We're making a video diary of our trip, so many pictures and videos to come, both here and on facebook.

Quote for the day: "If WalMart was a person, I think I'd marry it. I'd call it Wally!" ~Steph

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When stopping at a store in a strange city, remember how to get out of the shopping are and back to the main road. Woohoo for Devon being directionally challenged.

Perspective

2009-03-09T03:59:00.004-04:00

I'm realizing I've been getting caught up in petty things lately. Everyone tells me how I'm so mature for getting over the breakup so quickly, and that's good I guess. To truly care about someone is to let them go, without knowing if they'll ever come back. To truly care about another person is to want what's best for them more than your personal ideal situation. That's what's made this easy for me. My greatest desire is for him to be ok and happy with his life. Am I over the breakup? Yes. Am I over him? Just about.

I have so much for which to be grateful. God has blessed me beyond anything I could have ever deserved or wanted, starting with Christ's sacrifice on my behalf. Think about it: God gave up his only son. He gave up the person He loved most to save people who had no regard for Him. That really is love. I could never do that. I could never be so unselfish as to sacrifice the people I love most to help someone who didn't care about me, with no guarantee that my sacrifice would move any sort of response to them. That's just...wow. Beyond comprehension.

I've been complaining about school so much lately. I need to take a step back and realize school is a privelege, not a right or something to be expected.

Some things I can be thankful for: My parents are paying for me to go to a great school. I have an amazing family, some of the most wonderfullest awesomest friends anyone could ask for. My life is relatively drama free, I'm healthy, my family is healthy, we live comfortably despite the tough economic crap. I really am spoiled, and lived a semi charmed life. So my classes are boring and easy. All the more reason to do well! I have the freedom to worship my saviour wherever and whenever I please without fear of persecution. Billy and I are still friends, and the breakup was not ugly or drama or forcing anyone to pick sides. I have everything I need for life without having to do hardly anything for it. I never have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, or if I'll be waking up tomorrow, or if I'll have clothes to wear.

So many people have so much less, and are still making the best of their lives without complaining all the time. I knew two girls in high school who lost their mothers to cancer. They were both two of the sweetest girls I ever knew, and I never heard either of them complain. I met a friend of a friend the other day, and he seemed like a chill kid. He seemed content with his life, and happy to be who he was. He's a cool kid. I was reading his blog earlier tonight, and discovered that this seemingly happy go lucky kid has experienced some of the worst things life can throw at you, and is on the verge of another tragedy. It amazed and inspired me so much. You'd think anyone who'd had such a sucky life would be jaded and bitter, but this guy is exactly the opposite. His situation reminds me yet again of how much I've been given in life and how much I've been blessed.

Thank you, my new friend, for your example. You are an inspiration and an example. You are in my prayers every day. I am praying that God sends his angels to comfort you and give you strength. Many hugs!!

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When traveling to an unfamiliar destination, plan extra time to account for getting lost and trying to figure out how to get there.

Unity is Coming!!

2009-03-05T21:37:00.002-05:00

I'm super excited!! Echo and Intervarsity are finally starting to hang together!! This is what I've been hoping for since I got here!! There is so much disconnect among the various Christian groups on campus, and this semester it looks like we're finally starting to form some cohesion. Echo, now called OneU, isn't doing much this semester so their leadership has been encouraging us to just keep finding other Christians to hang with. On Wednesdays during free hour, we have United Prayer, which is where all the Christian groups on campus meet to pray with one another. It's led by a different organization every week, such as Intervarsity, OneU, Korean Campus Ministry, etc. This is new this semester, but seems to be going a long way towards bringing the various groups together. After all, we're all one in Christ, so why should we all be our own little cliques on campus? How are we supposed to spread Christ's love all broken up and disconnected? So I'm quite excited and can't wait to see what the future holds for this :)

Off to play Apples to Apples!

Peace Y'all.

School is Boring

2009-02-19T03:14:00.002-05:00

So it's only the 4th week of school and I'm already bored with my classes, and school in general. Maybe I'm just having an apathetic week but it just all seems so blah. I'm only taking 4 classes, so while it's manageable, it's not nearly enough to keep me all that busy. I only have to do homework 3 nights a week to keep up, and that's with multitasking. If I were doing homework and nothing else, I would probably only need 2 nights. My classes are all easy, and the homework is essentially busy work. Thus the issue.

I'm the type of person where if I'm not being challenged, I get bored...really quickly. If something doesn't challenge me, and doesn't keep my interest, I have little to no motivation to actually do it. Example: my spanish class. It's a retake, becuase I got so bored with the busy work last semester that I didn't do half of it. The problem was that said busy work was 35% of our grade and not doing it led to a bad grade, despite getting A's on my tests.

I like my classes, it's just a matter of them being able to challenge me enough. Breakdown:
>>Poli 360: Comparative Political Thought/Theory. The material we read outside of class is interesting, and I enjoy reading it. The professor simply restates the reading in class in simpler terms and his lecture style leaves me fighting to stay awake....at 130 in the afternoon. His tangents about his life are more interesting than his lectures. We have to write a 2 page paper every week based on the readings, then later in the week we're given a classmate's paper to critique. BORING! 2 pages?! I thought this was a 300 level class! This reminds me of high school...and considering my high school wasn't exactly the epitome of academic challenge that's pretty bad.

>>Span 301: Advanced Intermediate Spanish. Again, ridiculously easy for a 300 level class. Maybe it's just me and the ability God's given me to be stupidly good at Spanish, but as previously stated, all the homework is busy work. Answer a few BS questions based on some simple readings. Do some grammar exercises practicing stuff we learned in Spanish 1. The one good point is that the prof only speaks Spanish in class, and makes us do the same. Not that this is hard for me, but it's something that should start being enforced at the 201 level. If we're taking a language beyond the level required for university credit, we obviously want to use it somehow in our future, and we have to learn how to speak it, not just understand it.

>>Econ 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics. Your standard lecture class with the occasional online quiz and problem set thrown in. Reeeealllly simple, and most of it's common sense. Granted that's to be expected since it's a 100 level class. The prof isn't horribly interesting, but not boring either. He likes to relate everything back to Milky Way bars. Take notes, plan my week, make occasional sarcastic comments to my friends Cynthia and Stan who are in the class with me.

>>History 303: The Second World War. My favourite class by far. Dr. Laurie is god of the History department. Definitely one of the best, if not the best prof I've taken here. His lectures are entertaining and educational at the same time. His exams are challenging but not overly difficult if you've payed attention in class. Doing the readings isn't necessary but it's helpful. His papers are not overly long, generally 3-5 pages, but you have to write well for them and you have to actually do the work behind them, which is usually reading a whole bunch of stuff on a topic of your choice related to the class. My only issue with this class is that we don't have much to do outside of it reguarly. I look forward to the class; it's the highlight of my tuesdays and thursdays.

So there's my little rant for the week. Not to worry, I'm still doing my hw and keeping up with my classes, they're just annoying. It's troublesome to me when I have to actually try to find motivation to do school. Well seeing as it's going on 4am I should probably do that thing they call sleeping. Not that it matters since I don't have to wake up before 11 any day of the week. Gotta love that! I'm looking forward to the weekend (which essentially starts tomorrow at 7pm). Hopefully it'll snap me out of the apathetic fog I've been in this week.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson: Always have a couple rolls of toilet paper stocked in your room, so when your dorm (or campus in general as it would appear) FAILS AT LIFE BY RUNNING OUT OF TOILET PAPER you're not stuck using tissues. Reasons we love UMBC...

Busy Busy

2009-02-12T01:52:00.002-05:00

For only having four classes, I've been decently busy over these first few weeks of school. Thankfully it's manageable and nothing terribly difficult. I'm supposed to be writing up my critique of a classmate's paper from Poli 360, and Billy would scold me if he knew I was getting distracted yet again but I finished all the grammar stuff and muddling my way through the horrific phraseology of the paper. I don't understand how whoever wrote it (we all have numbers instead of names, I guess to promote more objective critiques?) can butcher their phrasing and grammar so much. The only excuse is if they are one of the students who doesn't speak English as a first language. Otherwise, I have to wonder how in the world they passed 8th grade English. Not trying to sound overly judgemental here, but these people seriously need to learn how to write academically. Starting sentences with "But" or "And"...not cool. Using two "but" clauses in the same sentence...really folks? It's not that difficult. You don't have to be an amazing writer, just write with some sense and clarity! Also, when the prof says 2 pages, he means TWO PAGES! Not 3, not 2.5, but 2. ugh. at least it gets me something to rant on in the critique.

On a related note, I got a text book at the UMBC bookstore for a reasonable price...shocking! $26 for my Poli text book, which was the only reason I actually bought it from here versus online or sharing Alethea's. Spanish book was close around $100...yeah not buying that one. Hooray for the library, same with History, cuz Heaven knows we don't actually read all 14 books. Since we can't do the papers on any of them it makes more sense to just get them from the library as theyre needed.

Speaking of the library, I'm still kinda ticked they turned the 7th floor study lounge into a computer lab, but in all fairness, it has been helpful. I went over to the library to print out a paper today, and I was amazed at technology. The paper was saved to my flash drive, and as I look at it, I'm amazed at how I can type something up on my computer, put a little stick in the side of my computer, and with a few clicks, my 2 page paper is now on this little tiny rectangular thingydo. It's pretty nifty, and extremely convenient. What's not convenient is that I had to walk to the library to print said paper, because of course my printer is STILL on the fritz...gotta get that checked out this weekend. I don't go to a nerd school for nothing, so time to find one of my tech savvy friends and get them to fix it. Also need to make a trip to walmart this weekend and buy ink, seeing as the ink I need is of course the ONE KIND THE BOOKSTORE DOESN'T SELL. gaaaahhhh.

