The Scratching Post

My Life as a Grad Student's Wife

2011-04-10T11:01:00.002-05:00

In the year and a half since posting on this, life has changed quite a bit.

TJ is finishing his 2nd year of his biology PhD track (with no official end date in sight), and I've been working at the same dental office for 3 years now (thank God the economy didn't lead to downsizing in my office).

Lately I've been struggling with my role in our relationship as the bread-winner (or sugar momma), and organizer of our home and general finances. My computer battery is about to shut down so I'll add more about this later, but I found another blog that pretty well sums up the whole idea (as linked at the top).

More to come later

Make new friends, but keep the old...

2009-10-20T17:49:00.003-05:00

With my husband finally getting himself busy with school lately, I've found myself a bit lonely over the past couple of weeks, which has me reminiscing about friends I've lost touch with over the years.
Today while browsing Facebook, I noticed that my freshman year roommate got married. I can't remember if I invited her to my wedding, but I feel bad that we lost touch over these years. She was a great roommate (certainly put up with a lot of drama as my now husband and I went through a shaky start to our relationship that year), and a wonderful person. A group of us went on a road trip to visit her in Ohio one summer, and had a really good bonding experience. We would've remained roommates through Sophomore year, but we thought we were each going to become RAs, and RAs could not be roomates. Neither of us got the position, but by that point it was too late to partner up again for a room. We lost touch not long after that, although we were friendly in passing. Such is the case with most of my college friends. Those who were closest to me during my Junior and Senior years have slid out of touch a bit too. The last time I saw them was my own wedding 2 1/2 years ago, which is also how long it's been since speaking to a couple.

I think of this while realizing how hard it is to make new friends after school. I will say I have 2 great friends who happen to live in my building, but convenience aside, I feel like I'm repelling all others. I'm working at an office with very few people my age or in my position. There are two receptionists around my age who I'd be happy hanging out with, but one has turned down every offer I've made to do so, and the other is new, and I just found out is the boss' daughter. Apparently they went out for drinks together recently. They both live near me, too. I wonder if I'm giving off a "don't invite me" vibe or something. One person who used to work in our office hung out with me, but she was really needy and a little crazy. I'd like to think I don't only attract crazies...

Conflicted

2009-10-09T19:09:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling a bit conflicted lately about a few things.

For starters, our parking spot, while heavily discounted at $40 a month (the rest of the neighborhood ranges from $125-150 per month), it is a mile away from our place, blocked into a driveway by the home's owner. We've been fine with that cost and playing musical-cars each time we need to drive (which is about once a month), but now the owner has informed us that, come January, he wants to raise the rent and add another car behind us. That seems a bit ridiculous.
So now the conflict becomes: do we: a) suck it up and pay and put up with the 2nd car behind us; b) sell the car and put the money away for when we do need one later in life; or c) wait for next year, then try to find an apartment that has parking included in the rent?

That leads to the next conflict; Do we look for another apartment? Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods is hell when it comes to searching for apartments. You find a gem online, only to find it's already been rented, then you're dragged around to a bunch of crapholes by some undergrad who doesn't give a damn about what you said you want in a place. And when you quickly settle on something, (because in this town, if you don't decide within that evening whether you want it or not, it WILL be rented out from under you), you owe the douchebag a full month's rent as a "fee" for his 20 minutes he spent with you. Mind you, rent around here ranges from $1200-$1600 or so a month.

We really do love our place, but for the $1525 a month we're paying, I feel we're at the top dime for what we're getting. We have heat/hot water included, as well as a washer/dryer in-unit, but there is no parking, nor is there a dishwasher, and this is a one-bedroom we're paying that much for. I'm curious if there is something that has all that for a comparable price in our neighborhood... I'm terrified of inadvertently downgrading, or being stuck with another landlady from hell like our first apartment had. (You know the movie "Duplex"? That upstairs old lady neighbor was our landlady, accent and crazy included.)

I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I'm between stages. I'm still a twenty-something, which generally means fashionista styles, and getting away with some shorter skirts, lower tops, and higher heels than most older women should wear. On the other hand, I have a professional career in an East-coast city where conservative dress is what is appropriate if you want to be taken seriously and looked at as successful. This probably also stems from an episode in high school where someone I thought was my friend started telling people I was getting slutty because I wore wide-strap tank tops to school (you couldn't even see cleavage), which followed with "looks" from people and one episode of what I'll call "inappropriate touching" by a male classmate. I fear that if I don't project the conservative, professional image out here, that I'll be looked at as a slut and not taken seriously.
It doesn't help that my work attire consists of comfortable scrubs that I'm too tired to change out of until bedtime, but I digress. How do I find the balance between having fun with fashion, while not looking like a stuffy old conservative hag or a fashionista slut?

It is fun to get to dress well, though. Any time I go back to the midwest, I almost feel accosted for wearing a nice, well-made, brand name coat, or dress, or shoes; I get looked at as if I regard myself as better than everyone else just because I'm in fancy clothes.

Someone once said to me "The clothes you choose are like your uniform: when you see someone in a police uniform, you assume they're a police-person, right? Same goes with scrubs (someone in the medical profession), or a suit (business person). Sure, call it a stereotype, but the majority of people who are in these types of clothes are in that type of profession. So if someone dresses in a short skirt and plunging neckline, why are they so shocked when someone mistakes them for a stereotypical slut?" -I can't remember who said this, but it was a man.

Between Plymouth Rock and a Midwest Place

2009-02-15T21:43:00.002-06:00

TJ is transferring schools. BC's biology program has all but failed; its senior faculty is doing nothing to help out its junior faculty thus leading to the failure of all of the faculty in mentoring its students. Long story short, he's applied to 5 schools: 2 in the midwest and 3 in MA. We're now down to 2 in MA and 1 in the midwest that we're waiting to hear from. For me it's 50/50 for which I'd prefer. I enjoy my job here and would be sad to leave it, but being in a health related field, I'd probably be able to find a job if we move without too much of a problem, even in this economy.

If we stay here, I earn more and can pay off my student loans faster, but we don't have family here and what we're paying in rent takes away most of the extra earnings.

If we go back to the midwest, we can own a house, be closer to family, and move on to the next phase in our life if we so choose. The downside would be missing the conveniences we have here, plus with the lower income and need to buy/maintain a second car and maintenance and all the associated costs of owning a home, things would be tighter financially while paying off student loans in the meantime.

I'm completely torn. We should find out by Easter (April 12th), where our future lies, but the wait is killing me.

5 years

2008-12-19T20:51:00.002-06:00

This past September marks the five year anniversary of my father's passing. It didn't really hit me until now. Another Christmas without him being genuinely happy about receiving a flannel shirt or new socks, curiously looking on as we open our gifts "from mom & dad", that dad has no idea what it contains. So much has happened in these past 5 years.

I wonder what he would say about all of it if he was here for it; graduating college, moving away to Boston, getting married, graduating hygiene school, landing my first job, mom moving from the house we all lived in... I do miss him a lot.

He's baaaaaaaack!

2008-10-03T07:33:00.003-05:00

10 days was the perfect amount of time for TJ to be gone; I got to take over the home and enjoy my independence, and just started really missing him by the day he got back. Ok, I really missed him the whole time, but it was nice to come home at the end of a long work day and do what I needed at home without the distraction of Metroid being played on the main TV, while the Brewers/Packers/insert random-WI-sport-here gamecast was blaring from the computer in the other room.

I didn't find a cure for cancer or anything, but I was rather productive:
1. Framed, prepared, and mounted our wedding pictures on the wall in our room. (Yes, it has been a year and 2 months since the wedding). It was a big project, actually took me 2 days to complete.

2. Did dishes on a daily basis and laundry a couple of times. Hey, it counts that I did the regular stuff too!

3. Learned how to play the intro to Handlebars by the Flobots on my violin.

4. Ate a lot healthier, exercised, and lost 6 pounds. (Note: since he got home, I have gained 4 of them back already).

5. Started going to church again. It was nice to finally find a church near us that isn't full of old, creepy people like the one where we did our pre-marital counseling course. (If you're not sure what I'm referring to, ask me about the giggling man at that church next time you see me.) I'll be bringing him with me to our new church this Sunday.

It's a weird adjustment getting used to having him back, though. I had put myself on a good routine, and got so used to doing things my way, that I was a bit annoyed to see all my work be reversed back. I'm adjusting, but I have put forth some new ground rules to keep the peace.
Regardless of the changes and adjustments, it's good to have him home.

Husband-less day #1

2008-09-19T15:40:00.003-05:00

With TJ visiting Wisconsin for the next 10 days, I no longer return home from work to a bustling home filled with the sound of Metroid being played on the Wii. Although I do miss him, I did notice a certain quietness and lack of distraction in the air. I decided to take advantage of this and figure out my finances.

I am now a registered Dental Hygienist at a practice on a high-end street in downtown Boston. It's nice to finally have income and be rid of the studying for endless tests. Along with the lack of school and gain in income come A: student loan repayments, and B: the thought that I should start investing for retirement.

I pursued objective A by calling the loan company to set up my repayment schedule for when that fun part starts in November. After speaking with the friendly person in India fielding my call, I came to the horrible realization that my private loans (the ones with the ginormous amounts of money borrowed) are not the nice, fixed rate I thought they were when I casually checked them a few months ago; they are variable. Oh Sh*t. Fortunately, the economy sucks in my favor right now and is keeping the rate cheaper than my fixed stafford loan interest. This will become interesting in the next few months as Bush tries to F--- with our corporate and financial systems.

Objective B left me nearly cross-eyed. I called TJ's dad (who used to be an economics professor) to ask him his opinion on things. It's all a blur from there, something about different types of funds and other little details that I've never cared enough to look in to. All I know is that I want to invest in a Roth IRA.
I didn't realize there were funds within that fund that need to be picked, or what they mean or stand for, or that different companies charge different fees and have different specific funds within those funds, etc. etc. I thought it was as simple as opening up a savings account. "I'd like to open up a Roth IRA, thanks!" In, out, and done, check the balance in 40 years and notice that it grew enough to sustain me 'til death.

I have now decided to leave both objectives alone until I can gain my sanity back. Day 1 has been quite a downer, and I need to spend this alone time doing positive activities & being a little more selfish around the house, such as having the TV remote all to myself, to watch my worthless sitcoms without hearing "why do you watch this crap?" commentary coming from my other half (who I ask the same question when he then proceeds to watch sports every waking hour). I'll also be able to make & eat what I want for supper (such as a large bowl of cereal, or a giant salad) without feeling the pressure to actually cook something. I need to focus on the half-full part of the glass, and maybe add a little rum to it...

Virgins of the World Unite

2008-03-21T17:07:00.003-05:00

While on my usual morning commute to school, I noticed there was an unusually excessive amount of nerds on the train. I soon realized that they were all on a pilgrimage to the anime expo being held in Boston this weekend. Apparently over 11,000 Dungeons and Dragons addicts turned out for the event last year. Of this number, I'd approximate that the number of women in attendance totaled about 4. This wonderful piece of Conan O'Brien segment came to mind when I read that this expo included a "masquerade." God help Boston this weekend.

Work Hard, Play Hard

2008-02-13T19:02:00.004-06:00

I realized today that I must be a sadist. Play Hard has taken an unfortunate and depressing back seat to Work Hard lately and I don't know how to fix it.

I mean, really, who takes on full time school and 3 jobs at once, while trying to balance home life and any kind of a social one to boot? My decision to drop down to a 3/4 time student with 2 jobs didn't help anything either. What did I do with all that extra time? Filled it up with Job #2 and studying, that's what. It's gotten to the point where I was grateful that my externship boss was sick today so I could take the afternoon and do homework for 4 straight hours.

It wasn't always this way. In high school, I was the girl who got A's on the tests without studying. Most of the time that would mean they were some kind of brainiac or at least someone with a good GPA and her pick of colleges. For me, it meant I felt like homework didn't need to be completed and turned in, because I figured an A on tests meant I understood the material. Besides, I was having too much fun on the volleyball team and in choir and working on my figure-skating career. This worked well for tests but didn't translate well for the report-card. There was one time where my parents became so concerned about my report-card grades that they were trying to figure out if I had a learning disability and needed medication. I did my homework that quarter just to disprove that theory, then went right back to my lazy ways.

