Friday, August 28, 2009

Exercises in Futility?

Goals are important for me. I think they're important for everyone.

Everyone needs to have something to work toward. I hate change, but change in the sense of personal betterment is a different thing entirely.

Stagnation is an absolute killer. In stagnation is where we meet complacency. I'm pretty staunchly against complacency. I'm against it because it is both boring and dangerous.

I think that complacency leads to an underlying desire to never change. And when we don't change, we stop learning. Which ultimately leads to ignorance. And I refuse to be ignorant...about anything. Politics, philosophy, religion, life, anything...there should always be a desire to learn, change, and grow from learning from and about these things (and so much more).

And so, for the next 15 weeks, I am choosing to learn from the last several years of my life (as respects my schedule v. school) and change my patterns of behavior.

I am terrible about keeping in contact with people. I see people on Facebook from when I lived in Canada (a year that, without question, ranks highly on the list of Best Years of My Life) that I just never talk to. I find that disturbing and even more so when I find that all of those people are still talking to each other and yet I am so uninvolved in their lives. These are people that I shared one of the most important years of my life with and I am in constant contact with NONE of them. And of my year in Minnesota (that ranks highest on the list of Worst Years of My Life), I am in constant contact with exactly ONE of those people. I may have hated every second that I was there, but there are at least a handful of people that I connected with dearly and just don't talk to anymore. It's strange.

And as my life continues this progression of...life, I find that I have fewer friends than ever before, but the ones that I have, I count as precious. Yet at the same time I say that, I also have to reprimand myself a little bit for not making more time to cultivate those relationships. I cannot remember the last time *I* called someone else to catch up, hang out, anything.

The next 15 weeks will be an exercise that hopefully will not end in futility. I intend to spend time with at least one girl friend at least one time each week, regardless of day or time.

Additionally, this is an exercise in creating free time for myself. Something that I have been historically bad at doing.

Here goes nothin'....

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Just watched "the" texting and driving PSA from europe...i feel ill...and will not be texting whilst driving ever again. That was horrible.
Goals for this semester: get nothing lower than a B in any class; hang out with at least one girl friend one day/night per week; and keep the house less cluttered

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Britney Show

Most of you know that back in April 2009, four of my friends and I descended up on Las Vegas for the Britney Spear Circus Tour (at the MGM Grand Garden Arena). Holy hell, did we have a ton of fun! It was the first of what will be MANY "Girls Trips" ... woo hoo!

As is my way with many concerts, I enjoy dressing up in that concert's theme. For example, when Laura and I went to the Madonna show, we were pretty 80s-tastic about it. For the Poison/Cinderella show, we white-trashed it up a bit. For the Godsmack show, I was in knee-high Doc Martens and a short leather dress. You get the idea.

So for the Britney show, we all decided to find a Britney costume from one of her videos or appearances and wear that to the show.

Here were the final choices:


From left to right, here are the original Britney costumes (I think we did rather well, considering our meager budgets!):


Laura as Womanizer Britney (the waitress):




















Micah as Slave 4 U Britney (VMAs):
















Steph as Me Against The Music Britney:





















Nikki as Womanizer Britney (the secretary):

















Chandra as Piece of Me Britney:

















This was, without a doubt, one of the most fun shows I have EVER been to and I was so glad that I got to go with such a fantastic group of girls (who also indulged my desire to dress up for shows...what great sports they are)! It should be noted that my costume is the primary reason I started my insane quest to lose weight and get back in shape (Weight Watchers, running, and Jillian Michaels...I think it worked out all right)...

One of the best parts of the weekend happened as we were walking out of our hotel to the show when "old man winter" about fell off his damn barstool watching us walk by! HILARITY! The girls also enforced the rule that at some point in the night, I was to walk in front of them while talking to myself so as to appear....nuts. It happened. We laughed.

Most ironic part of the weekend was when we walked outside our hotel on the way to the show and some random guy just happened to have a GIANT ASS SNAKE for people to touch, feel, hold, whatever. How ironic that I was dressed in THAT outfit and this guy has a snake. Weird. It seemed a bit too coincidental not to at least hold the thing...which I was terrified of doing, but did anyway (with a bit of coercion and help from the snake's owner):

(yes, I was as scared as I look)

All in all, one hell of a show, one hell of a trip, one hell of a group of friends.
What next???

Monday, August 24, 2009

Late August musings....

I feel like I haven't blogged in a really long time. That's probably not true, but that's what it feels like.

A brief update:
We went to Alaska during the first week of August...it was way hotter there than expected. Who goes to AK and expects to have 80*F+? Not me! We had a really good time and kind of want to go back. That's the problem with traveling...you always want to re-visit the places you've been, but there are so many other places you haven't been to yet! All said, we'll probably head back to Victoria, BC in the near-ish future to drink more local beer and generally hang out in Canada again (since we love it there).