So now that I've sorted out some thoughts, time to get back to that critique so I can sleep.

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the Week: Don't wear heels to a basketball game when you know you're gonna be on your feet cheering the whole time. I am so smart sometimes...(/sarcasm)

2.5.09 <3

2009-02-05T13:25:00.003-05:00

Thrilled to pieces doesn't even begin to cover how happy I am :)

I'm fluctuating between amused and slightly disturbed that all our friends predicted it, or at the very least are not surprised. So everyone except me is getting really good at predicting my life. WTF?!

No matter, I'm way too happy to let it stress me out. The sunshine is perfect for this amazing day, and an optimistic sign for what's to come in the months ahead.

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When your printer is generally unreliable, print your assignments the night before the class, to give you flexibility when it acts up. Actually, it's probably a good idea to do the assignment the night before it's due instead of the morning of...yeahhhh.

Just a quick note...

2009-02-01T14:13:00.002-05:00

So my life has a way of turning itself upside down and inside out when I least expect it. There's a pattern I've noticed--when school is going nuts, my social life is all good. Once I get school figured out, my social life kicks into high gear and tends to do all in its power to throw me for a loop. This pattern has continued over the past week. I've only been back to school a week but it feels like it's been at least two weeks because so much has been happening.

The week started out with scheduling and classes doing all in their power to frustrate me and then some. Monday and Tuesday were very very long. By the end of the day Wednesday I had most of that figured out, so it would figure that
my social life would choose then to start flipping itself all over every which way. For once I'm not unhappy about it. There's alot to still be decided and discussed but I'm becoming more sure every day, that no matter what comes of this, everything will work out for the best. :)

Also: umbc fails at snow and ice removal.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson: Heels and ice are not a good combination. Then again, since when am I the one to choose practicality over style?

Back 2 Skool

2009-01-29T23:33:00.002-05:00

So spring semester has begun. After much hassling and stressing I got my schedule figured out. I'm taking 12 credits so that shouldn't be too bad. Only one Political Science class, which is kinda meh, but oh well. I'm fairly sure I'll like all my classes, hopefully this proves true. I have a friend or two or more in every class which makes it all the more entertaining. This semester is going to be very important grades-wise. I'm making some changes to help improve my grades and get my @$$ in gear.

I applied for a job at a nursing home down the street as a receptionist but haven't heard back from them so I'm assuming that means I need to keep looking. I'm going to post my resume on UMBCworks and see if I get any hits from there, and if not, I'll start applying around Catonsville. I have absolutely no money whatsoever so the job thing is kinda crucial if I want to do anything besides eat this semester. Lord knows the food around here is so freakin expensive i'll need money to help cover it by the end of the semester.

I'm excited that it snowed and stuck! I want to go skiing again...but no money. ugh I need to find a way to make money. all i need is 30bucks for skiing. i currently have 11 dollars to my name which i'm saving for...something. maybe skiing.

Ummmm I think that's about it. Oh! New phoneeeeee :D not going to be flushed this time!

Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: trim the wick when lighting a candle...else you get weird flame with black smoke coming off it.

so close, so far

2008-12-16T01:33:00.002-05:00

One exam left!! Almost doneeeee :) So So close to being done, but still so far from being home...I wanted to go home after my exam tomorrow but I haven't even begun to pack yet soooo thus I have to stay one more night. It won't kill me, but I'm really looking forward to being home. This is where having a car would come in handy...O well. Next semester hopefully.

I can't believe how fast this semester went by. This year even. I heard a song on the radio yesterday that I recall listening to while packing for winter break this time last year...this winter looks to be quite different, which is good. I have a license and a car so I have more freedom to come and go. I'll be returning the favors to friends who drove me around I'm sure, as well as taking munchkin here there and everywhere. I also don't plan to be injuring myself, but then again, those types of things are never really planned. I'm thinking I'll avoid the ice rink...sigh. That reminds me of the one bad thing different about this winter. Jennifer won't be here :(. Boo. I'm going to see her tho! yay!!! supposed to be flying, but Steph is saying she wants to take a road trip. I told her about my plans, and she said she's free around that time soooo a road trip would most def be cheaper then flying. I wonder if I cancel my flight if I can get it refunded? It would be a nice bandage for my bank account that's for sure. Which reminds me, I need to call tomorrow and see if I can grab some hours at Blue Mash over break. ARgggghh that was one aspect of this winter I wasn't planning on, but alas I am in desperate need of moneys. This winter will also be free from the emotional drama that plagued me last winter, thank you God. I'll also hopefully be going skiing and taking a winter class here at UMBC.

I should really be sleeping now, seeing as I only slept from 530-730 yesterday and then from 1030--1330. not really that good for me, though im sure sleeping for 8-12 hours all the 5 nights before that is why I'm not totally exhausted. Alas there are so many other things I am doing, eg writing here, talking to people on aim, and i'm sure I'll end up on some sort of game site eventually.

Rant time...why is it that I am so unable to find a decent guy? My standards aren't really that high. It seems like my ideal guy is a combination of all my guy friends. While it's definitely easier being single and free, and having guys as friends, at the same time there is always that desire for someone who is something more. That special someone. I know I'll eventually find the right one, or at least someone to get me started in the relationship world. My luck with guys has been almost nil since college. Oh well. I'm thinking it's time to be Miss Independent again like I was in high school, and then someone will come along and care enough to work through all my issues when I least expect it.

Okay brain is shutting down...9 days till Christmas including today weeee!!

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: don't wait until 10pm the night before an 8am exam to start studying (something I re-learn every semester)

It's the holiday season...

2008-11-26T23:11:00.002-05:00

I love Thanksgiving. I really do. It means a break from school, time with the family, lots and lots of food, and many memories. It also kicks off the "Holiday season" which, being the Christmas commercialism sucker that I am, makes me very happy. For example, I'm now laying on my bed listening to Christmas music, pondering when it's going to snow again. It actually has already snowed TWICE this month...both times last week. It made me very happy, despite being sick as crap on Friday, to look out my window and see white fluffy stuff falling from the sky. Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, my friend Maya and I went outside when it was snowing and danced around like idiots. Fun times :)

So as previously mentioned, I was sick last week. It set in on wednesday/thursday and is still going. I'm getting better though. Friday through Sunday sucked majorly. That was the worst of the sick period, and I spent most of the weekend just trying to sleep and drink fluids. Today and yesterday have been better. Just abusing my nose with tissues and controlling a cough with oh so yummy Robitussin. ::sniffles:: The weekend did have it's good points. Saturday night was the highlight, being as it was my friend Dan's 21st birthday party. Lukie came up to chill with me and hang out at the party. That was tons of fun on so many levels. I can't wait to see all the crazy pictures we took. Fuuuun times :D

Currently waiting on the laundry to finish drying so I can finish packing for a trip to see my cousins and my uncle down in North Carolina. Sadly, we haven't seen them since this time last year, and they only live 5ish hours away. When I'm allowed to have the car for long distance driving (i.e. this summer) I'm really going to try and make it a point to visit my extended family more often. After all, who doesn't like road trips? I know I like them much.

Not a whole lot else going on right now, but when I get back to school, I will commence studying my friggin butt off for finals...joy. Library lockdown! Not to mention catching up on all my backwork for Spanish.

That's all for now folks. Yay for Christmas music!

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When your phone is in your pants pocket, and said pants are on the floor, be careful when picking them up to point the pocket away from the toilet. Otherwise, said phone ends up in said toilet. Or in my case, landing in the toilet just as it's flushing. Gotta love life.

O hey, I have a blog!

2008-10-15T15:31:00.003-04:00

So I haven't written/vented in a while. Let's see what's happened since then...

July: Went to the beach in North Carolina with the fam, got to see the grandparents, and got to chill out.
Also went up to NY for a few days, got to see my "adopted" families up there and hang out with my girlies

August: worked 5 days a week for the first two weeks, then the second two was 6 days. Got some lovely paychecks out of that, and a have a kickin' recommendation waiting for me when I need it because I did pretty much everything there was to do there except pay the bills. Combine me doing everything with being respectful and honest (three of my coworkers got fired for skimming money...idiots) and being personable, they love me. My manager is practically begging me to work over winter break. I say this not to brag, but simply to show that it's really not that hard to please those in authority over us. To God be the glory. :)
Jennifer left in August :( I'm reallly hoping to go see her in Florida over winter break otherwise I don't see her until summer...
School started last week in August. The new freshies are (for the most part) soo cute! My class was definitely not that cute. First day of classes was Daddy's birthday :)

September: not much to speak of. School stuff, making new friends, catching up with friends from last year, all the first month of school fun stuff. Mom and Little sister's birthdays...Little sister is 14 now...growing up too fast :/

October: Grammy went home to be with Jesus Oct 2 :'(. Sad but I know she's dancing with the angels. God must have needed a little more joy up there in heaven :}

So far October has been up and down, just trying to keep up with everything. School is stressing me out but that's kinda life in college, right? One of my friends got robbed at gunpoint the other night...methinks I'll stop walking around at night by myself so much.

That reminds me (don't ask why, it just does) I need to get my hands on the rest of the books in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series....OMG SO GOOD! Little sis had me read the first one and I was instantly addicted. Not that I have time to read for pleasure, since 3 of my classes are all reading all the time, but still. WANT!

I've also been introduced to some new music: Crazy Loop, Shake It, and White Tie Affair.

Upcoming events: License test #2 this saturday, Intervarsity Fall Conference at Summit Lake next weekend (YAY!!), Monsterbash 10/30 at Bedrock (woohoo!) which means i need to find time (as if there is such a thing) to go shopping and get my costume

Oye so little time so much to do....Now off to study for a history midterm.