That followed me straight through most of undergrad (with the exception of the infamous Junior year crisis) until I got to hygiene school. Somewhere between "my world is crashing down around me" and "hey, look! We're moving to Boston," I decided to get my act together. Perhaps a fresh time zone translated to a new beginning, but I like to think that I could finally see the paycheck at the end of the whistle. Unfortunately for me, I became more lopsided on the "work hard" than the "play hard" aspect of things, so much that the play hard moments are extremely few and far between nowadays, and mostly really happen when my husband's friends decide to get together, as the few friends I have around here don't really like to call to do much with me. One girl I go to school with actually said to someone that she doesn't know how I ended up with my husband, as he's so laid back, fun-loving and calm, and I'm...well, she basically called me the opposite; leaning towards my hubby as having the more favorable characteristics. Ouch.
If they could only see how I was back in undergrad, they would eat those words and then some. I'll leave the details out of that one.

conflict of emotions

2007-10-21T22:43:00.000-05:00

Things are going quite well lately;
I accepted a job offer for a dental assisting position at Harvard,
I was asked to model in our bridal salon's fashion show at a country club in the Back Bay area,
I was asked to be a tutor for first year-clinical students (what I was last year) at school, along with only 5 other classmates, because a faculty member recommended us as high-achieving candidates,
We had a good turnout for our housewarming party last night, and it seemed like everyone had a good time,
and I had the whole weekend off to prepare for last night and today was gorgeous outside!

So why am I so melancholy?

back off, bitch

2007-10-14T00:09:00.000-05:00

To desperate, single women everywhere:
If you see a ring on his left finger, leave him the hell alone. And above all, don't flirt with the man in front of his wife. Also, when the dog at the party licks your hand, don't proceed to then wipe off said hand on the wife's pant leg. NOT COOL, BITCH.

the times, they are a'changin'

2007-08-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

I don't know if anyone even still reads this, nor do I really care. I need a place to vent and I'm turning to my long lost blog.
Actually it's not really venting, more of an update:
Although extremely stressed, I am happy.
I work in an upscale bridal salon in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Boston. I've got a husband who, although he has a mild addiction to video games, is a good husband and I love him very much. I go to school at one of the top dental hygiene schools in the country and am sitting on the Dean's List for the second semester in a row out of the 2 semesters I've done there so far. I moved to a great place in an even better neighborhood than the "Creepy old landlady upstairs is always watching us" apartment was. I am applying to dental schools for the third time in four years, and I just found out that they officially were sent to the schools yesterday.

*GULP*

At the end of this process, I will be one of two cliches: 3rd time's the charm, or 3 strikes I'm out. I hope it's the former and not the latter, but I'm not getting my hopes up too far this time. This allows me to be indifferent if I get 6 rejection letters again, and stunned/really really excited if I get accepted. I have more good points under my belt this round, so I've got some things going for me this time that makes me a different and better applicant than the first couple of attempts. I just hope the admissions boards will see things the same way...

Random boredum update

2007-06-06T20:53:00.001-05:00

Watching Stanley Cup Playoffs and bored to tears. Want to poke eyeballs out with spoon.

Barely enough time to blink

2007-04-10T19:24:00.000-05:00

Things on my plate this month:
1. Finish school with really really good GPA or kiss dental school goodbye for good
2. Write personal statement for dental schools
3. Start applying for dental schools; round up all my transcripts (from 4 different schools), DAT scores, letters of rec, go cross eyed trying to chase it all down...
4. Squeeze in enough time out of the next 2 weeks to finish 1 patient in clinic and go from start to finish on another with enough room to finish 5 competencies in the process
5. Come up with directions, a "we blocked hotels off here" card, address, and stamp 120 wedding invitations
6. Buy plane tickets so groom I can make it to aforementioned wedding
7. Look at apartments to allow us to move out of current apartment that contains meddling, crazy landlady over our heads (literally, she lives in the floor above us)
8. Work as many hours as I can to stay out of extreme poverty and move into really broke status

Oh and I think my birthday is in there somewhere too.

rare update moment

2007-03-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

Things have been pretty busy around here lately.
Last week, my future brother in law came to town to visit for a week. His flight in was supposed to be on the day before St. Patrick's day. You may remember this as being the big Nor'eastern blizzard that hit New England-day. Naturally, his flight got cancelled, but the airline wouldn't reschedule him a flight until Monday.

Our first St. Patrick's day in Boston wasn't anything for the record books (aside from the blizzard and navy crew member who lost his life in the harbor that night). We decided we didn't feel like paying an $80 cover to be packed like a sardine inside a bar full of people pretending to be irish. Last year's St. Patty's day for me involved heading over to a friend of a friend's house in Iowa to watch Boondock Saints and have a few green jello shots. This year involved getting bundled up like the kid brother in that old movie "A Christmas Story" just to walk across the street to play Cranium with our friends.

When Tj's brother finally got in on Monday, we had a pretty good week with him. We're trying to convince him to move out here, become our roommate, and attend an MBA program in town. He's pretty serious about it and is looking into internships now.

Other than that, I'm in the process of planning a bachelorette shower. Oh boy the possibilities with this one! I had things planned out and pretty well set, then the bridesmaids decided to tell me they couldn't make that weekend. I had asked them before what weekends worked for them, so after throwing a mini-tantrum, things worked out okay in the end. I was able to keep the plans as-are, and just shift everything down one weekend without any penalties for hotel day-swapping or anything.

Oh and in other news, I've decided to apply to dental schools this year. If 3rd time is not the charm, then I'm hanging up my drill for good and leaving it alone. I don't want to get my hopes up like I did last time, even though I probably have a better shot at it this round. One of my professors (a dentist) at school used to be on the admissions committee the entire time he taught at one of the dental schools I'm applying to. He has agreed to help me with my personal statement, and offered to write me a letter of recommendation if I do well in his class (oral pathology). So far I'm getting an A. As long as I do well on the final, which is cumulative and worth 40% of my grade, I'll have a pretty sweet deal.

In that case, with 3 weeks left to the semester, I better go study...

spring I-need-a-break

2007-03-07T15:43:00.000-06:00

It's spring break, which means I spend every waking hour that I would've been in class working on everything I couldn't accomplish because of it.

Two days ago we found two dressers on really good sale, so we picked them up. As the daughter of a carpenter, I was nominated to be the one to put in the elbow grease to construct said project. TJ's help involved holding pieces together long enough for me to get the screws in, then sitting on the couch watching TV as my moral support. We got the smaller of the two put together and then the next day, the bigger dresser was put together 100% by yours truly. TJ was at school so I popped in some classic rock and worked away to songs like Hotel California and Freebird. God I love the guitar solo from that song. When I was little my dad would be down at his work bench or out in the garage working on things with the classic rock station blaring. I like to think that when I do that too, he's smiling down on me. That is, until I drive a screw out the other side of the board and have to fix it by hiding it under some black electrical tape... Anyway, now we have 2 cheap, but nice looking, new dressers that I have all the bragging rights to their construction. The former tomboy in me is smiling.

When I'm not doing hard labor, I'm on the phone with various vendors planning our wedding. Ok I'm taking a nap on the couch watching crappy People's Court shows, but I eventually get around to wedding planning. We started our premarital counseling classes recently and our first assignment sounds like it will lead to interesting results. We each have to write a paper. The first paragraph we write about ourselves, the second is about our partner, and the third is how we think our partner sees us. TJ's immediate response to this was "Does 'stubborn' count?" Neither of us has actually started this assignment yet, but I'm extremely intrigued as to what he is going to say.
Our DJ is finally coming around and sounds like he'll actually have the type of music we want to hear, with enough of it to fit a 4 hour dance, and I'm 3/5 of the way done with finding out what my bridesmaids want done with hair/makeup to tell the nice ladies at the salon what to expect for us. My mom is finally ditching her jackass of a boyfriend too. Last I heard he's starting to date a new victim, yet he still continually calls my mother to go do stuff with him. The guy has serious issues. At least I don't have to deal with him at the wedding anymore :o)

That's all for now, I'll try to update this thing a little more here and there.

I was bored enough to fill it out, you're probably bored enough to read it...

2006-12-08T15:04:00.000-06:00

1. What is the last alcoholic beverage you drank?
chardonnay

2. Do you follow college football?
nope, but I pretend to be excited when Wisconsin wins, to make TJ happy

3. How many miles does your car have on it?
I don't have a car and I don't know how many TJ's does

4. Who was the last person to send you a text message?
TJ

5. Last time you went in a swimming in a pool?
A couple of weeks ago at my mom and aunt's hotel

6. Are you happy?
Yes. I'm stressed out because of my mom, wedding, and school, but overall I'm happy

7. Where was the last place you went shopping?
Shopping? Who has money to do that? I used TJ's money to buy our wedding favors on theknot.com a couple of days ago...

8. How do you feel about your hair?
Too thin, need more

9. Where do you work?
If you can call working once a month "work", then I am a dental assistant at a pediatric dental office

10. Last thing you ate?
birthday cake

11. Do you wish you were somewhere else right now?
yeah, I'm pretty freaking bored

12. Do you have any expensive jewelry?
See: my left ring finger

13. AIM or MSN?
I have both but mostly use AIM, if I'm ever around to use it

14. What classes are you taking?
Process of care I, Anatomy of the Head and Neck, Dental radiology, dental materials, Pre-clinic I, how to lose your sanity 101

15. How many hours on average do you work a week?
since I work once a month, I think that comes down to 2 hours per week?

16. Who do you like right now?
umm...TJ

17. Favorite MLB team?
I don't watch baseball

18. Did you watch the Olympics?
nope

19. Last bar you went to?
I ate at the bar at Vinny T's to avoid a 45 minute wait

20. Who was the last person to call you?
my sister

21. What's your sign?
Aries

22. Do you have a favorite number?
16

23. Last time you did volunteer work or made any donation.
I donated blood a few weeks ago

24.What do you spend the majority of your money on?
rent

25. Where does most of your family live?
My immediate family is in the midwest

26. Are you an only child or do you have siblings?
I have a sister

27. Would you consider yourself to be spoiled?
eh, I guess you could say that about some aspects of my life, but usually I've worked very very hard for what I have

28. Ever been called a bitch?
probably a few times here and there

29. Got any guilty pleasures?
Hi, my name is Cat, and I like cleaning teeth. I also watch Nip/Tuck occasionally

30. Do you drink beer?
I'm picky about my beer, it depends on the kind

31. whats bothering you at the moment?
Mom, wedding, school, crazy landlady, and it's cold outside

32. Did you ever collect Beanie Babies?
only when I got them as gifts

33. Ever ordered anything online?
Wedding veil, wedding favors for guests, and a transformer for TJ for Christmas a few years ago

34. Myspace or Facebook?
I like facebook better, but I'm bored and can fill out crap like this on myspace.

35. Do you have T-Mobile?
No, I haven't heard good things

36. What was your favorite subject?
Dental Materials lab

37. Do Drugs?
Never

38. Do you usually fall for the "bad boys"?
I heart my nerd

39. Were you an outcast in high school?
I'd like to think I wasn't

40. Last time you saw your parents?
I saw my mom a couple of weeks ago

41. Do you have any talents?
I can look into a really gross mouth without gagging...does that count?

42. Ever been in a wedding?
bridesmaid, reader, and as an acolyte with my sister a really long time ago

43. Do you have any children?
No, and don't be expecting me to be knocked up any time soon

44. Last movie you watched?
Love, Actually

45. Are you missing anyone at the moment?
I miss my puppy

46. Did you take a nap today?
Yep, that's what happens when the lights go out during powerpoint presentations in class

47. What was your high school's mascot?
something called an Old Abe. No, it's not Abraham Lincoln, it's a freaking eagle. Don't ask me how or why, it just is.

48. Ever been on a cruise?
nope

49. Favorite vacation spot?
Germany was pretty sweet

50. How many pets do you have?
1 cutest puppy ever

51. Do you have any wealthy friends?
A few

52. Ever met anyone famous before?
Not that I'm aware of...unless you count Esther Wilkins (she wrote our dental hygiene "bible", paid for our school building, and has an Esther Wilkins Day named after her here in Boston)

53. Favorite actress?
Not sure that I have one.

54. Are you multi-tasking right now?
Nope, focusing all my attention on this for some reason.

55. Could you handle being in the military?
I almost signed up once. Apparently, backing outta that was the smartest decision ever.

56. Are you hungry/thirsty?
thirsty, after this week at school I could use a good, stiff drink

57. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Fazoli's (it's an italian chain in the midwest, not sure if they have it anywhere else)

58. What is your average cell phone bill?
Not sure, mom pays for that.

59. Do you own a camera phone?
no, I'm still living in the stone ages and own a film-camera.

60. Ever had to take a sobriety test?
nope

61. Can you speak any other languages?
German and sign language (yes, it counts)

62. Last time you went to the gym or worked out?
I did a few crunches last night

63. Is missing
what the crap is this?!?

64. Do you have a photo hosting site that you use?
Again, I don't own any digital photography equipment. The closest I've come to this is our digital x-ray machines at school.