My fall semester is in full swing, although it hardly feels like it. I've been a bit of a slacker this week and really need to quit doing that so that I don't fall behind. I'm glad to be taking upper-division classes again. Last semester was painful and rather boring with all the freshman level classes. Gross. My work load appears that it will be quite a bit less than in the summer, but more attention to detail and research will be required, which I'm fine with. I have exactly 4 assignments in one of my classes. Nice. Just show up to class, participate, and write quality papers and I'm home free. Why is it that my upper-div classes seem easier than the lower? Probably because they're courses I care about and am interested in, rather than just hum-drum crap that I *have* to do, per the university's requirements. I can dig it.

What I really can't believe is that summer is over. Frankly, I don't think it ever showed up. I can count on one hand the days we had temps at 90*F or higher. That's a crummy summer, if you ask me. However, we did a lot of really fun things so if the temps are all the kept me down, it's not that bad. I would have liked to spend more afternoons at the pool, in any case.

As a brief aside, I love to eat.

Thank God for Weight Watchers and Jillian Michaels!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Choosing to think positively....

The other day at work, I realized that I'd made a mistake and I beat myself up really hard about it. Really hard. Like I always do. Because apparently, for me, it's never okay to make a mistake, but for anyone else, it's totally acceptable, understandable, even expected. I just never allow myself the chance to be human and eff up from time to time.

But this mistake, as with other issues that have arisen in the last several months (most of the NOT my fault, but I have to deal with the backlash of them), I am learning heavily from and it's working well. I have a giant sticky note on my monitor with several "positive thinking" statements:

I AM good at my job.

I NO LONGER make stupid mistakes.

I NO LONGER get frustrated at things I can't control.

I CAN slow down and time the time to do it right the first time.

I have been living by these mantras for about a week now and they are really helping. I am coming to the realization that shit happens and sometimes I cause it and sometimes I don't. But regardless, it's not okay to beat myself up and it is okay to recognize that every single person in my office (and in the world) makes mistakes and it's okay....just so long as I don't do it again and learn from it.

It's not like this happens every day, so that's the good news. I wouldn't have a job if it did. I am human, after all.

Epic fail, ABC....Epic fail

Dancing With The Stars just announced the celebs for the new season:

Donny Osmond - singer / entertainer
Mya - singer
Macy Gray - singer
Aaron Carter - singer
Tom Delay - former senator
Melissa Joan Hart - actor
Debi Mazar - actor
Ashley Hamilton - actor
Joanna Krupa - model
Kathy Ireland - model
Kelly Osbourne - reality star
Mark Dacascos - reality star (Iron Chef chairman)
Chuck Liddell - mixed martial artist
Louie Vito - pro snowboarder
Natalie Coughlin - Olympic swimmer
Michael Irvin - former Cowboys wide receiver

Epic fail, ABC. I'm looking forward to Osmond, Mya, Carter, Hart, and Ireland. Ix-nay on the rest. Booooooo....good thing I still have So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew. Sigh.

My DWTS list would include the following:
Robin Roberts - Good Morning America anchor
Raven Symone - actor
Kevin from the Backstreet Boys
Melanie Chisholm - Sporty Spice
Joel McHale - comedian
Chelsea Handler - comedienne
Debbie Harry - singer
Kat Von D - reality star
Eric McCormack - actor
Shirley MacLaine - actor
Benji Madden - singer
Donnie Wahlberg - actor/singer
Marcus Schenkenberg - model
Phil Keoghan - host of The Amazing Race

Wishful thinking, at best.

Monday, August 10, 2009

I hate coming back to work after vacation.

Today was a miserable day. I kind of can't even believe it. I got next to no sleep due, in large part, to screaming children at all hours of the night. Sigh.

Coming back to work after vacation is horrible, we all know this. But today was especially horrifying. Without any effort, I was made to feel like an incompetent boob. So that's fun. I really hate that feeling...like I'm somehow the worst ever at my job and that I have no business being there in the first place. Sometimes, it's very very hard being the youngest (by a long shot) person on my team with the least amount of experience. I try really hard to do the best that I can, but sometimes, it's really easy to make me feel like a total moron.

This is incredibly vague and I'm aware of that. Just know that work was total shit today.

There is a redeeming factor to today however.

I came home this evening to find Todd making my all-time favorite dinner he's ever made me. WHAT!?!?? That's usually reserved for date nights and only after I've requested it several bajillion times in one day...it's a really hard dish to make so for him to make it on a MONDAY no less was very very special and surprising!

I'm a lucky girl.