Peace y'all!

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: Don't let your little cousin climb all over you in dress clothes (Oh c'mon those stockings cost like $5 and she was too cute to resist)

nineteen :)

2008-07-09T00:49:00.002-04:00

I'm nineteen!!! yay!!! Thank you Jesus for 19 years of grace and mercy on my life.
p.s. common sense life lesson for the week: when going to the movies remember to bring your wallet

I HATE THIS

2008-05-04T15:23:00.002-04:00

I am so entirely fed up with being sick. Especially this nagging cold/allergy crap. If I'm gonna be sick I'd rather it be like last week where it was all out fever dizziness upset stomach etc. Since Wednesday afternoon I've had this nagging sinus crap that's fogging up my head more and more every day. Oh and then there's the lovely cough that comes between 9pm and 9am, wonderful conducive to sleeping. Everyday for the past 4 days I wake up and I can barely breathe because I'm stuffed up, or my nose is running like a sieve. I'd rather the runny nose today but no, I get the stuffed up head to such an extent that I can barely think straight and have absolutely no motivation to do anything productive.The only good thing is that my wretched sore throat has passed. I wish I could take my friend up on her offer and just go lay out in the sun or do hw outside. Unfortunately I have a paper to write that's due tomorrow and that necessitates my computer. Seeing as said paper will most likely consume most or all of my afternoon, evening, and night (here's hoping I make it to bed at a decent hour) I can't work outside because there is nowhere to plug in my computer. I would love to be outside on a beautiful day but being outside would probably make my head worse anyhow. Acetaminophen and Sudafed take the edge off the sinus misery but only for so long. I can only take them every four hours but of course they wear off after about two hours. To add to all this, I'm cold. It's something like 68 degrees outside and 75 degrees in my room yet here I sit in a fleece robe, fuzzy socks, and my favorite slippers (which just so happen to be falling apart). I don't think I have a fever, it doesn't really feel like I do. Even if I did, the acetaminophen should knock it down. I hate this so much! I wish I could snap my fingers and make it all go away. I'm concerned about this week. It's the last week of classes, and if this rotten head fogginess keeps up, my concentration levels will be even less than usual, when i need to concentrate more. Joy...*whines* ugh I have no motivation to do my paper or clean my room, both of which are high priorities. My room is a disaster and the paper is due tomorrow. I can't skip my morning classes to finish it because I skipped last week due to being sick. I'm sure my dance teacher loves me for skipping three classes in a row, two because i was sick, which hopefully she's leaning towards as an explanation in her head. I don't generally skip twice in a row, much less three times. *sigh* all I want to do right now is sleep, to escape this miserable cold or allergies or whatever the hell it is. Alas, a messy room and a paper command my attention, however disoriented I may be. Maybe I'll make some tea or hot cocoa. For now, I'm hungry, and need to get going on being one day closer to the end of school.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: when you know you're sick, and may be sick for a while, buy more than one box of tissues. Cough syrup and tissues may necessitate a trip to rite aid.

QUADMANIA Review

2008-04-24T01:00:00.005-04:00

Sooo last weekend was QUADMANIA, or rather "Parking Lot 17 Mania". UMBC didn't want to mess up the pretty grass in the quad, so the carnival and live music was held in a parking lot on the outskirts of campus. Convenient for my dorm and the two dorms near me, but that's about it. If you didn't know it was going on, you probably would never know. Anywho...I had alot of fun. I had a perfect view of the setup a few days in advance from the window in my room, and I was very excited. On Saturday morning, I woke up to some of the music (nice day so window was open) and got to listen to it as I was straightening the room and getting ready for the day.

The Rides...Some people complained about how the carnival seemed to cater more to the local elementary and middle schools, but I love carnival rides so it didn't matter to me. If you went at night, there were less rugrats and shorter lines for the rides. $10 per day was, in my estimation, a tad pricey but I understand that SEB (the people responsible for the fun times) have costs to pay. The swings were fun, but a tad nauseating after a while. The tilt a whirl was tilting and whirling as one would presume, but there wasn't much cushioning so I got a little beat up. It was still fun, it would whirl you around and you would feel like you were going to fly out into the middle of the carnival full of people. The spaceship ride next to the tilt a whirl was tons of fun. It started out nicely just going around, getting a little bit higher with every rotation, then it picked up speed and used pressurized cables and springs to straighten the rods attached to the spaceship cars (kinda like pinkish purple versions of the Space Mountain ride at Disney World Magic Kingdom) which would throw the cars even higher suddenly. It got going fast enough that I almost lost my sunglasses, and had to take them off while trying to hold on as the ride was spinning around. Woohoo! The ride I went on the most was the parachute ride where it went up and around at an angle at a nice speed and gave you a little dip in your stomach right as it started going down (I can almost feel like I'm on it now :p). I went on that three or four times and had lots of fun.

Finally, the ultimate ride...the Zipper! This was very scary to look at, because it looked like it would break at any moment. Rusty metal cages attached to a long rotating vertical machine that was also rusty. You half stand half sit in this little cage, the only thing holding you in is the support bar attached to the door. If you wanted to live you held on to hand bars attached to the inside of the cage door. When this machine started going, it rotated 180 degrees and brought you up to the top (kinda like a ferris wheel) then would spin around and around. Meanwhile as this machine is flipping, your cage is also flipping. The first time I went on, I was petrified. My friend Caitlyn and I were going on it for the first time together, and she was excited. I was very scared, which is odd, because I love thrill rides/rollercoasters, etc and they rarely scare me. I've been riding rollercoasters and such since I was about 8 years old, props to Daddy for getting me hooked on them early. Maybe it was just the insecurity of the whole thing. So after we got off, I was ok, and then my friend DK finally showed up (after I called and texted him multiple times hassling him to get down there). He wanted to ride it and made me go with him. I had much more fun the second time (although I spent the first few minutes telling him to hold on because I wasn't bringing his dead body back to his girlfriend). After twice around the Zipper on a stomach full of cotton candy and kettle corn, I was a bit disoriented and took a break from rides for a while.

The Music...I saw a number of the performers, and enjoyed most of them, although Dan Deacon's antics were partially responsible for getting my friend thrown out of quadmania. Shoutout to Mother Nature's Recipe! These guys were great!! My friend Ben plays the keyboard and he and the rest of his band members were definitely one of the best acts at the whole weekend. They played a swing number toward the end, during which vocalist Leif came down and started dancing with a girl in the crowd. I had to laugh as I watched my friends Julian and Alli dancing as well. Julian was having fun, and I think Alli was too, but I could tell she was a bit "omg why am i doing this?" about the whole thing. Speaking of dancing, on Friday evening, me and my friend Rachel had tons of fun dancing to the closing act of the evening, a cool rock band. There weren't too many people around by that point so we had some space to just kinda do our own thing.

The Food...cotton candy and kettle corn kept me alive all weekend (temporarily lost my redcard so I spent all my money on carnival food). I couldn't bring myself to pay for the drinks when I had plenty in my room to drink, water, soda, juice, etc. I wanted funnel cake, but the line was always ridiculously long whenever I tried to buy some, and it wasn't worth it.

The Games and other stuff...I tried to win some stuffed animals, the shooting game, the basketball game. They were only three bucks so I figured why not give it a shot. Close but no cigar. Contemplated trying to win a fish, but carnival fish generally have a very short lifespan so I decided I'd get a healthier one over the summer. The trampoline things where you could bouncey bouncey bouncey and do flips were fun!!! Granted I have some bruises from the harness, but still fun. While I was on the trampoline thingy I got to see a step show put on by some fraternities and sororities from the National Pan Hellenic Council. Although the girl who was introducing the students was slightly irritating, it was still a cool show. One of those things I've kinda always wanted to try...till I remember I'm a skinny white girl. Yeah I think I'll stick to my ballet. The two things I didn't get to try was the blow up slide/obstacle course thing and the rock wall. Rachel and I were supposed to do the slide after the TPain concert, but the carnival closed an hour before we were told it would, so that didn't happen. I really wanted to do the rock wall, but refrained. Having dislocated my elbow twice back in January, the ligaments aren't quite strong enough to support that kind of tension/weight yet. Yes you're supposed to use your legs more than your arms, and yes I probably would have been fine with the short 20 foot rockwall, but no use risking it and ruining my weekend (and the next 3 weeks of my life) by injuring it again.

The T-Pain Concert...waste of $15 and two hours of my life. Seriously. Doors opened 20 mins late, show started 2o mins late, the opening act got old after 5 minutes. DJ for 25 mins after the opening act was cool but after a while the general vibe was "bring out T-Pain or someone we came to see please". Finally Jay Lyric and Tay Dizm came out, danced/sang/talked for a bit, and brought out a giant baby blue teddy bear with dreads and a tophat, claiming it was T-Pain's cousin. Shortly after, T-Pain decides to grace us with his presence. If you subtract the opening act, the DJ, the time they all spent talking/walking around the stage doing not much of anything, all the time he spent trying on his 10 different grills (cuz we all just really want to know how rich he is and how much they all cost) and the time T-Pain spent introducing all the people on his record label, he only performed for a grand total of about 40 mins. 40 mins out of 2 hours...NOT WORTH IT! Turns out that due to copyright etc, he couldn't even sing most of the songs all the way through because he only does part of it. The most ridiculous part of the entire thing was when T-Pain and his fellow rappers came strutting out on stage with their pants around their ankles, and boxer briefs showing the world everything we never wanted to see. Then they just had to shake it in our faces because "this is for the ladies". My friends and I examined the floor and each other's makeup during this little interlude. Oh and then T-Pain starts going off on how guys shouldn't act all ashamed to look, because "if you never looked at another guy's, you don't know how small yours is". Yeah...umm...how about no. So T-Pain, being the sensitive guy that he is, decides to do a moment of silence in memory of the VTech shootings. Legit, since the 1yr aniv had been that week. Then he extends it to all the people who are "dying for no reason". He lists examples like other school shootings, 9/11, urban crime, and then starts getting political with the Iraq war and just random "people who are dying". He of course exits the stage with an unoriginal comment on how much George Bush hates black people. I hate when rising celebrities start politicizing and just making random comments with nothing to back them up. Seriously, we didn't come here to hear you mouth off about your opinions on the war and the gov't...we came to see you try to rap/sing. So that was that.