65. Last place you drove your car?
TJ let me drive his car when I wanted to order and pick up a pizza last night

66. What is your favorite color?
blue

67. Ever been to Las Vegas?
nope, but I watch a lot of CSI, so it's like I have, right?

68. Nicest Hotel you ever stayed in?
the Brock Plaza Hotel in Niagara Falls, Canada

69. What do you think is your best feature?
boobs seem to be a pretty handy asset to be sportin'

70. Have you ever been gambling?
I bought a scratch off lottery ticket when I turned 18, otherwise no

71. How old are your parents?
Just turned 48 today

72. When is the last time you updated your blog?
last week

73. Do you have your wisdom teeth?
nope, got those suckers yanked shortly before high school ended

74. Favorite place to be?
At home cuddling with TJ watching a movie. Yeah it's corny, shut up.

75. Have you been to New York City?
Yep, times square a couple of weeks ago to see Chicago on Broadway.

76. Favorite sit down restaurant?
I like Olive Garden food a lot, but I gotta vote for Mona Lisa's for this one. (TJ proposed to me in front of Mona's)

77. Ever been to Disney?
It's a small world after all...that ride never freaking ends!

78. Do you have a favorite cartoon character?
Stewie Griffin

79. Last time you "messed around" with someone?
Ummm...not sure you want to know, and I don't think TJ wants everyone to know...

80. Last thing you cooked?
Pasta and associated meat sauce. None of the above from scratch, but I had to use the stove!

81. How is the weather today?
Icy f**king hell

82. Do you e-mail?
who doesn't?

83. Last letter/piece of mail you received besides junk or a bill?
Aunt E told me my mom is back from her trip with Dick-less but is staying by his place tonight. *gag*

84. Favorite store?
Maurice's. If I could afford it, it would probably be Lord & Taylor or Nieman Marcus

85. Are you dating someone right now?
I'd say we're a little past the dating stage by now

86. Last voicemail you received?
Last night from a friend saying we could come over and order pizza.

87. Do you drunk dial?
It's one of my favorite pasttimes

88. Stupidest thing you ever did with your cell phone?
Lost it in a pile of leaves, then found it via the *crunch* sound when I stepped on it.

89. What is the best city in the state that you have live in?
Confusing question, but I really like living in Boston. If rent wasn't so freaking expensive...

90. Favorite band?
Too many to name

91. Last time you were sick?
Well I claimed sick to take a break from hellish classes a few weeks ago...otherwise it's been a long freaking time.

92. are you bored right now?
Am I filling this thing out right now?

93. Last concert you went to?
Storyhill in Harvard Square

94. Do you watch reality tv?
America's Next Top Model is oddly intriguing

95. what are your plans for tomorrow ?
sleep in until I can't take it anymore, then lie around the house for the rest of the day unless someone comes up with some going-out plans for tomorrow night.

Brain dump

2006-11-29T15:12:00.000-06:00

So seeing Chicago in New York was actually disappointing. I guess the movie ruined it for me. It was definitely a good experience to see a play on Broadway though, so I can't complain there.

School is going well. Most of the joy I'm getting out of this portion of the semester is the realization that we only have a week and a half left to it. It's been great and I've learned a lot, but trying to keep up with it is like trying to take a drink from a firehose.

My mother recently announced to me that while we're home for Christmas, she'd probably have Dick-less over a couple of nights and that I should be "old enough and mature enough to understand that." I called her back and pointed out the fact that I am old enough and mature enough to understand what "sleepover" means. As an already traumatized daughter (See: An Awkward Anal-ysis) I'd prefer to avoid hearing a 60 year old wrinkly man break a hip while trying to play hide the sausage - wait it's probably more like hide the tic-tac - with my mother. Although now that I think about it, it would be satisfying to hear him break a hip as a result of performing such an act. "squeakysqueakysqueakyCRACK OWWWWWWWWW!!!" Karma's a bitch, ain't it? I can only imagine the explanation at the emergency room. That would certainly put a stop to their inconsiderate nookie with me in the house.

Other than avoiding mom-drama, we'll be doing a lot of wedding planning. TJ's mom has found something we could make for bridesmaid gifts and we'll be making those while at his parents', and then we bought some invitations and can start using mom's printer ink to make those while home at my mom's.

Lots to do and little time to do it. Now that I've managed to distract myself away from the comptuer, i'm gonna go wander. Here's where I'll give you the opportunity to come up with things I should talk about in here. Leave comments and we'll see what kinda stuff we can get into!

Slow news day in kikat's life

2006-11-14T06:39:00.000-06:00

Well my mom and aunt came and went. Let's just say it was a bittersweet visit with my mom, a fun one with my aunt.
This weekend, TJ and I head down to New York to see Chicago...the musical...that seems weird to say without tacking on "the musical" to the end of it. Then, next week already, one of my best friends comes to visit! She'll be here for about 2.5 days, so I have to figure out what to squish into that time without running us ragged in the process. Oh and Thanksgiving is in the middle of that too. I'm praying to God I don't mess up the turkey (I have my aunt on speed dial for this one). Other than that, not much else new on this end.
Things are finally uneventful for a little bit!

Oh the places we'll go...

2006-11-02T06:38:00.000-06:00

This weekend, my mom and aunt are coming to visit Boston for a whole week. I'm really excited about things, although I've been getting extremely anal retentive about how our apartment looks, and I'm getting pretty stressed about how it's all gonna go down too. The anal retentive thing runs in our family, as my mom and aunt had requested a typed out itinerary of what we're gonna do with them while they're here. I'm actually okay with that, as it keeps things organized and straight in my mind. I'm figuring it's a pretty fluid thing too; even though stuff is listed for specific days, we can switch days on things too. I made my aunt promise to help me keep mom from being stuck on the phone crying over another guilt trip her boyfriend gives her. She's gonna be on vacation, the drama stays home in the midwest, plus I don't want to hear about it anymore. I've had the internal "I told you so" moment and I'm ready to just see them end it already. Next thing on the agenda is figuring out things to do with my sister and her boyfriend if/when they come out in January. Ideally they'd come out in the summer, but he's a farmer and the only time they really ever get a day off of work is in the dead middle of winter, and even then there are cows to be milked. They're tossing back and forth between Florida or Boston, so I've gotta come up with things that will make them choose cold, wintery Boston over a warm escape to Orlando. If anyone has any ideas on making that one happen, please leave comments! I would really like them to come, especially if they can spend their time here before I start classes again in the middle of January.

On another note, my school is offering a trip for $35 to go to New York and see the play Chicago on Broadway. I signed TJ and myself up immediately. I get to go to Broadway!!! I've never even been to New York, let alone to my favorite musical on Broadway of all places!!! AAAHHHH!!! Side note: I love the musical regardless of its name, it could be named LA and I'd still love it (TJ thinks it's just 'cause it's named Chicago and I used to live there are the only reasons why I love it). It's AWESOME! TJ said he wants to pay for it as my Christmas present, which is perfectly fine by me :o) We're planning on ringing in New Year's 2008 in Times Square, I'm really interested in seeing what St. Patty's day is like here in the Irish-rich city of Boston (I would love to see my crazy Irish landlady get blitzed), catch a few days during the summer at Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, and see what Maine is like in the fall. I love this coast!

We're getting so many exciting experiences out here, I wish I could afford to stay permanently. If you want an actual stand-alone house out here, it's at least $1,000,000 (and no, I didn't accidentally add another zero), and that's for a one bedroom small one. So it's really not feasible to stay and try to raise a family. If we moved back to the midwest, instead of a small one bed for that price, I could get a mansion. The obvious sacrifice here is that we lose the access to all this stuff, although with the money we save, we could take multiple trips back if we wanted to.

Well, back to the real world. Before Saturday when mom and aunt E. come, I have 2 tests, 1 presentation, 1 homework assignment, need to dust, sweep, and vacuum the apartment, put up storm window-plastic stuff, and try to find some nice decorations. Oh and not to forget cooking and baking a cake for my aunt's birthday that's Saturday. Wish me luck!

Whining and Dining

2006-10-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

Friday was our school's Harvest Ball, which is basically like prom for college. I used whatever dress that got sent to me by my mother in the most recent shipment and realized my incomplete shoe collection left me with flip-flops as the best matching footwear. I somehow managed to get dressed for the event while strange men painted our apartment. (Our landlady finally caved and decided to de-ghetto the interior of our place). TJ got home, got dressed, then we headed out for the event.

Now the Ball was held at the Fairmont Copley Plaza which is in downtown Boston. This means you don't even think of driving unless you're suicidal or can afford the $20 minimum parking. TJ and Cat = taking public transportation. The glitch about this scenario is that it was raining and getting pretty chilly, with a 40 mph wind advisory on its way. On the 1/2 mile walk to the bus stop, I was forced to lift the back of my dress to mid-thigh level in order to avoid flip-flopping water and whatever other crap might be stuck to my sandal onto my dress. So here we are, dressed up and waiting for the bus in the cold rain, while I'm praying to God that the back of my legs don't look like a windshield that just drove through a bug storm. The bus itself was so humid that the windows were open, which created a slight problem when the rain decided to turn from drip to fire hose. We then had to transfer to the train which was packed like a can of sardines. Fortunately, that only lasted 2 stops which finally brought us to our destination.

If you click on the above link to the hotel, you'll see how amazing it looks inside. 600 tickets were sold out for this Ball and at $15 a pop, they definitely put the money to good use. We were first herded into a small room where white-gloved servers brought around appetizers of shrimp cocktail and other small goodies I couldn't tell you the name of. About 45 minutes later, we were allowed into the grand ballroom, and boy was it grand. We found a table with a few of my classmates and sat and enjoyed a fun game of "Oh my God, look at what she's wearing." We stopped playing when we discovered one of the fashion victims as one of our classmates. A lot of people were wearing dresses that seemed like the "how-to-wash" tag had more fabric than the dress itself. We quickly realized that this wasn't going to be the classy, pre-professional student gala we had expected. We lost count of the underage drunkards, and had already decided we weren't going to stay for the dancing.

The dinner itself made up for the price. Our first course was a wonderful lobster bisque, followed by a mediocre salad, which was then replaced by pear sorbet. I've heard of the first and third courses, but had never tried them previous to this. I had signed up TJ and I for the beef dinner, which turned out to be parmesan crusted filet mingon and then the fifth course finished off the best meal I've ever had with a pyramid-shaped chocolate cake sitting on top of a wafer, then the whole thing was covered in a soft chocolate shell. This has created an utter disappointment in every other food (short of a replica of this dinner) I will ever consume.

Our predictions were confirmed when the Sean Paul's Temperature started blasting through the speakers that this would be a hump-fest of the underaged drunkards. It seriously wouldn't surprise me if someone ended up pregnant just from dancing that night. Anyone who has ever been to 'Scoes in Decorah has witnessed what kind of grinding I'm referring to. We sat and watched for about half the song in a train-wreck, "can't look away" kind of gaze and decided to call it a night. Each guest was to take home a glass with "Harvest Ball 2006" etched into the side. Every other person had either a martini glass or a pilsner (I think that's the tall one) beer glass set in front of them. We grabbed two of each type, adding to our collection from the now vacant table next to ours (hey, they were in the middle of an upscale ballroom dry-humping to ghetto rap, we're not the rude ones here) and high-tailed it outta there.

So all in all, it was a bittersweet evening. We'll probably go to the spring one for the sheer entertainment of it all, and the food and free cups don't hurt either.

Well this is a downer...

2006-10-02T17:55:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, I don't know how, but somehow I managed to survive last week.
In the course of 4 days, we had 8 tests and quizzes, one of which the entire Dental Hygiene class of 2008 managed to bomb bigtime. Our program requires an overall grade of 73% in order to pass the class, anything below that is a fail. This basically means that if you want to shoot for bare minimum, you've gotta get 73% on everything you do. The class average on this puppy was 53%. We took failing to a whole new level that we're thinking of making it a sport. At least we all sucked on this one, it means it isn't necessarily our fault it went that bad, that's error on some other part too.
Last week was also the 3 year anniversary of my dad's death. One thing I've noticed over time is that you never really get over it, you just get used to it. Unless you're my mom of course, then you're over it as soon as you find the first penis that walks in the door that is nice to you. She's on a mission to get rid of my dog again. I might mention the fact that he's about 13 years old and probably only has about a year left to him. Unfortunately the woman doesn't have a heart enough to hang onto him for me. It's not like she can't afford it, and it seemed like things were going well there for a while; the neighbors were checking in on him and helping take care of him, while he gets to stay in familiar territory and not die early from the trauma of moving to a new home. He's not to the point where he should be put down either. He's able to walk alright, and although he's slow at stairs, he's able to manage them, and isn't even in pain.
On top of that, our landlady is still being a major pain in the ass. We have reason to believe that she looks through our mail, aside from the fact that there are things that need repairing around here that she never seems to get around to. One of her many excuses was that she hasn't had much time since she just got her floor redone. Not our problem. We've contacted the realtor that found us this place and she's gonna talk to some higher-ups tomorrow morning and help us out with this. We really do love the apartment itself, we just wish it was under different management and that her nosy ass didn't live directly upstairs from us.