Overall Quadmania was lots of fun. I got a pretty purple flowering plant and two henna tattoos, a purple lei and the beginnings of a tan. Not too much burn, thanks to Rachel H for the sunscreen :). I got to hang out with some really cool people, including a girl who I later discovered was the niece of my highschool history teacher...small world. The hype and my excitement were justified. Haters aside, I love carnivals. I can't wait till the moco fair this August!

Part two: "adventures after the concert" soon to come. Sleep now.

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: don't break in new shoes in bare feet...blisters anyone?

we all do dumb things...and then there's me

2008-04-14T16:05:00.004-04:00

I love how just when life seems to be going along nicely and nothing is terribly bothersome, God sends me these little messages or allows me to do really dumb things to humble me and remind me of my own imperfections.

So I was having a lovely Friday night. Went to a campaign meeting, had productive fun times there. After I went and chilled with my apartment friends for a bit. Interesting side note, when I arrived, it was dry outside. Shortly after I got there, it started pouring, seemingly out of nowhere. Right around the time I left, it was slowing to a light sprinkle. Scattered showers I guess. Anywho...left there and went to play pool with some friends from the dorm. After the gameroom closed, we were looking for a bit more entertainment and food. One of the guys randomly decides he wants Smirnoff Ice, and another one wants peach iced tea. So we go riding around at 1230 am on Friday nite/Saturday morning looking for peach tea and an open liquor store. Thanks to Baltimore County's blue laws, this took a bit of time. We finally found a packaged goods store about 5 mins off campus (after driving around for half an hour or so). No smirnoff Ice, so we substitue Mike's hard cranberry lemondade. We go back to the dorm, chill in the room of the guy who's 21, and turns out I'm the only one drinking the Mike's, the other guys are drinking other lovely things as we watch superbad (not my favorite movie, but the ending is good). I had four to be precise. By the time the movie is over it's about 430am, and most of us, myself included are at least tipsy. After I got back to my room, I decided, in my rather tipsy state, that it was a good time to go leave comments on my friend SteelWolf's blog, jokingly referencing a disdain for Greek Life and mistakingly making his VP-nominee the author of a quote I inserted. (background: he's running for SGA pres and really working on getting the Greeks to support him). Little did I realize that this would proceed to blow up in my face, as people then start leaving angry comments on his personal blog and his campaign blog site as well. This I discover at around 330 Saturday nite/Sunday morning. Open mouth (or rather keyboard) and insert foot. I quickly deleted the original comment, and posted a follow up comment on both blog sites explaining that I commented solely in jest, taking responsibility for the seemingly anti-Greek life comment, and apologizing for my comment giving the impression that the SteelWolf campaign did not support Greek Life when in fact they very much do. I also shot off an email to the campaign email address apologizing profusely for the negative backlash caused by my lack of judgement and making it clear (as I did in my follow up blog comments) that although I was not entirely coherent, it was still no excuse for my lack of judgement and insensitive, possibly campaign damaging comments. Yeah...I'm an idiot.I felt horrible and still do. I'm praying that people accept my apology and ruffled feathers are quickly settled.

Other dumbness, but not to the same degree...went to dinner last nite with some friends from College Republicans after our convention. Found out when I got back that I left my phone at the restaurant. Joy. Of course the only way I find out is when my friend tries to call me and my phone is answered by a waiter or maitre'd. He then dropped by my room to tell me that my phone was at the restaurant and kindly offered to drive me up to the Inner Harbor to get my phone back. So that's what I'll be doing after classes tonite. Thankfully it was at the restaurant and not on a street somewhere or in a parking garage.

Well that was my lovely story for the day, time to go to class. Birthday shout outs to my wonderful suitemate Katrina and my friend Rachel W. God Bless girls!

peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson #2 for the week: 430 am and tipsy is not a good time to be posting comments on friends blogs...yeah...

SPRING IS HERE!!!!

2008-04-12T22:49:00.002-04:00

I love spring so much!!! Warm weather, short sleeves, sunshine, flowers and trees, waking up to the smell of fresh cut grass...*sigh* yay! Finally finally finally spring is here :) I've had lots of fun over the last couple of weeks getting involved with my friend SteelWolf's campaign for Student Government President. I've learned alot about SGA and what it does and what it has the potential to do. Enough so to get me thinking about running for an SGA position next year. I've also learned how the internet provides a great forum for anonymous haters who won't back up what they say.
It's also baseball season...GO YANKEES!!!!! Life's gonna get crazy soon. Finals are coming up fast, I've got a couple of make or break your grades polisci papers due in the next three weeks (ack!) and I'm trying to figure out scheduling crap for next semester. Gotta love that my dance class is at 830 again ugh.

Got all sorts of ideas goin round in my head for summer...concerts, road trips, parties (my bday party is going to be absolutely amazing), work (yay money!), tanning, clubbing?, warm weather! I can't waaaiiiitttt. Also more time with the family. Miss them. Speaking of good times, next weekend is Quadmania---carnival, rockclimbing, food, T-Pain, a good time to be had by all :) O shoot I gotta make sure my friends have somewhere to stay the night of the concert...hmm gotta work on that.

I feel like writing tonite, so I'll probly edit this sometime in the next couple of days, or just post again, depending on how long it ends up being.

Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When your friend randomly decides he wants Smirnoff Ice at 1230am, be sure you know where to find the nearest open liquor store. Fun times...

this crazy world we call life

2008-04-02T19:44:00.003-04:00

Sooo life is interesting no? The days seem to alternate between dragging on and going by too fast. Soon it will be summer...

Calculus is evil evil evil. It doesn't like me. I have an exam in two days. I should be studying. I am missing my original notebook with all my notes from the beginning of the year...not good. I can manage for this test, but if I don't find it by finals then...yikes. Here's hoping I pull off a decent grade on the exam and start understanding or at least memorize enough to get by.

Politics is a dirty business. I love it but it's full of backstabbing and trash talking and mud slinging. Everyone is just peachy until they're against each other competing for a position. Then it gets ugly. I'm not just talking national politics either. One of my friends is running for Student Government President and I'm learning a lot about the Student Government, how it works, what it does for us, and just how nasty people can be. It's interesting to see it all play out from a closer standpoint.

Yay for closure. Hooray for finally being free of emotional entanglements that have haunted me for the past three months. I feel like a huge burden has been removed; I have my life back! I can focus on the future and stop living in the past. The past week has seen me much more content and in overall better spirits.

Despite the wonderful emotional solutions, the physical problems come back to bite me. It's spring so sinus headaches abound. The past couple weeks my headaches have been worse then usual, some bad enough to the point where I skip class. Not so fun. Yay for meds but they only work for so long. I'm praying they ease up or else the rest of this semester will be not so fun. I don't want to have to go to the doctor either.

April fools is a fun day. I tinfoiled my suitemate's mirror and computer...she was so confused. The look on her face was priceless. She still doesn't know it was me, and I'll keep it that way for now :). I also had one of my skater friends believing that the university cops were gonna crack down on the no skateboarding policy and start giving tickets and fines. He was pissed. I was highly amused. I told him April Fools eventually, he was even more pissed. Fun times...

So ironically enough, just when I get free of the emotional entanglements, more options start presenting themselves. This frustrates me. On the one hand it's like why not see what might come of it. On the other hand it's like I finally have the peace and freedom I've been wanting for the past 3 months, though it seems longer. I don't really want to get emotionally attached/involved again so soon. Then there's always the likelihood that I'm completely over thinking things. I tend to do that a lot, too much for my own good. *sigh* at this point I'm just gonna chill out about it. I have bigger things to worry about, such as passing calculus with a C or better.

Anywho on to more internet surfing or piano playing.
Time to make a phone call to the best friend...miss her like crazy :)
Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: when using your campus card to pay for the gameroom, make sure you have enough $$ on your card. Fun times

spring break and back to school

2008-03-25T12:03:00.004-04:00

So here I am skipping Spanish class once again...yes I know I'm a horrible child. I can only do this so frequently becuaswe it's a pointlessly easy class, despite being a 202 class. I feel bad because I told Maya I would actually go to class today...but it didn't happen. I do need to talk with my profesora at some point today or soon becuase she has yet to respond to my emails regarding making up the midterm. One would think that sending an email to both her email addresses explaining why I missed the exam (sick/fainting) and asking when I could make it up, both emails sent before or during break, would get at least a courtesy response. Then again, she is also very scatterbrained and most likely ADD to some extent.

Spring break review...break was nice, it could have been longer, but I enjoyed it. Monday was my sleep in/lay around/be a bum day. Tuesday was hair and nails and misc errands with mom. Wednesday I tagged along with my brother's field trip to the Smithsonian art museum. I half jokingly commented that I wanted to go, and surpisingly enough, he quickly agreed, inviting me to come along. Not that he payed much attention to me, seeing as his attention was focused mostly on another young lady :p (so cute tho). I love French Impressionist art, and wandering around the art museum trying to navigate closed staircases and cramming 13 people into 5 person elevators was fun. Thursday was shopping with my girl yay :) For the record, the DSW on Democracy ave in Bethesda is amazing! It's two floors! Two floors of shoes! Then to Montgomery mall for a bit, then over to Montgomery College to watch my friend's sisters' softball team scrimmage the MC girls softball. That was cold, but fun. Friday was originally supposed to be art museum with my girl then somewhere to watch the UMBC-Georgetown game. Due to leaving about an hour later than planned, it ended up being her going to the art museum for a bit, while I called my dad to get me directions to the JW Marriott hotel where I could watch the game. She caught up to me later and finished watching the game with me then we went back to her house for dinner and a movie. Enchanted is a very dumb but very cute movie. Saturday was time with the family, then Sunday was EASTER!!! Daddy and I sang in the choir at church per usual and then we had Easter dinner with just our family and Gram (who was in town for the week) which was comical but a very nice way to end the week.

Back to school...seeing as all good things must come to an end, I finished my Easter Sunday by coming back to school (lame...). After much thought and debate, I dropped my Human Genetics class. My interest in the subject was rapidly waning in the face of quizzes and assignments covering material not yet taught, and a professor who taught a non-major class as if it was for majors. This means good things because it's no longer bringing down my GPA, but it also means I'll finish out the semester with only 29 cumulative credits. That means I'll have to take a summer class in order to earn sophmore standing, but I was planning on taking another science class over the summer anyhow to make up for dropping the class. The credit thing just makes it more of a necessity than an option. I also signed myself up for calculus tutoring seeing as calculus and my brain don't seem to want to get along well.
Now that basketball season is over, I'll have to find some other way to occupy my weekends. Saw something about 80's prom this weekend, we'll see if I feel like going to that. I can't believe that I'm 3/4 of the way through the year already. Where does the time go? In 9 weeks I will be done with my first year of college. Ack! Where is my life going?! God is good though, and I have very little worth complaining over. I can't wait until the warm weather is here. Warm sunny days laying out by the pool with country radio and peach iced tea, or frantically rushing around at work trying to keep up with the lunch rush or the dinner rush or the evening beer rush. Or riding around on the beverage cart trying to communicate to this one group of asian golfers that no they can't take 12 beers when they only payed for 8. That's a ways away though. Closer are the days where I'll be able to sit outside and study in the sun, and I'll be complaining because the lecture halls crank the airconditioning to about 50 degrees when its only 70 degrees outside. Flowers and sun and flip flops...come quickly!

Well off to be a good little student and make the best of my week.

Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: when posting web links for the use of the general public, make sure they work properly (this I learn from a friend on whose website I caught a couple of bad links :p )

Tales from the America East Championship

2008-03-17T14:11:00.004-04:00

UM-BC UM-BC UM-BC 1-2-3 GO BIG DAWGS! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF! So as most of you know, the UMBC Retrievers clinched the America East Conference championship this past Saturday with an 82-65 win over the Hartford Hawks. It was a sold out game, televised on ESPN2. The RAC was packed full of cheering fans, all waiting to see their Dawgs/Dogs make it to the Big Dance...the NCAA tournament. THEY DID IT!!! What an amazing game.

My day started bright and early. After getting two hours of sleep, I headed over to the RAC at 7am to hang with the pep band as they did two morning news spots courtesy of channel 13 at 7:15 and 7:45. I heard about this news spot via UMBC Underground, which had encouraged people to show up and cheer with the pep band. I showed up, as did five others, including Spirit Czar and True Grit. It was a tad chilly, but it was fun. After those festivities were over, I went to breakfast with some of the pep band (kudos to Jon for inviting me). Have any of you ever ridden in a car with someone who is just learning to drive stick? Thank God for seatbelts! Actually Jon did a pretty good job all things considered. Upon getting back to campus, I quickly consumed my eggs and pancakes, picked my seat (the good thing about getting there early...you get the seat you want), and helped spread Growl Towels throughout the student sections. By this time it's around 930...facepaint time!! A black paw on my left cheek and UMBC in alternating black and gold letters on the right. Props to the girls who were helping me with this...not sure who they are but after a couple of attempts, we got the UMBC worked out.
10am...students are lined up outside the entrance to the court, cheers of "UM-BC!" can be heard, growing ever more enthusiastic as the Retriever fever builds. Once they're let in, the students swarmed the seating areas, everybody figuring out where the different seating sections were, and trying to find their friends. It appeared as though the first 1000 maybe 1500 people in got free tshirts. Let the school spirit commence! Growl Towels and "Go Retrievers" foam sticks were provided. Face paint and body paint abounded, and there was plenty on hand for those who didn't show up painted. I caught up with my friend Caitlyn, painted her face (half gold and half black, with the opposite paw color on each cheek) then we proceeded to paint most of the people around us. It started small, coercing a few people into getting facepaint, but soon people were lining up, all with different requests for painting. I lost track of how many people we painted. As the seats began to fill up, and people were hesitant to leave their seats for fear of losing them, we moved throughout the bleachers on our side of the room, painting faces, arms, hands, etc. Armed with black and gold paint andGrowl Towels for wiping our hands between colors, we spread school spirit. The paws were the most popular, then half and half faces. It was easy to tell the people who hadn't done facepaint before...they were nervous but eager, asking for just something small. Many times they did it because their friends told them to, even though they were hesitant. We reassured them that it would easily wash off with soap and water.

Some students were willing to go all out and paint their whole face to show support for their retrievers, people like Brian D, Caitlyn, and others who came looking for facepaint. Others like myself and Michelle were a bit more conservative, but still joining the fun. Some people asked to get their arms or hands painted, generally under the excuse "I have to go somewhere after this" or "I have to go out tonight". Then there were those who, although sitting in student sections, had the audacity to show up displaying very little school spirit. *cough Brian O, Eric cough* These folks soon they weren't going to get away with that. I quickly demanded they submit themselves to my wonderful facepainting skills, and they wisely acquiesced. The most interesting part of facepainting was when an older gentleman asked me to paint a paw on top of his bald head. It made me laugh when one kid asked us if we were facepainting for free, and then almost kissed me on the cheek when I was done with him, he was so excited. (The kiss was a cultural thing, I'm familiar with it from visiting my friends in Mexico).

Let the games begin! The players were introduced, we cheered for our starting lineup, and the ref tossed the ball. Hartford got possession after tipoff, and made the first shot. We quickly answered with a three pointer, Hartford made another two, and that was the last time they would see themselves in the lead. After the first five minutes, it was clear that UMBC was there to show Hartford how the Retrievers play basketball. For the rest of the game, UMBC's lead never went below nine points. The fans were incredibly excited, cheering our hearts out and killing our voices in support of our Dawgs/Dogs. By the last six minutes of the game, we were shouting "NCAA!" , "Warm up the bus!" and singing "Na-Na-Goodbye" to the Hartford fans. They had been less then enthusiastic throughout most of the game, but I guess when your team is down by an avg of 13 points for most of the game, it's hard to cheer with any real hope.

Around the three minute mark, fans in the bleachers started moving down onto the track and into the lower student section in preparation for rushing the court at game's end. It was obvious that the game was ours, and we were simply playing for kicks and giggles at that point. As the game was ending, and the clock was expiring, the fans started running out onto the court...but wait! There's 0.7 seconds left! Get off the court! I wonder if they did it on purpose...Once the clock officially ran out, we rushed the court and the excitement was uncontainable. They played "Alma Matter" but of course noone knew most of the words, and for some reason they didn't put the lyrics up on the information board. The cheers of the fans so were loud they barely heard the announcer say "Please clear the court" so they could do closing ceremonies. I joined with some of the Mama's Boys in singing "We are the Champions" and spreading it through the crowd. Back up on the track, we watched the Retrievers cut down the net, and cheered as our boys were named allstars.

After the game, I caught up with Ryan and Elise and we talked about how exciting it was that UMBC was going to the NCAA and Maryland wasn't, also what an exciting opportunity it was for the seniors on the team. As everyone cleared out, I grabbed my bags and went outside to soak up the sun. Hey look, the pep band has CD's on sale. I'd been meaning to get one for a while, but wait, I don't have any $$ on me. Time to run down to the commons and hit up the ATM. After asking a nice older lady with a Hartford shirt on to watch my stuff, I went down to the commons and flashed a cute smile to gain entrance (only VIPs for the reception were supposed to be going in and out). I let a couple other kids in behind me who were looking to get into the bookstore, ran up to the ATM, then went back over to the RAC and picked up my copy of the Down and Dirty Dawg Band's first CD, then thanked the Hartford lady for watching my bags. I put the CD away, called my dad to tell him where he would find me when he picked me up, and then draped myself across my bags. Towel over my eyes, I relaxed and dozed in the sun until it was time to go home.

Back home I said hi to the family, got cleaned up (I looked like hell by this point, having barely slept all week, much less the night before) and flopped down on my queen sized bed for a much needed nap. I finished out the evening by going out for dinner and a movie with my brother who I hadn't seen or talked to in about a month. We bumped into a friend of mine who goes to Maryland and quickly exercised bragging rights. After getting home and falling into bed exhausted from all the adventures of the day ( I was running on adrenaline all day), I woke up the next morning very pleased to discover my parents had opted to go to the later service at church, partially for my sake.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!! Watch for us Friday as we play American University in round one of the NCAA at 230pm EST. LET'S GO RETRIEVERS!!!

peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When there's only a limited amount of cheaper tix for the game, get them the first day they go on sale. Don't wait a day and a half only to find out you now have to pay for the more expensive tix because all the cheap ones are sold out.

up all night?