Flight fiasco

2006-09-21T06:54:00.000-05:00

So my "first time flying alone" flights last weekend turned into a nightmare. There was a domino effect of each plane being late, which in turn caused me to miss my last flight out of MN. On top of that, somewhere in between Logan and Detroit my cell phone decided to reprogram itself into thinking it's a verizon phone, thus rendering it completely useless. I was unable to call anyone, including Jonny T, who was supposed to be picking me up in Iowa an hour from my being grounded in MN, at 11:30pm central. The airline decided to put me up in a sleazy hotel in Bloomington, gave me $13 worth of food vouchers, and found me a flight for 10:30 the next morning. After waiting in line for 2 hours to locate my checked luggage so that I could have more than the airline "I screwed you over, so here's some travel shampoo and an oversized tshirt, good luck" bag, I found a payphone, frantically called Alltel and got my phone working again, then caught the shuttle they had arranged to get to the hotel.

On my shuttle bus ride back to the hotel, I was the only person in the van, so the van driver decided to strike up conversation with me. At this point I was cranky, trying to call everyone I could with my newly recussitated phone, and didn't like the way the looked at me when he helped me put my bag in the van. I decided to be polite and answer the guy's typical questions with a simple "Boston," "My flight was misconnected," "Iowa," and then mistakenly mentioned the food voucher the airline gave me. I told him because I thought he might know how one uses said voucher, and later thought it would've been a better idea to just ask the front desk guy. The van driver (roughly in his early 30's) invited himself to share my voucher with me and give me some company. Yeah. I was thisclose to just leaning over and punching him hardcore in the balls, but I refrained and gracefully said, "thank you but no," and didn't speak to him again. When we finally got to the hotel, I wearily checked in and locked myself in my room. I splurged the food voucher on a salad, diet pop, water, and a piece of cheesecake to counteract the healthy stuff (and to utuilize as a little comfort food) and got my stuff ready for the next morning. I had been up since 6:20 eastern, which means 5:20 central time, and finally had my head uncomfortably meet the pillow in MN at 2:00am.

The next morning I got up and completely ready for the day. I even flew in the dress I was wearing to the wedding. Fortunately this puddle-hopper flight went off without a hitch and I even had the whole seat-row to myself. After giving a huge sigh of relief to finally see Jonny T, we were back in a car for a 3 hour drive to the wedding. The wedding festivities went well, although I don't remember much of anything past the reception (and even some parts of that are fuzzy), but it was good to see the 6th north crew again.
On my way home, I connected through MN again and had a (planned) 3 hour layover, so I got a chance to see Megan and go out for dinner. Seeing my friends like that again made this whole fiasco completely worth it, I miss them a lot. Of course, my flight from MN to Logan ended up landing an hour late, so TJ (who met me at the airport in Logan to help me get home) and I weren't able to catch public transportation which ends at midnight (I finally got my bags by about 11:59), and were stuck shelling out $35 for a cab.

For this trip, I used a free voucher that I got from volunteering to be bumped from a Northwest Airlines flight last January. Flying Northwest with 2 connecting flights in the middle was worth every penny I spent on it...

worthless.

playing musical-airports

2006-09-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

I've officially survived through week 3 of school and came out somewhat alive on the other end.
I can't wait for tonight to roll around; I'm heading back to the central time zone for a wedding and to hang out with the 6th north crew. First thing's first, I'm hoping I can make it there all in one piece and that my checked-in luggage follows suit. I cashed in my free flight voucher for this weekend and in order to stay within the $300 range it allowed me, I have to bounce through 3 states in order to get to my final destination. Between Detroit, Minneapolis, and finally Iowa, I pray to God everything runs smoothly. I've never had problems with luggage getting lost before, but I've never played musical-airports like this before either. I also have to get from plane A to plane B in under a half hour at each place. Cue track meet start-gun here. I've scanned the restricted items list and am a little confused as to why I can't bring a pinky finger-sized tube of Carmex, but I'm allowed to sport a 4 inch long screwdriver onto the plane. Really, in their natural, unaltered form, which one's gonna be more of a problem? Like I'm gonna moisten their lips to death or something. I do understand that they're worried I might have stuffed something more dangerous into the pin sized hole of the tube, but this just seems a bit excessive.
Anyway, I leave in about an hour and still have some things to take care of before I go. Please pray to the airline gods for me on this one...

2 for 1 special on blog updates this weekend

2006-09-09T22:51:00.000-05:00

We managed to accomplish as little as humanly possible today.
We rescued our friend and former housemate (he still lives at the hole we escaped from 2 weeks ago) yesterday and had him test out our new airbed by crashing in our unfurnished dining room last night. We weren't exactly partying, we were just too lazy to drive him home after each having a drink. Today was no exception. I got up and made omelets for everyone, then we basically sat and watched football all day. We did manage to get outside this evening, I picked up some pictures, then we picked up a pizza (again, we were too lazy to cook, do you sense a pattern here?). When we got back, we discovered our neighbors across the street having a party. One of the tenants wandered out of their yard, pointed at us, and invited us over for a bit. We gave the polite "yeah, we'll try to stop by" wave and smile and went in to eat our pizza. TJ and I decided to wander over to check it out and meet the neighbors, especially if they're planning on throwing more wicked parties like they appeared to be doing at the moment. Will (former housemate) stayed back at our place to finish watching another college football game, so TJ and I meandered across the road for a peek. These guys soundproofed their garage and made it into a party pad. They had darts and beer pong set up with the stereo speakers turned up (although you couldn't tell how loud they actually were until you got to the doorway). The two guys who each occupied a floor of the 2-family home introduced themselves, handed us a cup for free (redeeming the $6-each-beers we had to pay for in the bars last weekend) and pointed us to the nearest keg. Everyone apparently knew everyone else at the party, so we were the only unknowns there. When we got introduced to one of the tenant's sister, we made sure to state loudly that we just moved in across the street, in order to avert the confused "are they crashing our party?" looks from the other party-goers. We stood there in the middle of the back yard, feeling as awkward as someone who wakes up next to an unknown after a one night stand, struggling to remember the names of the two guys who actually lived there and coming up with nothing. We waited long enough to hear other people, drunk enough to speak without realizing they were shouting, say the names of the two guys, then gracefully thanked them for their welcoming beer kegger invite and meandered home. Our entire time there added up to only about 10 minutes, but we figured that was enough for one night. Now we sit, all 3 of us (we're still too lazy to drive Will home tonight, and remedied that by having him sleep over again) watching taped episodes of Avatar and drifting off to sleep, listening to the party rage on across the street without us.
Tomorrow we get to experience the exciting adventure of finding a laundromat and doing our overdue, heaping pile of laundry.

Funny how the "I'm too tired to get out and do anything fun and exciting" sets in so quickly after a rigorous first week at a new school...

By popular request, I have decided to sit down and finally update.

2006-09-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

I have been so busy this past week, I haven't even had downtime to obsessively check away messages of random people I don't really know on my AIM list.

School has started and is in full swing, and by swing, I mean complete and utter disorganization and minor chaos. For a school that has been described to me by several people as "the Harvard of dental hygiene schools," it leaves something to be desired on the level of having things in order. I do have to give them credit for the fact that the dental hygiene degree credentials are always changing, and this particular school had done some recent "housecleaning" in terms of letting go of their dean and some other staff. I do really love it, though. Everything is state-of-the-art, they don't have any paper files, it's all computerized including digital x-rays, and each operatory has its own personal computer for quick and easy access of each patient's chart.
The faculty are extremely nice and are handling the shuffle quite gracefully. The books cost about a half a month's rent (and I do mean Boston-sized rent,) but are well worth it in the long run of things (or so they tell us). During orientation last week, they warned us of the rigor and difficulty of this program and emphasized the importance of keeping up with the material. So far, I have found things to be quite breezy. I also went to a college that was basically a prep school for going on to med/dental/grad schools, and have a 4-year head start with the basics of dental assisting, so I'm primed for the beginning of this to be review. I am learning new things, but unlike those who don't have a dental background, I don't have to learn the basics on top of it.

Other than school, things are going well. Like I mentioned in my last post, we're completely moved into our apartment, and our landlady is doing her duties to fix things around here. We get a brand new dishwasher next week and she even asked us what color we'd prefer! The girl that lived here before us used screws to put pictures up on the walls and then yanked them all straight out when she moved, so we have gouge holes all over the apartment. Our landlady is hiring someone to fix that and paint a couple of rooms in here too, all we have to do is tell the guy what colors we'd like them to paint. I finally get to live in a place that doesn't look like a hospital on the inside, woo hoo for non-white wall colors!!!
My sister and I have grown closer as well. I feel like we finally have a sisterly relationship where we can turn to each for advice on things, respecting and appreciating each other's different experiences in various aspects of life. She and her boyfriend might come out to visit in January, and I'm already excited and starting to pick out places to show them while they're here (if they are able to come).
Mom is still mom. She's put her mission of trying to get rid of my dog on hold, but is still being the same old inconsiderate person in regards to imposing her boyfriend on my life and wedding scenarios. I'm sure there's someone out there who will show her fun things in life and make her happy without pressuring her to cut all ties with any strings she might have (i.e. a job she likes, her daughters and extended family, her house). The guy expects her to be there for him literally 24/7 and makes her feel like crap if she takes 2 hours out of the entire week to spend some time for herself, let alone hanging out with her family. I think she's been picking up on that issue lately too, I just hope she has enough self esteem to do something about it soon.

TJ has gotten into the groove of his grad school program, has been making some fun friends, and has been wined and dined like crazy in the process. We've been to about 4 school sponsored grill-out/free food and drink-type events since he started orientation during the last week in August. Last Thursday we got to go to Fenway Park for the Red Sox/White Sox game. We were able to get what are usually sold-out tickets for the game through his school. It was the coolest thing ever! Like usual, Boston lost with flair, but the experience of being inside the park was worth the home game humiliation.
Next weekend I get to use my free flight voucher and head to Iowa for a wedding. The guy we thought would be the last one outta any of our college group to get married turns out to be the first. This group is fun to celebrate with, so I'm extremely excited for the reunion. TJ wasn't able to come with for this one, so I'll have to do some celebrating for him, too.

Well that's about all I can think of for now, I'll try to remember to get to this if I can find a free minute!

3 day "hey we're excited about our new place-celebration"

2006-08-26T23:15:00.000-05:00

This has to be a quick one as it is a wee bit late here and I've had a few sips of Bacardi because of a game I'll explain in a sec.
We've moved into our new place and couldn't be happier. We've upgraded from 1 to 4 rooms, plus a bathroom that doesn't reek, and a bed that feels like we're sleeping on a cloud.
In the past 3 days (including this evening) we've been partying it up like VIPs. Thursday was our move-in day, which we were able to take a break from in order to head down to Cheers and partake in all you can eat free appetizers, as well as all you can drink free Harpoon beer. We were allowed into this "name on the list"- only fiesta because we signed up to be part of the friends of Harpoon, which is basically a beer fan club. We haven't eaten that well in months.
And then there was last night. Earlier this week, I started working at the dental office I was previously offered (and had to turn down b/c of being accepted into hygiene school) employment. Within an hour of my starting my first day of helping out, the new dentist handed me an invitation to an "Adios Summer" party she was throwing at her building. I was nervous/excited about it, wondering if it was gonna be a professional hob-knobbing or more of a laid back funfest. It was the latter and then some. There was free food of all sorts; chicken, steak, veggie, fruit, and cheese trays, shrimp cocktail, etc, and live music. There was also an open bar which was stocked bigtime including Grey Goose martini mix and whiskey by some company called Glenmorreit (sp?), pronounced Glen-more-aeeee or something along those lines. The denists of the office were there along with the wonderful woman who hired me to the job, and about 30 other people in this high-end apartment building. Everyone had a great time, I don't think we spent any downtime not talking to someone, it was a social mingling dreamland, plus I got some great advice about the field and learned that the people at the office like me and seemed interested in hiring me after I'm done with hygiene school. Boo yeah!
Tonight was a little more low key. Our friend and former housemate William came over and had some supper, then we watched Boondock Saints, excited that we actually recognized a lot of the panoramic scenes they cut to in the movie. Now for the explanation of the drunkenness for a 3rd night in a row. We decided to make a drinking game out of the movie, that we'd take a sip every time someone dropped the F-bomb. 20 minutes into the movie, we had already cleared 2 whole mugs full of Bacardi and Dew, and decided that maybe the F-bomb wasn't the greatest word to pick out for the drink trigger for this one. Maybe we should've stuck with their prayer or something used slightly less often. This brings me to now, excited to tell of my finally blooming social life (okay it's more like just this one weekend) and get to bed. After that movie, I feel like I am in need of some church redemption tomorrow. We'll see how easy waking up for that will be in the morning...