2008-03-15T01:26:00.002-04:00

soooo i'm sitting in the library, campus is basically deserted for two reasons...1) it's friday night 2) it's the weekend before spring break. I got kicked out of my dorm at 8pm...so why am i still here? I stayed on campus because I am going to cheer on our guys basketball team as they play in the America East Championship and take a shot at going to the NCAA. I had a few options lined up for where to stay on campus tonite, buuuut they all fell through. Joy. At this point, I'm either A) pulling an all nighter in the library or B) sleeping on a bench in the library. I pulled a couple of last resort options--texted a friend who may or may not be on/near campus and may or may not be sober but would let me crash at his place if he's around. I messaged a girl who had commented on one of the student blog sites about offering a place for people to stay if they needed it. I'm not expecting a reply from either, but it would be nice if I did hear back from one of them. Argh I'm tired, which means that unless I get a reply, I'm most likely crashing in the library. Ah well, I have to be at the arena by 7ish anyway, so no matter what I'm not getting much sleep. This will be an interesting night...I'll be sure to post the results of the game (ESPN2 at 12pm EST) and my sleep or lack thereof tomorrow (well technically later today) or Sunday. I may try to stay up all nite, seeing as there's still some sketchy people around here...

ramblings

2008-03-06T14:37:00.002-05:00

So here I sit listening to my country music, thinking about the things I should be doing, and wondering what, if anything, I'll be doing later tonight. I have this lovely chunk of time between classes, and I have a very busy weekend coming up, so one would think I would read my supreme court cases or do my calc homework. Instead, I'm killing time on the internet, per usual. Ah well, I'll do something productive in a little while. Meanwhile, I've come to the conclusion recently that I really do like my life. Maybe it's the spring fever getting to my head, but I really do have a good life. When I'm not getting caught up in everything there is to do, or letting people get to me, I enjoy my life and I am grateful for it. Yes some things about my school annoy me and everyone else on campus, and yes I always have lots of work to do, but I have the privilege of going to school, when some people don't. Plus I set up my schedule knowing I'd be busy so no right to complain there.

Not much going on lately, staying busy with schoolwork, figuring out how to maintain some semblance of a social life (which usually translates to playing pool with my boys), looking forward to spring break. Gotta get through exams...speaking of which, my spanish profesora is...interesting. She's scatterbrained, ADD, contradicts herself, and has changed the date of our exam 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Currently its still scheduled for the last class before break. If she changes it to after break, I will be very unhappy. I don't want to study over break, I don't want to have to come back from break and first week back have to take an exam.

Political thoughts...friends of mine went down to the state capitol to testify/protest against a bill that would extend instate college tuition to anyone who graduated from a state high school, regardless of citizenship status. I wanted to go, but had an exam that day...boo. To use some internet phrasing I've picked up since being at school, this bill=epic fail. Seriously, there's a limited amount of instate tuition for legal residents already, do we want illegals to be able to get some of that, thus leaving less for the rest of us? Do I want my taxes paying for someone to go to school who doesn't pay taxes, and just lives here mooching off the rest of us? I think not. Stop coddling the illegals!! If they want to get the benefits of living in the US, they can damn well get off their butts and become taxpaying citizens. Don't whine about the children being brought here by their parents and thus it's not their fault. If they're going to college, they're old enough to know they're not supposed to be here, and they can take responsibility for their own citizenship. I emailed every single legislator on the committee that would hear the bill and told them in no uncertain terms not to vote for the bill. The legislators sponsoring this bill need to grow a spine and stop helping people circumvent federal laws.

Muscial thoughts...I need to get more classical music for studying. I have a bit on my ipod, but alot of it is not instrumental, and when I'm listening to classical music, it's cause I don't want words. I'm going home for a few hours this weekend, if I remember I should try and grab some of my parents CD's and put them on my ipod. *Thinking* there's the Bach CD that used to start playing Tocatta and Fugue at 2Am when we forgot to turn off the CD player...that was always an interesting to wake up. There's also the instrumental hymns we got Daddy for Christmas...Always like more old hymns. I've come to the recent conclusion that I cannot live without music, especially country music. I get antsy if I'm anywhere besides class without music for any extended period of time.

Girly thoughts...went to the mall last week with a friend and did some spring preview shopping. I need $$ or some really good spring sales, cuz there's alot of stuff I want :). My spring wardrobe needs updating...yay gift cards. I could also use some spring shoes. I've gotten addicted to flats recently. I used to do heels all the time, but walking around campus doesn't treat heels all that nicely, especially if you go off the sidewalks at all. Flats last alot longer, are a bit more versatile (dress them up or down, they look cute with just about anything), and are usually cheaper. Acrylic nails are wonderful...they're extremely low maintenance, and they look good 24/7, and they last longer than a standard manicure, and they're easier to fix. Hair needs highlighting...but of course this can only be done at 2am hair parties, after a midnite grocery run. I'll have to look into arranging that. Speaking of groceries, I'm hungry...but that's pretty much a constant state of being for me. I love my metabolism but sometimes...

Random thoughts...a friend of mine recently parted ways with a girl he'd been seeing for a while (or so it seems, facebook tells all...). I know he cared about her alot, and I'm slightly worried he's trying to put it behind him too soon. I understand wanting to get over it and move on with life, but when you experience loss on any level, it's important to let yourself grieve, and let yourself be upset. Take a day or two and be depressed, be pissed at the world, be emo, whatever helps you. Part of healing is grieving. I was talking to my parents about this in the fall when my great grandmother went home to Jesus. She was my dad's grandmother, and had alot of influence on him growing up, and as I was unable to be home before the memorial service, I told my mom to make sure that Daddy took time for himself to let himself grieve. He was quickly getting caught up in everything that had to be done with making arrangements and helping my grandmother process all that needed to be done and dealt with, and I knew that if he didn't take time to let himself be upset, he would never be fully better. It's a similar thing with my friend. I know this is hurting him, and I hope he takes time to accept the loss so he can get on with his life.

On a lighter note...Spring is in the air, yay! The past few days have been really nice outside. It's not quite spring yet but it's getting there. It was raining the other night, and one of my friends commented how if it were snow, we would be accumulating quite a bit, and wouldn't that be cool. We then agreed that yeah that'd be nice, but we'll take the warm weather over the cold now. Besides, I like rain. I went walking around the "loop" that is the main road on campus, and by the time I got back I was thoroughly soaked, and probably did some damage to my ipod headphones (technology and water don't get along too well). It was fun though. It was earlier in the evening than I usually go for my walks, so there were still alot of cars going around, probably wondering why the heck I was voluntarily subjecting myself to the weather. Irony: listening to "Walking on Sunshine" while walking in the rain :)

I've always had a bit of a mischievous streak, and I like messing with people. Currently, a friend of mine from highschool, Angel, is trying to figure out who this blog belongs to. I of course am being very mean and just leaving little hints instead of telling him who this is. There's two rather large hints in this post, so maybe that'll help him out.

Uhoh class time so that's all for now.
Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: If you're going to pay $40 to get your nails done, make sure they do a good job of it.

How are you?

2008-02-10T16:50:00.000-05:00

So the title of this post is something that you hear alot. You pass someone you know on the way to class, or you stop briefly to chat with a friend you haven't talked to in a little while. This is a generic question, one that, for me at least, is not often answered with complete honesty. Often it's simply because things are generally ok and I don't have the time to stop and explain every detail of my life's activities. Other times it's that I don't know the person well enough to feel inclined to describe how things are going. Many times it's that I'm not sure myself what to make of my life. Sometimes I feel bad talking with someone I don't know particularly well or haven't talked to in a bit and having nothing to say outside of "How are you? How are your classes?" I've realized recently that taking time to ask more specific questions can help people feel like you genuinely care about them and their well being. So the next time someone says "Hey, how are you?" and I'm not rushing off to class, I'm going to take a minute and say something beyond "Fine", "Good", or "okay, tired, busy".

The busted elbow is getting much better, it seems I didn't do nearly as much damage the second time around. Sling use has been relegated to sleep time, which isn't a major inconvenience. I acutally don't mind, because often by the end of a busy day, my arm is tired and needs the rest and the support. According to my friend's father who is a doctor, the ligaments take six weeks to fully heal, and I'm sure two dislocations in one month doesn't aid that any.

School is going to be very very busy this semester. I am taking six classes, 19 credits total, 17 of which are academic. I like the work and the classes so I'm more motivated to do my work (which is what I'm supposed to be doing right now). I enjoy being busy, and so long as I stay on top of the work, stress should be minimal and the workload not terribly difficult.

This past week was very eventful and interesting, in several ways. I have discovered/reaffirmed something I knew but didn't know: I have some amazing friends. I am reminded of the Tracy Lawrence song "Find Out Who Your Friends Are". The song talks about how when your life is going well, you have alot of friends, and alot of people who say they care about you and will help you if ever you need it. It goes on to say that when your life sucks, and you fall flat on your face, that's when you find out who really is your friend. It's the people who are there helping you up when you do something really dumb, when they could easily have left you to your own devices and the consequences of your actions.

This past Wednesday evening, I was with a group of people at a small party/get together we were having in the interest of getting everyone together before work and school and social commitments took everyone their separate ways. I decided it would be a good idea to consume what amounted to about 7 shots of Vodka and Cointreau over the course of about 25-30mins. BAD BAD BAD IDEA!! My body mass does not tolerate that high of a concentration in such a short period of time. This I discovered very quickly. Once I got about halfway through the second martini, I started to realize what I had done. For the next hour or so, three of my friends were taking care of me, talking to me, cleaning me up, and doing their best to keep me from the prying eyes of the rest of the group. Thinking back, I can only imagine what a sight I must have been. Words cannot express my gratitude for the three guys who proved their friendship and took care of me when they would, I'm sure, have much rather been enjoying themselves with the rest of the party. I don't know if I will ever have an opportunity to show them a kindness on a similar level, but I will forever be indebted to them for taking care of me. <3 those guys so much!

On a lighter note, this week should prove to be entertaining and interesting, as classes get into full swing. As school gets busier, it'll mean my social life simplifies, which will be nice. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend part of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and see the movie "Cloverfield". CPAC was lots of fun, very interesting speakers and panels. For anyone familiar with the Washington D.C. metro system, the green line is not a place you want to be after dark. "Cloverfield" was not worth $8.50 of my money. It wasn't a terrible movie, but it wasn't all that great either. It was a mildly interesting way to kill and hour and half. I recommend either seeing it at a time with a discounted rate, or waiting until it comes out on DVD, or catching it at some small town theatre that only charges a few dollars for a movie. I know at a Loewe's theatre near my family's house, they only charge $5 for any movie you see on Sunday mornings before 12pm. My friends and I did this after church one day and got a great movie for a good price. More money for popcorn :)

So that's pretty much it for now. Now to go make something of my day and actually get some work done.
Peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: Don't ask your friend for directions to the nearest train station when they have been drinking, even if they swear they're just buzzed. This will result in wandering around the city for a good hour or so, until you wind up in a not so great area of town.

follow up on "a time to mourn"

2008-01-25T01:40:00.000-05:00

updates:
Heath Ledger: call me an absolute sap, but what I will miss the most about Heath Ledger is his adorable smile. It was one of those where you just can't help but smile too. Investigations are pointing more towards his death being accidental, which is not surprising, considering that some of the prescriptions given him carry a side effect of breathing issues that can be dangerous when you fall asleep. He may very well have gone to sleep and never woken up. Sad...

my arm: went to the doctor on weds, he didn't say a word about physical therapy, praise Jesus! I was thrilled. He wants me to still wear the sling sometimes for another two weeks, so that'll be when i'm around my room and such. walking around to classes etc is dificil with only one usable arm. Speaking of classes...

school: classes resume monday, it will be good to be back. I'm looking forward to almost all my classes, and not particularly dreading any of them. Now I just need my books to arrive.

politics: Thompson and Kucinich have dropped out, narrowing the field on both sides. The democrats are spouting "change" without any real plan to make it happen and the republicans can't find one candidate who embodies all their values. I love politics...(sarcasm but in truth I really do love politics)

my life: I really do like my life. It has its ups and downs and frustrations which havn't been solved but I really do have a great life. God is good.

peace y'all

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson #2 for the week: driving 48 mph past a speed camera in a 35 mph zone will cost you $40 in these parts of town. I learned this from my parents today :)

A time to mourn

2008-01-23T01:47:00.000-05:00

Well today (or yesterday by this time) was a sad day. It was the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in the Roe vs. Wade case to allow the deaths of millions of unborn children. Since January 22, 1973, 48 million unborn babies have been aborted, their lives casually tossed aside and ended with hardly a second thought. This my friends is murder. No matter your political position, this is beyond politics. Abortion is murder. Life begins at conception. As much as Ron Paul may be a nut job, I think he summed it up well when addressing the pro-life rally today in Washington D.C. "When I was in medical school, I was taught that when I am treating a pregnant woman, I am dealing with two lives, that of the mother and her child." Women are being lied to everyday, and being told that abortion is their best option when in reality it's not. Today in America, the notion of slavery is unthinkable. 150 years ago, it was the hot button issue in the political world. I pray that it does not take 100 years to overturn this genocide that is a blot on our nation today. I pray that America's leaders would have courage to stand up and fight for justice for those who cannot speak for themselves. I pray that each and every state in the United States of America would not only continue to uphold partial birth abortion laws, but completely outlaw any and all forms of this genocide that has infected our nation. When I get taxes taken out of my paycheck, it makes me sick to think that some of those taxes are going to support organizations like Planned Parenthood. We need to stand up and educate the world. A fetus is not just a blob of tissue, or an undefinable mass of cells. It is a living human being from the moment it is conceived. We as a younger generation need to stand up and take responsibility. We need to stop letting the feminists and morally liberal activists tell a woman that she has the "right" to discard another human life. Like slavery today, abortion should be unthinkable, beyond a political debate. It is murder. Since 1973, 48 million children have been denied their constitutional right to Life. We make such a big deal over what, if any, constitutional benefits should be allowed to illegal immigrants, while everyday thousands of children don't even have a chance to take their first constitutionally protected breath. It sickens me that a country which prides itself on equality and justice everyday denies life to thousands of potential citizens, simply because they are an inconvenience to someone. I'll be damned if I let this continue without a fight. Today in our nation's captial, 400,000 people from around the continental US came to rally, walk, chant, and sing, and show the world that we're not giving up until something is done to reverse this awful tradgedy.

On the evening news, the pro-life rally and march got a total of maybe 15 seconds mention. The death of actor Heath Ledger got a full 3 minutes. Now I am mourning this loss as much as any other female age 14-30 around the world. However, it says something about our nation's priorities when the death of a superstar gets featured all over the cable tv and a rally for the lives of the innocent is touched on as an obligatory side note. God have mercy on our nation.

Now if you all will excuse me, I need to go download (yay ruckus) A Knight's Tale, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, possibly Brokeback Mountain (not sure I can stomach that one, but I may try) and sit and wait for this summer's premiere of the new batman movie. I think Heath Ledger's untimely death further proves that celebrities should not be allowed to have pills unless they are administered in the proper dosage by a doctor. *Sigh* of all people to die, why Heath Ledger? Why so young? What a waste of talent, potential, and good looks. Hollywood will not be the same without him.

In closing, I'm still praying for patience, and an attention span. I need to get back to school so I have something on which to foucus my mind. The elbow area has healed quite nicely so far, I have at least 90% of my total range of motion back just since last monday and it gets better every day, praise God. I go to the doctor tomorrow, hopefully he'll have good news for me.

Peace y'all

P. S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: running on icy 5 day old snow in shoes with no traction is a recipe for disaster, or at least a good bruise.

winter break and other such stories

2008-01-16T00:18:00.000-05:00

contemplations on patience...
I love irony. I love finding it in everyday life, and observing it in others' lives. It's one of my simple amusements. Recently I came across a rather glaring point of irony in my own life, though not so amusing. It had to do with patience, my constant preaching thereon, and my general lack thereof. I often find myself telling my friends to "just be patient", or what my best friend usually hears, "patience is a virtue". Yet I have discovered that despite my own frustrations with the general impatience of the "I want it now" generation, I myself often succumb to the same impatience. Now I'm generally not your openly rebellious type. I prefer to find subtler, more creative ways to flout the system. (note: the term "sparkling water" can be applied to a variety of clear liquids generally prohibited in the high school hallways) However, I also happen to have a very independent streak about me. Granted I'm not afraid to ask for help if I really need it, but I'll do my damndest to accomplish it on my own before I even consider asking for help. Recently, my physical independence has been challenged with the onset of a dislocated elbow. Being confined to a splint and sling for three days nearly drove me crazy, as did having to get help with basic tasks like cutting food, washing my hair, and any buttons that came above my stomach. God, when I asked for help with patience, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind. On the plus side, I progressed rather well in learning to type with one hand. Today was my first full day without the splint, although I am still supposed to keep my arm in the sling for most of the day and exercise it within the sling. I am exceedingly grateful that so far, it has healed very well and I have about 70% of my range of motion back. Now, if I obey the doctor, and keep it in the sling for the next two weeks (blah) I will greatly decrease my likelihood of needing physical therapy. Needless to say, PT is time consuming and expensive, I have no way to get there (unless I want to take a public bus through the inner city around school...not so much) and my parents and I are not the least bit interested in fighting with the insurance company. Back to my original point: I'm still confined to the sling, and even if I'm being bad and taking it out of the sling, I still don't have all my range of motion back. I am still confronted with those uncomfortable, oft painful moments of "ohhhhh wow my arm does not bend that way just yet". So I'm once again forced to be patient. God works in mysterious ways...

Another exercise in patience is people.

The people at work, who show up five minutes before their scheduled time slot, order non precooked food, and then get upset because you are not filling their order fast enough. Why don't you bloody well try showing up before your time slot, or if you really insist on showing up at the last minute, don't order food that takes 10 minutes to cook and then act like we're at fault for not being quick enough to fill your order or print your ticket.
The part time employee who decides that they are the special exception to the "you close, you clean and restock" rule. Which then doubles my work because little miss sunshine decided to go home early and skip the last few chores at work. A pox upon you!

Friends who don't act like friends, and seem to think that they can go on about their merry lives without a care while you sit around wondering what the hell is going on. Meanwhile you're left to stew, torn between a) wanting to hunt them down and elaborate quite fiercely on just what you think of their behaviour, b) sitting around hoping and praying it's just a phase, and it will all work itself out in time, or c) throwing your hands up and saying "to devil with you" and walking away, shaking the dirt from your shoes as you do. granted those who started that trend had more justification for it than I do, but it was for similar reasons.

Question: (which bear is better?) Why is it that none of the above options seem to work for me? Answer: (not black bears) becuase a) will only make matters worse, b) seems to be unfair in the sense that the opposing party is therefore stripped of any accountability, and I'm slowly stripped of my patience, and c) is just plain impossible for me to do. I can't walk away from someone who was once and hopefully still is a good friend. That's another one of my problems, I care about people too much. Some would argue that this is a good quality, but it often leads to frustration. Although option a) is very tempting, I know it won't help anything, but a twist on it may: polite confrontation. There comes a time when even I have to establish that I'm done being nice, and done sitting idly by hoping things will work themselves out. Time for me to say "let's talk about this, and establish what friendship means".