The sweet smell of...getting rid of the urine-stinking bathroom

2006-08-21T21:11:00.000-05:00

We finally get to move on Thursday!!!!!!!
We get to escape the urine-smelly bathroom, and the 3-story trek to the basement "kitchen" which I like to consider more of a dungeon/e-coli fest than a sanitary food prep spot. Oooh ooh, and the housemate that lives across the hall from us, who is always up until 3 in the morning inconsiderately loudly snapping his fingers and clapping his hands at random. It doesn't even have a rhythm, that I could put up with, this is sporatic hand-clapping and finger-snapping. For a while there I thought he might've had some kind of Parkinson's or something; Nope, he's just annoying. And another thing we won't miss: If anyone out there has seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in the opening scene, our main character heads down the stairs for breakfast only to smuck his head on the door frame at the bottom of the flight. TJ and I laughed our asses off when we saw that, only because it happens to us on a daily basis here. Our new place has high ceilings, we don't have to lose any more brain cells due to ceiling-concussions anymore. No, if we want to lose brain cells, we can willingly do it the old fashioned way by drinking them gone now!

I really love Boston. Last night, TJ and I went down to the Fenway area to see what the bustle is like right before a Red Sox/Yankees game. We found a spot at the Cask and Flagon's outdoor seating (right behind the Left Field Pesky's Pole), sat and ordered some poor excuses for fried cheese curds, and watched the crowd. Now we weren't inside the park, but it was still the coolest baseball experience I've ever had. Occasionally we'd see the rare Yankees fan walk by, one of which was brave enough to yell out "Go Yankees" and then proceeded to be booed by everyone in the vicinity for the rest of his walk into the park. Behind us was a 4 piece ragtime band which gave us some really cool soundtrack music to capture the mood of the pre-game. Last time we wandered past Fenway, we saw some Boston city police in kilts giving a bagpipe performance. There's something you don't see every day. We stayed there through the top of the first inning, about 20 giant LCD HDTVs on behind us inside the bar, and the actual game happening 100 feet in front of us. The lag time from the cameras gave us some suspense, as we could hear the roar of the crowd about 7 seconds before we'd actually see the excitement on the tvs. We hauled butt home as we noticed the monsoon rolling in, and made it back with only getting soaked through to the outer bones. It made me a little tired for my 6:30 wake up time for work, but it was well worth it. This is gonna be a fun 6 years!

A much needed rant

2006-08-13T14:36:00.001-05:00

I no longer have a mother, I only have Cindy, a selfish bitch who puts her brainwashing boyfriend before her own daughters' needs.
She refuses to understand why her asshole of a boyfriend doesn't deserve to sit up in the front pew (designated for family members) at my wedding. She yelled at me that I have to respect her wishes and that he WILL be accompanying her for my wedding. To that, I reminded her that as the one getting married, she should be respecting my wishes. We are, after all, paying for the majority of the wedding, therefore should have the say in things. She then threatened to no longer offer to pay for the reception food "if that's how we're gonna be about it." That's a direct quote. Okay, so she's holding the payment of the reception food over our heads as a ransom to throw her boyfriend around at us. Thanks, that's really what a real mother would do to her youngest daughter getting married.
When I requested that I be her priority during the month I'll be home for the wedding, as I will need her help in the final planning process while I'm home, she replied with "You're not going to be sabotaging my relationship just because you're getting married." That's also a direct quote. I brought that back up to her today saying that was very hurtful, and she didn't even say she's sorry or didn't mean it. I told her that if it was a situation of me needing help with flowers vs. Dick wanting her to go kayaking with him, I expect her to help me and tell him no. She didn't agree with me, she simply said that we (which to her means everyone but her (i.e. me)) should be cooperative in things. i.e. I have to put up with her shit again and she's probably going to choose Dickhead over me.

Bitch

A much needed rant

2006-08-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

I no longer have a mother, I only have Cindy, a selfish bitch who puts her brainwashing boyfriend before her own daughters' needs.
She refuses to understand why her asshole of a boyfriend doesn't deserve to sit up in the front pew (designated for family members) at my wedding. She yelled at me that I have to respect her wishes and that he WILL be accompanying her for my wedding. To that, I reminded her that as the one getting married, she should be respecting my wishes. We are, after all, paying for the majority of the wedding, therefore should have the say in things. She then threatened to no longer offer to pay for the reception food "if that's how we're gonna be about it." That's a direct quote.
When I requested that I be her priority during the month I'll be home for the wedding, as I will need her help in the final planning process while I'm home, she replied with "You're not going to be sabotaging my relationship just because you're getting married." That's also a direct quote. I brought that back up to her today saying that was very hurtful, and she didn't even say she's sorry or didn't mean it. I told her that if it was a situation of me needing help with flowers vs. Dick wanting her to go kayaking with him, I expect her to help me and tell him no. She didn't agree with me, she simply said that we (which to her means everyone but her (i.e. me)) should be cooperative in things. i.e. I have to put up with her shit again and she's probably going to choose Dickhead over me.

Bitch

Finally a second to relax

2006-08-12T12:15:00.000-05:00

So I've decided to turn down Restoration Hardware in favor of the bridal shop. The bridal place called me and said they will hire me...as soon as they hire a full time person first. So I'm in limbo waiting for that fateful phonecall allowing me to work there. They gave me their word that I will be offered the position as soon as they fill the full time spot though, so at least I have that one pending. It might even be better that I'm waiting for that one since I already need a weekend or two off in the beginning here to get started with school and go to Iowa for a couple of friends' wedding. I've also been hooked up with a few very good paying dental assisting hours, so that will also tide me over until the other one comes through.
Things have died down for the most part this week. TJ and I refinished a wooden kitchen table we bought for $60 (including 4 chairs) a little while ago. The sanding and stripping left us very sore today, but after 2 coats of stain and sealer, it's looking pretty darn good. We were a little heartbroken to discover that we could've bought a kitchen table with 2 chairs at Target for $40, but that one was half the size of ours, so we still feel okay about this one. While sanding the table yesterday, we opened the windows in TJ's car and turned on the radio for some working music. We must've had it on for about an hour at the most. We then jumped in to go get some tools and the thing wouldn't start; we had killed the battery. Fortunately, one of Boston's finest was sitting in his car out in front of the house, so we talked him into helping us jump the car. The officer was very hesitant at first and really didn't look like he wanted to do it. We coaxed him into it after about a minute of sweet and innocent pleading.
Today we're gonna try out a new burrito place we heard about last night called El Pelon Taqueria and then possibly attempt to brave the rush and buy some bedroom furniture. This weekend is a tax-free weekend in Massachusetts, its shopping frenzies rivaled only by the day after Thanksgiving-Christmas rush. It would be nice to save 5% off of a furniture purchase though. We're still debating this one. Other than that, it's a pretty low key weekend for us. Tomorrow we need to track down a Lutheran church in this catholic and jewish-dominant city...that's a scavenger hunt in and of itself...

We've been up to a few things...

2006-08-06T17:26:00.001-05:00

We've been busy lately!
After much deliberation, (and a lot of near-fall-asleeps in the middle of several mattress stores) we finally found a bed for our new place. I finished my summer class last week on a very good note, and have found myself in the middle of a potential-job confusion. I applied at several places for jobs, the first of which I was turned down for a simple host job. Then things turned around. I applied to Restoration Hardware, a wedding dress shop, and a seafood restaurant. I interveiwed with each, in that order, and then got the phone call of a lifetime. The dental office (which I previously turned down an offer from in order to start hygiene school this fall) offered for me to put in some part time hours with them. Yeah, I'd be an idiot to pass up on that one! Since this is a weekday/no weekend kind of job though, I doubt I'd be able to squeeze in enough hours to actually make enough to keep my head above water (although the pay and experience in those few hours will make it beyond worth it to put in the effort). This means I still need another job in order to be able to afford my wedding, etc.
So I got a job offer from RH yesterday and accepted it. I start training on Tuesday, but I really really would much rather work at the bridal shop. I have a second phone interview with the bridal one either tomorrow or Tuesday, and I'll call them tomorrow morning to try and get it then, possibly explaining that I would much rather work there and that I have a job offer. Hopefully that would lead to them telling me if I can turn down RH and expect to be hired there... I hope.
Job confusion aside, TJ and I have been having some fun hanging out with one of our housemates. He's from Philly and has enjoyed going out with us checking out the sites in town. Last night we had some drinks here and made our pilgramage to Harvard Square to check out the nightlife. Man does that beat 'Scoes from back in college! Our last and favorite stop was at a 3-story Irish pub around the corner from Harvard U. We had a great time (from what I can remember,) and are repeating the celebration in 2 weeks when the housemate's girlfriend comes out to visit. I'm used to eating Ranch sticks (also known as Topper's stix to my comrades back in WI) with ranch dressing after going out while in college, and being deprived of this has left me with a craving that I have yet to get rid of. TJ's sick of me talking about them already, but I will not rest until I find some form of replacement here.
This morning, after much water drinking, the three of us made our way down to Chinatown for some authentic Chinese food. No, not the americanized chicken fried rice type of food (which I still really like), but real, really really good chinese food that you'd actually find (and not get laughed at for asking for) if you travelled to China. It's 6:30 pm and I'm still stuffed and satisfied from our lunch at 1:30! The three of us also ate our stomachs out and it only cost us a total of $25.
We wandered to Boston Common to get a backstage tour of the Taming of the Shrew set from the Shakespeare in the Park thing they do every summer. TJ and I actually saw the play a couple of nights ago and it was pretty darn good. I didn't exactly know the storyline, and didn't put together the fact that the movie Ten Things I Hate About You is based off of that play. (Cue lightbulb above head flickering on here.)
Ok I'm gonna go on a hunt for some cheesy bread and ranch dressing now...

We've been up to a few things...

2006-08-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

Oops

2006-07-29T17:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I almost got us in trouble for the almost 2nd time for making a pizza in our room. TJ has this pizza Pizzazz thing that we just plugged in up here to cook a pizza a couple of days ago to avoid going down 3 floors just to do the same. The glitch with this laziness is the fact that our lease states that we are not allowed to cook anything in our room. So we're cooking this pizza in our room and the landlord comes in with his maintenance guy to fix the lightbulb in our closet. Fortunately for us, our landlord is about 120 years old and probably has never seen a Pizzazz before, so he didn't say a thing when he saw it. At least we think he saw it and didn't know. Yesterday, we had the a/c running, the fan, computer, tv, and light on, and then plugged in the Pizzazz. Insert blackout here. The entire 3rd floor went dark, the light switch for the staircase didn't even work. Oops... We quickly unplugged the culprit and hurried it downstairs, claiming we "got hungry and decided to cook a pizza while our power was out" to the landlord we ran into on the way down. He said in the entire time he's had people stay in the house, this has never ever happened. Oh great. We put on our innocent faces and gave him the "oh my, I have no idea how this happened" bit. Fortunately for us, it was pouring buckets outside and lightning like it was a Kiss concert outside, so we all figured it must've been a power surge from the lighting. He replaced the blown fuse with one twice as powerful and we learned our lesson for now...

Today TJ and I went downtown to look around at some places and potentially find me a job. We stopped by Restoration Hardware and I got myself an interview for next week (woo hoo!), and meandered around a bit. We found our way to the mall in the area which included such stores as Louis Vuitton, Coach, Armani, etc., as if we weren't feeling poor enough already. We made our way to a wedding dress store where I picked up another app, and decided to head home. We figured if we walked past Fenway to where the subway comes above ground, we could spare ourselves the $2.50 it would otherwise cost us for the return trip. Unfortunately for us, the Red Sox game was getting out at that very moment. We were doing pretty good, found our way to Comm Ave, and then the tsunami of people opened up. It was like being caught up in the opening scene of Fever Pitch, there were people everywhere in Sox gear. Eventually we swam through and made our way home, but we'll definitely check the ball game schedule next time we head near that neigborhood...