Contemplations on varying emotional responses: I've often discovered that frustration and anger, when directed at people, are often a result and/or a cover for hurt. We get angry and frustrated with people when they fail to meet our expectations. The more justified we feel these expectations are, the stronger our frustrations and anger tend to grow. If we're fortunate, we have a healthy outlet for this frustration and anger (mine is writing, can you tell?) and it dissipates, if only temporarily. What remains after you finish venting to your teddybear, or your journal, or your best friend, or the air? Heartache, to some degree. The pain of knowing someone you care about has let you down. Most of the time, getting hurt is a choice. If you let someone hurt you, that then gives them the upper hand. Everytime you care about someone, and let them be a part of your life, you take the chance that they will hurt you, because we are all human, and ultimately fail each other at some point or another. Yet it's no use trying to live your life keeping everyone at a safe distance. Trust me, I've tried it. Face it: we need others in our lives, even if it's only a select few. Getting hurt is a part of life, because we live in a fallen world. I have a friend who laugh and point out my cynicism here, but it's reality. So what then? Live with the ever repeating cycle of hurt-frustration-anger-venting-hurt? For many people, yes. As for me, I've learned that this is not healthy or productive. As difficult as it may seem, the best option is to forgive and move on. Clear the air, if at all possible, and resolve any misunderstandings. Forgiveness is not easy. Forgiveness does not mean it hurts any less. Forgiveness does not mean everything is all of the sudden forgotten. Forgiveness means moving beyond the frustration and anger, not going through life staying mad at someone. The hurt may lessen with time, or it may always be there. Ultimately the choice is ours: to use energy and thoughts holding on to anger and frustration, or to let go, and move on. As for me, I've found that there's much more peace in my life when I choose to ask God to help me forgive.

After all that deep, pyschological, emotional crap, I'll wrap up with a movie recommendation.
"Music and Lyrics" : Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore. Chick Flick. Romantic Comedy. Predictable, but not boring. Entertaining. Cute. Moral of the story: all teenage girls are romantics at heart, even if they are sex-obsessed, philosophically confused pop stars.

In closing: Don't stop believing, there's always something more :)
peace y'all...

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: make sure your hands are thoroughly cleansed of powdered cleaning chemicals before attempting to lick the soup off your fingers.

it's one of those days...

2008-01-07T13:41:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer...this post is gonna be me bitching about the crap in my life. If you don't want to read a downer post, don't read this.
So I just found out my best friend and I don't have aligning spring breaks. which sucks bigtime. why? because number one our schools are a thousand miles apart as it is. number two, her family is moving 5 states away from our hometown come summer. Neither of us is too excited about the prospect of not seeing each other until after school lets out. That's four and a half months from now and we've never been apart that long. Not cool. Now I get to totally reconfigure my plans for spring break. Damnit.
The weather outside is gorgeous and feels more like may than January. I should be enjoying it, but all I can think about is how its not helping any of the nearby ski venues make snow. I want to go skiing and I want snow! It's the middle of freaking January! arrrggh. Well maybe the freakish weather will bring more people to work so I can have something to do instead of getting paid to stand around and do absolutely nothing.
I don't go back to school for another three weeks but I'm already bored being home. Yes I love my family and the relaxing pace of being home and having my own room and bathroom. Unfourtunately, my siblings are back in school, my dad is back to work and my mom has resumed her daily schedule. So that leaves me to beg my friends to get me out of the house on the days I'm not working. Thank God for work otherwise I'd probably go stir crazy.
As I write this I'm laying on my wonderful queen sized bed listening to country radio. Even country music is grating on me somewhat, due to my rather pissy mood. Sadness...country is my favourite.
On a brighter note...I had the oppourtunity to see Trans Siberian Orchestra in concert last night. I love seeing them live, their shows are always spectacular. This one was definitely worth the money, which wasn't overly expensive considering the quality seating position I managed to obtain. Another plus in my trying-not-to-waste-a-good-day-bitching life is that I obtained clearance for a dance class next semester that I had really been hoping to get. Clearance also obtained with very little redtape, unusual for my school.
Well I'm going to go try and make the best of what remains of my day by indulging in some comfort food and seeing if I can't get out of the house tonite. Maybe I'll even go read a book in the sunshine and escape to someone else's world and problems. Peace y'all...

P.S. Common sense life lesson for the week: don't put your belongings on the floor at a concert when the people surrounding you are eagerly consuming cheap beer. French Designer purse+cheap beer+dirty arena floor=not good! *Sigh*

some not so emo musings

2007-12-30T01:17:00.000-05:00

Recently I've come to the conclusion that I am spoiled. Very spoiled. Not just in that I've never wanted for anything, but that for the most part, when I want something or want my way about something I get it. This is true of my home life and alot of my social life. Not precisely sure why. Thankfully it hasn't rotted me too much...yet. I pray it doesn't. My only guess as to why I am spoiled is that I'm generally not the demanding type. Growing up at home I was (I've been told) the "easy" child, for the most part. I got good grades, I had good friends, I didn't get in trouble at school, I didn't cause too much trouble at home. Around friends, I'm not the one asserting my own way or making my wants a priority. I'm nobody's floor mat, but I'll just watch things to see how they develop before asserting a definite opinion. I've got somewhat of a reputation as a good girl, although anyone who knows me well will tell you there's more to me than the sweet angel I present. Some people have yet to be convinced of this, not quite sure why...(I'm not really an angel, I just act like one). So why do I think I'm so spoiled? The times I've cared about something enough to assert my desire or wanted my own way about something badly enough to do something about it, I've gotten it. With few exceptions, and those being minor, this is a repeating pattern throughout my life. My pride would tell me its my reward for being the good girl (in public). My more realistic little grey cells would tell me it's God's grace I don't deserve. My cynicism would tell me it's a setup for future trials. So what's the real truth? Most likely a combination of all three. I spotted this spoilage in my life when I was considering how much of my own desires and wanting my own way to assert in a...situation...I have going on right now. The thought "I want this to go my way and I get what I want" crossed my mind, and I thought, is this true? I started thinking...yes, actually, it is. Thankfully I figured out that asserting my own way in this situation is going to get me nowhere. I'm rather glad I've picked up on this fact, because it helps to explain why I'm so good at getting favors and privileges in life with little manipulation. Granted I have no fear of manipulation when it's necessary, and I can be quite good at it, if I feel it's needed. That comes from being female. Manipulation to get my own way is something that must not be overused. That will get old fast, and people won't trust your motives. Thankfully I've learned this by watching other people, and not through personal experience. It can be fun once in a while, but it must be used ever so cautiously. So that's that for now. Happy New Year to all, may God bless you and your loved ones in the coming year.

p.s. common sense life lesson for the week: don't leave sugar snap peas out of the refrigerator for two days, they tend to get deformed and taste a bit...off. A bit of re-refrigeration can cure it a bit, but only so much. Yeah...that's up there with the ravioli can...

Life is a Rollercoaster

2007-12-23T23:03:00.000-05:00

My life is never predictable. Most of the time I enjoy this, but sometimes there are days where I wish I knew what was going to become of it all. I analogize life to a rollercoaster becuase it is constantly moving, up and down, twists and turns, and upside down. At times it makes you wonder: who am I, what am I doing here, and which way is up and out of this mess we call life? I've learned in the past few months that college can cause alot of those moments, as can the drama of life. Though the two are often related, they aren't necessarily. So what's the point of this little rambling about the confusion of life? Two things: first and most important, although life is constantly changing, God is faithful and will often be the only thing that makes sense amidst all those "how did this become my life?" moments. Second, to share something I wrote a little over a month ago. I write alot when I'm feeling like I can't really explain feelings in plain conversation. I had been feeling sad and frustrated about a friendship that seemed, and still seems, fated to be anything but normal. We seem to fluctuate weekly between the polar opposites of friendship: really close, or barely speaking at all. (I'm hoping to get this figured out soon). The strange thing was that I have now turned this into a song-in-progress. Normally I don't put my writings to music, although I suppose in a way it makes sense since both writing and music are things that "connect", if you will, in my life. There's a bit of irony in it all, as the tune that seemed to attach itself to the song is rather light by itself, whereas the words are more introspective and nostalgic.

Written 11/16/2007

My world is brighter than the sunshine whenever you're around
Your smile can light my darkest hour
Your voice can still my restless heart
When I'm in your arms I know everything will be alright
You're all I want; You're all I need
You're all I want, but now you're gone...

I can't see your smile
I can't touch your face
I can't hear your voice
Telling me I'll be ok
It's time to move on
I've got to be strong
All I've got is Jesus now
I know He'll catch me when I fall

The first half is the first "verse" and the second half is the "chorus" I guess. I have some scraps of a second "verse" rattling around in my head, they'll probably start coming together in the next few days. Meanwhile, I've got to finish wrapping Christmas presents, so that's all for tonight. I'll leave you all with this: "And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field watching over their flock through the night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone all around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the city of David, a Saviour is born who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths laying in a manger." And suddenly there was a multitude of angels with the first angel praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest. Peace and good will to those on earth with whom He is pleased!" ~Luke 2: 8-14~ Merry Christmas y'all!

Welcome to my world

2007-12-22T05:10:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all,
Thanks for taking time to get inside my head. This isn't so much a blog of everyday life as it is a place to dump my thoughts and rants when life hits me the wrong way. Alot of it will tend towards emo-ness, but hopefully some of it will be happier thoughts. I am trying to write more in happier moods, although most of my writing is born of trials or emotions. A little bit about me: I'm generally a happy person, I've got more blessings that I can count. I do my best to live my life worthy of Jesus my Saviour. I have an amazing family and some great friends. I love music, and relating my life to country music songs (scary accurate summations at times), I love to read, I'm obsessed with the color purple, and I'm always hungry. So that's the short version of me. Welcome to my world :)