Exploring our surroundings

2006-07-23T12:29:00.000-05:00

We've done a few things since we moved here, but it feels like we've been sitting around watching Avatar more than anything.
Last weekend we walked the Freedom Trail and saw the cemetary where Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and other notable Revolutionary War guys are buried. Bunker Hill was apparently under construction, so we couldn't actually go into the area, which was annoying because we walked the 2 1/2 miles to get there for pretty much nothing. There were a lot of cool places along the way, of course, like the church that lit the "one if by land, 2 if by sea" lamps for Paul Revere's ride, etc. We'll have to go back again soon.
We've wandered the Harvard campus a few times now. It's definitely screaming prestige and intimidation (along with "I cost a cubic buttload for anyone to attend here"), but it's a neat place to hang around. Last time we were there, we sat on the steps of one of the buildings watching a huge crowd of Asian tourists, each and every one of them, take a picture with the statue of Harvard himself. You'd think a group picture would suffice... Across the campus from us was this guy feeding squirrels out of a bag he had on his hip. Those squirrels had the guy surrounded. Any normal person would freak out and flail like an idiot if a squirrel started climbing up their leg; this guy had them doing that and then eating out of his hand while they were claw-attached to his pant leg. I hope for his sake he was wearing a nut cup.
Oh, during that human-melting heat wave we had last week, we finally bought a window air conditioner. It is the best purchase I have ever made in my 23 years of existence on this earth. The windows in our room are too small to put it in, so we had to put it in the hallway and re-route the air around the corner into our room with the fan we found here. It's working so far, but we found out today that our landlord now wants to charge us $10 a month for having the thing. It's a b.s. charge that she never put in our lease contract, nor did she say anything about it when we asked her permission to buy it in the first place, so we legally are not bound to paying that.
Other than that, we're just wandering around trying to become familiar with the city while avoiding driving as much as humanly possible. We're curious, not suicidal.

Things I've learned since moving to Boston

2006-07-16T10:54:00.000-05:00

1. You can drive the way you always dreamed, traffic laws be damned. The cops pretty much only act as makeshift traffic lights by waving traffic through intersections, nobody ever really gets pulled over for anything.

2. Cabbies are the worst drivers ever. After getting past one that was swerving around in front of us, we came upon a red light. We proceeded to stop as needed when a completely different cabbie pulled up behind us and honked at us to go. At a red light. When there were cars stopped in front of us. We choose not to drive whenever possible.

3. The North End has the greatest food ever: Mike's pastries has this $3 cannoli that is worth every penny, and then this place down the street called Bella Vista has a $6 lasagna that's the size of your head. I'm not kidding, between the 2 foods (cheap oversized lazagna and expensive orgasmicly yummy cannoli), the price certainly evens out, and to taste authentic Italian food actually cooked by real Italians...let's just say I'm not missing Olive Garden in the least.

4. This is for my single friends out there: Never ever try to pick up guys in Quincy Market. I mean, unless you're into that whole circus-carnie thing and really dig a guy who's proudest moment is his ability to put his legs up behind his head. I guess they are flexible, if you're looking for a perk outta that.

5. Playing chicken with the green T line (trolley train system) is a bad idea. Just about everyone we've talked to says they've witnessed cars being hit by one.

6. Boston is a diabetic's worst nightmare and heaven to any stereotypical police officer. That's right, there's a Dunkin Donuts on every freaking street corner in the whole city and its surrounding suburbs. I bet it even outnumbers Starbucks 4 to 1. So much for the diet...

7. Living in a 3rd floor-converted-attic room in the middle of the summer is an extremely bad idea. Invest in fans and a big-ass air conditioner or you will wake up at 3:30 in the morning and feel like you're dying.

8. You can't turn on the news at night and not hear about someone being shot in Dorchester. I'm very glad we decided not to live there after all.

9. If you are standing in line at the grocery store and you absentmindedly back up into someone else's cart, it's their fault. We witnessed an argument as a result of an old woman who did that exact thing. It was clearly the old woman's fault, but she insisted on reaming out the woman behind her for "putting her cart so close behind." She was 2 whole feet behind her. I can see the crazy old woman driving this one to People's Court, so keep an eye out for that case.

10. When the street your on forks off in 2 different directions, you WILL end up taking the wrong road. No exceptions. Even if you go back and then take the other way, it will still be wrong. Try pausing to look at a map and you'll be honked at. You may as well give up and stay home.

Let the apartment hunt begin...and then come to a screeching halt

2006-07-11T19:50:00.000-05:00

On day 2 of our search, we found the perfect apartment:
http://boston.craigslist.org/abo/180003176.html
Make sure you click to look at the "to see more pictures" link.
Yes, those are granite countertops in the brand new kitchen, a marble bathtub, and the owner was even gonna throw in the decorations and plates you see in the breakfast bar picture.
We ended up not taking it. If you note the rent cost, we found out how much my loans will be and figured out that we couldn't afford it. We're definitely heartbroken about that, but we just can't afford something that nice quite yet. I told the owner that if it comes up for rent again 2 years from now to definitely give us a call, but at the moment it's just out of our reach.

We did find our new apartment today though:
http://boston.craigslist.org/fee/179972918.html
There's the link for it. It's a little fuzzy, the realtor got the lens wet before taking the pictures, but you get the idea. The description is in with the link. It's really cute and charming, and the neighborhood is great, very close to lots of little things to do. It's also a very friendly neighborhood, we had been told that the owner (who lives upstairs in the place, it's a 2-family one, not like a shared house space) knows everyone on the street. Cue the "Cheers" theme song here (Where everybody knows your name...) We met the owner too, and she seems really really nice. Rent is actually 1100 per month, since there are 2 of us renting (TJ and me), but that's good considering I talked her down from 1200 per month that she would've charged for there being 2 of us :o) Look ma, I can barter!

We get to move in at the end of August. I'm very excited to do so. Here's where I get to describe the place we're dwelling in now:
In my last post, I put quote marks around the word "apartment" for a reason; it's definitely not your traditional setup. We arrived to discover that our basement apartment, that we had come to understand it to be, was actually moved to the 3rd floor. By 3rd floor, I mean a renovated attic of a rather large house (I wouldn't hesitate too much to call it a mansion). It's actually a larger room than the other option for us in the basement, so I was happy to see the size upgrade. The downside to this happens to be the 86 degree days we've been having here, which translates to about 212 degrees in our attic oven-room. (Yes, I am aware that that temperature = boiling.) The devil would be quite comfortable here. The fact that we've had 2 windows open and a fan running 24/7 doesn't seem to do a darn thing. I wake up at 3:30 every morning sweating my ass off and can't get back to sleep.
We share this hell-turned-attic floor with another PhD student. He lives across the hall. In between our rooms is a bathroom that the 3 of us share. Aside from the constant smell of urine and lack of covering on the window that points at construction work/workers on the house behind us (makes for an interesting shower prep/dry off attempt), it's a decent looking bathroom.
Our kitchen is in the basement, so we have to run down 3 flights of stairs just to grab a pop. The owners didn't want us using their kitchen, so they set up a fridge, oven, microwave, and toaster (that has only a jagged metal stub for a handle to push the toast down, and the exposed handle doesn't stay down so you have to hold it there until your finger bleeds to make a poptart) for our usage. Can we say "pain in the ass?" On the bright side, it could lead to some toned thighs. I'm certainly thinking twice before running down to make my ramen, so weight loss certainly isn't out of the question.
I'm looking forward to our new place...

Adventures in moving

2006-07-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

We left on Thursday night at about 1o:30 to take the ferry across Lake Michigan. We boarded it, made our Titanic movie references while touring the massive ship, then found our tiny stateroom to try to get some sleep. The bathroom in this thing was the same size as those on an airplane, to give you an idea. After a sleepless night in our stateroom, we arrived 4 hours after departure to begin our 7 hour journey to Niagara Falls. Due to the freakishly early timing of our trip, we came across about 6 deer within the first 50 miles we drove.
Crossing through Canada was an interesting experience. It was certainly the quickest way to cut across to Boston, but with the amount of stuff we had packed into our little car, I was nervous about the border patrol potentially being suspicious that we might be smuggling something or someone of an illegal nature and make us unload the whole car to make sure. Fortunately, we came across as nice enough people that the Canadian border patrol guy just waved us through.
Niagara Falls was incredible. We forked out a little more than I would traditionally spend on a hotel room, but it was well worth it because it had a view of both the American and Horseshoe Falls. We arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm (Eastern time now, I've gotta start getting used to that), and were apparently early for our check in time. The woman behind the counter took a little longer than I would expect to check us in. I'm glad I didn't get impatient though, because the result of her lengthy efforts resulted in our being upgraded to a penthouse-level room on the top floor of the hotel, with a gorgeous, high view of both waterfalls, plus the room certainly looked upscale compared to any I've ever stayed in. I wonder if they might have thought we were on our honeymoon. I wasn't gonna correct them...
So getting into Canada was easy, the getting out part was a little more intimidating. The guard sitting there with his Homeland Security patch on, staring at the overstuffed back seat of our car had me praying to God he wouldn't make us unload it to prove we weren't terrorists. Of course, that went well and we got right through. I wonder if they actually document who goes through and their response to the "why are you here, how long are you staying?" questions.

8 more hours and we found our way to our summer sublease. I'll blog more about the details of this "apartment" later, for now we need to run the typical "just moved in and need stuff" errands. I already feel at home in this city.

And we start the countdown with 2 days to go...

2006-07-03T12:12:00.000-05:00

Here I am, technically homeless, sitting in TJ's family's basement, living out of boxes for the almost-week I've been here. I couldn't be happier.
I am finally able to spend more than 1 week a month on the same side of the planet as TJ. Well, sort of. His very traditional grandmother is in town for a family member's wedding last Friday. She disapproves of this marriage between his cousin and her fiance because they had been living together before the wedding. So, even though I'm staying with TJ while at his parents house here, as long as the grandmother is unable to make it upstairs to realize this, we're letting her believe that I'm staying down the hall in a separate room from her grandson. She hasn't asked where we'll each be "separately living in Boston" yet. I wasn't sure we'd be able to get away with having her believe we're both moving out there for school at the same exact time, with both of our stuff packed into only his car, heading to the same very expensive city...and then not living in the same place. As long as she doesn't ask, I'm not gonna try to explain that one.

So we leave on Wednesday night/Thursday morning (12:30 a.m.) on a ferry bound for Michigan, then drive to Niagara Falls for an overnight break from driving. I've never been to the Falls so I'm really excited for the mini-stop to see it. Then, on exactly one year - to the date- before our wedding, we move into our summer sublease in Boston. Other than that whole "being able to afford it" thing, this is gonna be great!

Look up Brar and B'daydas

2006-06-16T01:01:00.000-05:00

In honor of our moving to Boston, and as a reference for those of you who might come out to visit us someday, we have discovered an online glossary of Bostonian terms in their native pronunciation for your entertainment and education titled, "Wicked Good Guide to Boston English":
http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html

a party apart

2006-06-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Hello to all of you who have faithfully checked this and have been dissapointed for the past I don't know how long it's been since I updated.
Well, I'm moving to Boston in two weeks. We still don't know where we're gonna live, but we're working on it. I've managed to pack 5 boxes, 3 of which I'm actually bringing with me so far. It's amazing how much crap one can accumulate over the course of 11 years...
In a couple of weekends, I will be traveling to visit some of my college friends. I have been more than invited to go, as shown in what they've posted on their cluster blog:
..."GET YOUR ASSES HERE, and that includes you Cat."... and "Get all of your asses here, and that includes you Cat. GET YOUR SEXY ASS THE FUCK HERE.", then I asked for the address to mapquest it, but said I make no promises, and this was the reply I got: "Cat: (Address edited out) now that you have the info, I expect you here. no backing out on this one." followed up with, "Or you're gonna be voted off the island."
So more or less, It's strongly suggested that I go. I'm excited to get to see that group one last time before we move out. It'll be a good last hurrah. The problem with it is that a group of TJ's old clustermates and associates are coming here to say goodbye that same weekend. I really like those people too, but the cluster people are the ones I've hung out most with in my last year and a half of college, and I don't want to miss out on that last chance to see them. So TJ and I will each celebrate at our respective cluster shindigs and have a good time with no hard feelings from either party (no pun intended).

Go white boy go white boy go!

2006-05-25T00:34:00.000-05:00

I came across this during a boredom spell tonight, you've gotta watch this guy go:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/evolution-of-dance.html

simple pleasures...

2006-05-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

This has been a rather dull day. I went to class, came home, and did absolutely nothing from there on out. My only excitement came from my supper:
I was reheating some pizza and decided I wanted the garlic-butter-add-an-extra-buttcheek sauce for dipping my crust. We had an extra one from the box, and I looked at it to see if it had microwave instructions. It said clearly on the cover "Do not microwave."
So it's sitting there in the microwave for about the last 15 of the 40 seconds I put it in there for, when I hear this loud *POP* noise. Inside my microwave is a redneck 4th of July fireworks display, and then the butter-cover became engulfed in flames. It was the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. After some quick-thinking damage control involving stopping the microwave and blowing out the lid, I had my supper. Yes, my life is that boring here.

An Awkward Anal-ysis

2006-05-08T18:31:00.000-05:00

Last night, mom's boyfriend invited the two of us over for dinner and to watch Grey's Anatomy at his house. This would be my 2nd time at his place. As a background, I will describe to you my first experience there:

My mom had taken me out there a couple of weeks ago while he was away on a trip, just so I could see the place before being thrown into an awkward dinner situation. It was neat and tidy, and had quite a minimalistic decor. I couldn't find the bathroom to secretly search through the medicine cabinet, and now that I think about it, I'm glad I didn't. Finding Viagra or something related would've sent me to therapy for the rest of my life. I then scanned his book shelf and collection in his living room. There were a lot of intelligent books, mostly related to psychology, which was his profession before retirement, and then I saw the top shelf. About an arm-span length of books related to sex were staring back at me. These weren't Playboys or anything like that, no this guy's into the hard stuff: Tantric Sex, Group Sex, The Female Orgasm, The Female Clitoris, Kama Sutra, and other related titles were traumatizing me as I looked at that shelf. I asked my mom about the shelf and she just shrugged it off as him being a psychologist. I will point out to you that he was in no way a sex therapist, he was a university psychology professor. I figure mom is fine with it only because she's the one, ahem, "benefiting" from the sex shelf.

Fast forward to last night.
We apparently got there a little early, because as soon as we entered the house, we saw him standing there in a bathrobe that was long enough to barely cover his old-man dangly parts. Mom kept asking him to show her where things were in order to pour us all some wine, while I kept asking God to keep him from bending over. After making mom get rid of a pair of his underwear I found on the kitchen counter, I poured myself a very tall glass of wine.
After he finally put clothes on, we were sitting there in his "sex book room," as I affectionately call it, eating our pizza and watching Desperate Housewives, waiting for G.A. to start. Then he turns to my mother and says, "I made up a poem for you."
I was sitting there thinking, 'this could be nice' and then he informs us that it is about her upcoming colonoscopy (which he convinced her to get, by the way.) Why he came up with a poem about my mother's looming anal-probing, I don't know. I'm too horrified by the experience to recite it back to you word-for-word, but it started out calling my mom middle-aged, and had to do with the doctors putting her in "various positions" and finished off calling her butt cute. He recited it three times, just to get the wording right, after mom and I had told him twice to stop and tell her the rest after I was gone.
I start therapy next Tuesday.
I was ready to leave as soon as that recital happened, but last time I left to avoid confrontation (with Jim at Easter last year), my mom called me ignorant. I took large sips from my wine, sat through the longest Grey's Anatomy episode ever and high-tailed it out of there. The guy is nice, but the sex thing is just too creepy. It's as if the guy is 60 years old and still doesn't understand the meaning of the word "Inappropriate."
Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

Got bit by the happy bug

2006-05-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

Today while walking across the bridge from campus, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I'm sincerely happy.
At the moment, my mom is what I'll call "Dickless", meaning the boyfriend is away on a trip. I actually get to spend quality time with the woman for once, well at least until he comes back on Friday.
My dog has recovered from what looked like he was about to meet his maker last night. I took him for a very long walk and wore him out past what his 13 year old giant-dog body would let him do. I seriously thought he was dying last night, and then I wake up this morning to him licking my face with a wagging tail, ready to chase me up the stairs to breakfast.
I got another call from the manager of the dental office I'm looking to join in Boston. They're sending me a formal "office application" and as soon as they get it back, they want to do a phone interview with me. Her reasoning for this is that she wants to "maximize their time with me while I'm there at the end of May." I discovered that this "maximum time" means they want me there the whole day, from participating in the daily staff meeting before the work day begins, straight through their average work day to meet all the staff and get acquainted with the flow of the office. I'm thinking this is a good sign, right?
Aside from a small bump in the road regarding our Boston planning, TJ and I are doing great. I love that man and couldn't be prouder of him at the moment too; he just finished his last undergrad semester with all A's and graduates with his 2nd bachelor degree on Sunday. The bump in the road had to do with whose vehicle would be making the thousand-mile trek to Boston. Turns out, once I finally stopped telling and started listening to his reasoning on things, I realized we'd be perfectly fine with no vehicle at all. He completely agrees with me. We wouldn't be sans-car the whole time, just until I get a steady job in the career I want. This milestone would allow us enough of an income to afford the insurance, etc. to have a car and still be able to afford rent.
So all in all, life is good, the weather is perfect today, and for the first time in a long time, I can finally enjoy life and not have to worry about something.

In honor of our move to Boston:

2006-04-18T13:41:00.000-05:00

(I saw this in an airport on the way to Florida)

How to build a scratching post

2006-04-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

I just thought it would be entertaining to mention that I looked at the referring links people use to get to this blog, and one caught my eye and made me laugh.
Someone from California was referred to my blog after utilizing a search engine with the question "how to build a scratching post" and my link popped up. I wonder if they were a bit surprised to discover a lack of instructions in here...

That is my final answer

2006-04-17T22:27:00.000-05:00

It's set in motion, there's no turning back, we're moving to Boston this summer.
TJ starts with his Phd program, and I got a phone call today formally requesting an interview with the dental office I mentioned last blog-post! The first time, they said they'd like to meet with me, this time they actually used the word "interview"!
I'm a little cautious about hoping for this job, since my hoping has only led me to let-downs in my past career endeavors...

quick turnaround

2006-04-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

Ok so after the defeat of yesterday, I inquired about a dental assistant job I found on a job-search site and got called back about it already today! The woman seemed really interested, wants me to send my resume ASAP (so if anyone is good at proofreading those, please let me know!), and fax out letters of recommendation. I explained that we'll be moving in July and be out there in June to look for housing, and she told me she wants to meet with me when we're there in June! I already have an interview!!

This was very refreshing to hear, considering I spoke with the dental school I applied to out there right before her call, where they pretty much reassured me that I don't have a snowball's chance in hell there anymore. I'm starting to really get used to the idea of being a hygienist, and being perfectly happy as one. One door closes, another window opens...

Movin' on out

2006-04-11T08:58:00.001-05:00

It is decided, and I have an announcement to make: We're moving to Boston.
TJ sent in his letter of intent yesterday. Mom actually looked like she was getting teary eyed when I told her we're actually going. This caught me off guard, as the first time I mentioned it to her, she seemed to brush it off like she couldn't care less.
I also received a letter of my own from Boston, that of a rejecting nature from the hygiene school I planned on attending. This was my plan B option, not even plan A, this was my backup plan...dammit. Now what? That was my entire reason for taking these classes this semester, the entire reason why I was confident and stable in the idea of moving to an expensive city. Now I have to try and find full time work. I have experience only in restaurant stuff and in the lower end of the dental field, what kind of job am I going to find that will actually be worth my whole degree process? Neither job I'm experienced in requires any form of college degree, so I'll be overqualified working a dead end job. Don't get me wrong, I'm still excited about moving to Boston. It's TJ's best opportunity with his grad school plans, and I have a better chance of getting accepted somewhere out there if I reapply. At this point I'm wondering as well: is it even worth a 3rd year attempt? I'm sick of the classes, I would rather not put myself through another test retake, as it caused enough stress in my life where I wanted to rip my own hair out. I'm so freaking frustrated. I have a college degree and I can't even get into an undergraduate hygiene program. What's that say about me? I'm so embarrassed and upset, I'm having a hard time even focusing to study for the rest of my classes, especially since they don't count for shit anymore.
Well, we're moving in July. TJ is looking online for housing and then we're flying out in June to take a look at some places. I want to get this wedding planned before we're gone too, and it would be a lot easier if I didn't have useless classes in the way right now. I should have dropped out of school when dad died and picked up that semester afterwards. The grades from that year are causing the most of my downfall, and I can't dig myself out of it. Apparently God doesn't want me to join the dental field. I'll stop by the career center tomorrow and see what other options there are for a now career-lost person like me.

odd

2006-04-06T12:07:00.000-05:00

After having an odd dream last night about grocery shopping with TJ, I woke up knowing today was gonna be weird.
I headed upstairs and had breakfast, which my mother was nice and made for me, when she decided to bring up the 4th of July.
"What are you doing for it?"
"Why?"
"Because Dick and I are talking about joining you by TJ's family for it this year."
I requested, as we had discussed a couple of months ago, that she travel across and visit TJ's family with me, without the boyfriend attached to her hip, before she make the trek with the sig other. She seemed offended at this request, and got all huffy on me. After my practical explanation of wanting to take a trip with my mother alone, much like she's been doing every other weekend with Dick, she angrily slapped the calendar down on the table and said "Fine, find a weekend that will work."
She apparently thinks that going there a month earlier than the 4th is too soon. I never accused this woman of ever making sense...
After finding a perfect weekend (memorial day) and presenting it to her, I got a reserved "oh" from her and left for school.
I got to campus early in order to copy some notes down from a prof for a test I have in his class tomorrow. Yes, it's very last minute, but I didn't realize I was missing them until yesterday. I'll make sure to start studying a little farther before the next test... He didn't show up until 15 minutes after the time I said I'd be there. Ok, cool, is there a copy machine on the floor that I can just make a copy? He said no, that I'd have to go to the next building to do that. Ok, so I run over to the student union-type place and get my 17 cents worth of copies, run back in and up the 3 floors to get back to his office and notice, lo and behold, a copy machine 2 doors down from his office. That was mildly frustrating, but I figure that in as my aerobic workout of the morning.
I then droned through my morning classes, the 2nd of which involved a 50-something year old non traditional student ramble on and on about cow shit and how it's bad for the environment, yada yada. I agree, I don't like factory farms either and am trying to wean myself way down on meat consumption, but this woman was repeating herself for an entire half hour, mainly on the adverse effects of cow shit.
On my walk through campus after class, I encountered anti-abortion activists with pictures of dead babies, and a man yelling about how nobody cares. I was tempted to yell back something to just joke with the guy, but didn't out of fear that he might get even scary.
Pleasant. Now it's lunchtime and I can't bring myself to eat the brown chicken fried rice I had waiting for me...
Hopefully my work shift doesn't suck today too...

c'mon schools, freaking tell me already!!!

2006-04-02T17:32:00.000-05:00

Ok so not much has happened since I last posted, but I felt the need to babble-type anyway. We're leaning further into a decision regarding the 3 options mentioned in my previous post, and I'm getting excited about moving. I'm really getting tired of classes right now, waiting to hear from these schools I've applied to, like maybe hearing a good answer would give me the motivation to finish strong. I know I need to either way, but dammit, it's hard when you don't know what it's counting towards.
I have no roommate again today. She extended her weekend with the boyfriend, so now I'm just bummin around here bored as can be. Not that it would be any more exciting with her around, but it would be nice to have someone other than the dog to talk to. I could call people, but I really need to study for a hard test week coming up. When will this end? I actually paid attention to the words of a song this morning and this section of it really hit home for me right now:

Wake me up inside
Wake me up inside
Call my name and save me from the dark
Bid my blood to run
Before I come undone
Save me from the nothing I've become

Holy freaking choices, batman!

2006-03-23T22:35:00.000-06:00

Ok so TJ has these 2 great offers from grad schools, one in "M" and one in "B". In a matter of a half hour today, those two got blown outta the water by a third choice; "A". "A" has offered him more money than either of the other two schools, insurance benefits for both health and dental , will pay $500 toward moving costs, a $1500 sign-on bonus, 3 grand a month for doing research there this summer, and are conducting research in the exact field TJ is motivated by, neurodegenerative disorders. Anyone reading this would automatically say "duh, take it now," but there's just one little glitch: me.
I didn't apply to any graduate or hygiene schools there because I didn't even realize it was an option. I don't even know if there are any hygiene or dental schools there. If I get accepted into "B"'s hygiene school, I have a hard time thinking I should say no to that single, 2-year opportunity to start a career. If I passed that up, who knows when I'd be able to finish that. I'd probably have to take a year working some dead end job while applying to schools in the area, if there even is a bachelor's degree program around it, and if there isn't, I'd be on a waiting list at a tech school, which usually runs about 4 years before someone gets called up for it. So then one has to ask the question: Can we do 2 more years long-distance while I finish up my hygiene degree? We've made it this far, and in the long-term rest-of-my-life scheme of things, it's really not that long, but considering we've been long distance for 5.5 years already, I'd like to be in the same freaking side of the planet, let alone state, before too long here. I want him to take "A" though, since it's the perfect set up for him and I don't want him to be held back by me. Normally, I'd almost want to cry at the cruel irony of it all, but by now I've started to just laugh. This kind of stuff seems to happen to me all the time lately and I've run out of tears and above all energy to get upset anymore. Although I'm not exactly bubbling over with excitement about this predicament either...

sideways progress

2006-03-22T12:05:00.000-06:00

Things have been getting different lately. Not better, not worse, just different.
On the homefront, I've come up with a better response for when people ask me how living with my mom is going, "Well, my roommate is inconsiderate, and my mom is nowhere to be found." I think that sums it up pretty well. She said to me recently "I am always here for you." to which I replied, "...unless you're at your boyfriend's house." Nothing really new there, just mom being her man-needy self.
As for grad schools, I now know I have been rejected from 4 out of the 6 schools I've applied to. M told me they have a pile 93 apps they're looking at and deciding on by the end of the month, and I'm one of 'em. He said one of 3 letters will be sent out: yes, no, or alternate list. This morning while getting ready, I realized the fact that I couldn't get a yes letter from them; I haven't interviewed there. From what I gathered everywhere, those who got in interviewed first. Which means I'm either getting a no or being stuck into the other purgatory: alternate list. TJ and I have talked a lot about where we're going this August, and unless by some miracle I get an acceptance letter to M, I think we're heading out east. I called the hygiene school I applied to out there and they said I'll hear within the next 2-3 weeks. TJ needs to tell his grad schools where he'll be going before then. He applied to all of his schools after me and got accepted into all of them before I heard my first rejection from the first dent school. Gee, don't I feel great. I'm holding him back because these schools don't send rejection letters soon enough.
Either way, I'm getting ready to move. Whether it be to M or out east, or another option just came up from the south, I want to go. I'm really worried about affording things right now, but I know it will all work out somehow. I should stop in at my bank and ask how loans work, etc. because I don't have a clue. If I am in school next fall, I'll need one anyway, and I'm wondering even if I'm not in school that maybe I should get one so we can survive until I get a decent career off the ground, whatever that may be. My biggest fear is that TJ and I end up like my family and fight over money all the time. There's no evidence to show that that will be the case, but after seeing my parents do that while I was growing up, I don't want it to repeat with me.
I'm visiting TJ's family right now while on spring break. I love being surrounded by family members who don't rely on yelling to get their point across. They are a successful, caring, and supportive family, and I always feel safe coming here. Their house has almost a castle-like feel, that I love finding a room to have all by myself while I just sit and read, or study, or just think.
Ok I've run out of things to talk about, I'm gonna go curl up on the couch and watch Blues Brothers while studying for my A&P exam.

Snow day

2006-03-13T13:34:00.000-06:00

Every school in a 50 mile radius is closed today, including all EC schools, with one exception: Mine
After attempting the drive to class and almost hitting a mailbox, garbage can, and a man with a snowplow at the end of his driveway, I've decided not to go to school today. This all occurred within a block of my house at a speed of almost 10 mph. There's a main road on the other side of my block and I'm really curious as to whether or not that's even plowed yet.
I emailed my profs the above information, and decided to catch up on some sleep. Last night we had a wicked thunderstorm that included hail at some god-forsaken hour of the morning, so the combination of that and a severely freaked out big dog sniffing me in the face all night to make sure I was still alive and unable to sleep, kept me from getting some much needed shut-eye. I laid around and watched crappy VH1 shows for a few hours, then decided to shovel.
We used to have a snow blower, but nobody knew how it worked except my dad, so my mom got rid of it for obvious reasons. I put on all my winter gear, overheating in the foyer in the process, and set foot into the garage. I grabbed my shovel determined, with a sole mission in mind: to get rid of all the white crap in the way.
This was before I opened the garage door.
As soon as I saw the blizzard-heap piled before me, I realized this was a very bad idea. I dug my shovel in and found out just how heavy 6 inches of very wet snow was. That, paired with my now extremely overheating bundled up body, told me I couldn't do this for much longer. But I had already started and I knew I had to get something accomplished. I would at least get some kind of a workout out of it. I then looked up and spotted the mailbox. Today was Monday, the mail could come today. I remember from previous years that the mailmen never drove up to the mailbox if you didn't have it shoveled out for them. This became my new mission. I heaved myself a 2-foot wide path to the mailbox and shoveled like a fat man with a pint of Ben & Jerry's. The mailbox was free, the mail can come now. With a glint of satisfaction, I started back towards the house, already knowing that my hard work would be swallowed up by the fast-falling snow in a matter of hours again anyway. So here I sit, peeled out of my snowsuit, arms and back aching, drinking a cup of hot cocoa in front of the fire, watching my trench blend back in with the rest of the white desert out there. Ain't life grand.

what I'm thinking about at this very moment, the abbreviated version...

2006-03-09T21:25:00.000-06:00

My thought process of right now:
1. The movie 16 Blocks is really cool, you should go see it.
2. Make sure you don't see it if you have a mild headache, or you will leave with a ginormous one.
3. I feel really sick right now so I'm probably going to bed.
4. I emailed my professors and told them I'm sick tonight, so I might not be in class tomorrow. I added, "If I am sitting in your class tomorrow, please disregard this email, it means I'm feeling better. If I'm absent, it means I am still sick. Thank you."
5. I'm really starting to wonder if that email will suffice.
6. I hope TJ can come to visit next week. Things suck here without him.
7. I'm running out of things to type so now, even though it's only 9:30, I'm gonna get to bed, hopefully without throwing up along the way.
Goodnight everyone.

My family officially sucks

2006-03-08T16:03:00.000-06:00

Ok stupid family scenario of the day:

I see a note that says my sister and her boyfriend are going out to dinner on Sunday with mom and her boyfriend. I asked mom "What's going on? , do I get to be in on this 'everyone go out to dinner' thing?"
"No, your sister just wanted it to be without you. "
Great. Everyone's going out to eat, and I'm stuck at home alone with nothing to do and no one to do it with because my sister somehow has the say-all to dictate if I'm allowed to join. Boy do I feel special. They couldn't wait 'til a day when I wouldn't feel extremely excluded? Gee, I don't feel at all purposely left-out. Way to take me into consideration here people, I appreciate the thoughtfulness.

I want to divorce my family.

monotonous

2006-03-07T09:04:00.000-06:00

I was bad. I caved. I cheated on lent.
I ate breadsticks last night. I was telling this to my fellow worker last night and said jokingly "...but I'm not actually catholic, so I'm not going to hell for it or anything." Most of the people I work with are lutheran. She just happened to be the one catholic outta the whole bunch. Oops. She didn't seem too offended by it though, and I reinforced that I was just joking about that, so we're all good. Aside from my 2-breadstick falter last night, I've been sticking to eating healthier, and so far it's paid off. I've lost 10 lbs since moving home in January. It's really not hard to do when you don't ever feel like cooking. Can we say instant oatmeal and cereal all the time? I do feel tired a lot though, but I'm blaming that on my being super busy with work, tests, and presentations all going on within this past and current week.
I'm still not happy though. TJ's sounding like he might not be able to come visit me next week anymore. I understand that we're trying to save money for moving, the wedding, etc. but it doesn't mean we should deny seeing each other once a freaking month. I wish it could be more than that, I'm seriously suffering withdrawl here. We had someone come in to work last night wearing a shirt TJ has. I almost cried, I miss him so much. I have to sit here and watch my mother go on date marathons with her boyfriend of 2 months while I, the engaged one, sits at home missing her fiance all but 2 days per month. I haven't seen him since the 10th of February. I hate this. We're trying to figure out moving too and it's getting a little scary. I'm coming up on another "I don't know what's going on" point in my life and I hate losing control over my own future like that. And everyone else has their own lives to worry about, so there's really no one to turn to about it. Ok enough whining. I have to go to class and then study like a geek for the rest of the day before work again. Back to the daily life drone...

failure and family, all easily interchangable

2006-03-05T17:57:00.000-06:00

I heard from Chicago yesterday. I didn't really plan on going there anyway, so getting a thin envelope and reading the "unfortunately..." sentence didn't really hurt this time. They were also a lot nicer about things than U of M. U of M made me feel like less of a person for even applying; Chicago offered for me to come and speak with the admissions comittee on what I can do to improve for next year, although I already know what they're gonna say. 4 more dental schools to go and 2 more hygiene before I know what's going on 3 months from now. I'm probably moving by then too. We're not sure where yet, but B-town is looking like a good idea right now. TJ just went there for a grad school "please come to our school" type thing, and sounded really impressed by the city, the people, and above all the program. I still have to hear from that one, but I have two apps sitting there, so the odds of it working out are better than M. I should be studying for my anat and phys test right now, but I really don't feel like it. It's so bad that I even got up on the 2nd from the top rung, you know the "DO NOT STEP HERE" one on a rickety old wooden ladder, just to change the foyer's 6 burnt out lightbulbs. My mother has been neglecting her maintenance stuff so I'm stuck doing it. She even made me put her renewal sticker on her license plate. IT'S A FREAKING STICKER!!! She decided to ditch me tonight to have dinner and hang out with her ex-boy Jimbo. This morning we had a little falling out. She was blaring her radio at 7am while I'm trying to sleep. I have a friend who will refuse to talk to you for the rest of the day if you wake him up before noon, so me wanting a little quiet to sleep at 7 is nothing by comparison. Mom sounded so condescending towards me. I offered her a really easy way to fix it, and her alternative was to repeat the scenario next Sunday, only this time I have to pay attention to what time it is and where in the house (on the floor above me, mind you) she is with the radio at the time. Blink, Blink. Does this sound like a normal thing to anyone else? I didn't think so. 3 months can't come soon enough...

Moving and grooving

2006-03-01T12:58:00.000-06:00

This morning I woke up to TJ calling me to tell me he'll probably have to start his research rotations in June. This means I'm moving in mid-May, right after finals, in 2 1/2 months. The biggest problem is we don't even know where we're going yet. I'm still waiting impatiently to hear from schools to figure out what the crap is going on. It seems to be between Milwaukee, Boston, and Ames at this point on TJ's list, and I'm just clueless from my potential point. Hopefully something happens soon. I saw the mailman delivering the mail across the street about a minute ago and was ready to chase his cart down and maul him for our mail today. I can see the headline now..."Mailman Cart Hijacked by Potential Dental Student, Only Mail from One Address Missing."
I went out to the bars with an old high school buddy Ryan last night. Before last friday, I hadn't seen him in about 4 1/2 years, so it was a fun little reunion hang out time we had. We've decided to become bar buddies for the remainder of the semester, so I finally have someone to hang out with instead of sitting at home watching my mom go on marathon date-weeks. I'm not drinking every time I go out. Even for Mardi Gras last night, I had 2 amaretto sours total. I was DD for 2 reasons: 1. I had class this morning and didn't want the hangover and 2. I can't afford to drink. I'm so broke it ain't funny. It'll also keep the calories off of me. I actually fit into my "skinny jeans" again, so now I'm inspired to keep losing the weight and get back to my high school weight. It really shouldn't be that hard to accomplish, I only have to lose 10 lbs to get there. It will be a little tough considering we don't have a scale, but I'd imagine I could see some results with old clothes, etc. Because of this newfound goal, I've decided to give up Olive Garden food for Lent. Yep, you guessed it, the girl who started working at the OG because she likes the food is giving it up for 40 days. Last night I had my 4 Fat Tuesday, last-ones-for-a-long-time breadsticks and today am officially not eating their food. It's not that there's something wrong with it, I just happen to chow down on it every time I'm working, which isn't helping my lose-weight goal. So here we go, day 1. This isn't so hard...

the usual

2006-02-27T08:54:00.000-06:00

Nothing really new to report here. There hasn't been much for excitement lately. TJ found out he got into Marquette, and I'm still in grad school purgatory. Woo freaking hoo. I'm excited for him, but really not liking the lack of hearing from any of the ones I applied to. At this point, I'm getting used to the idea that I'm probably not getting in this year either, and that I'll either be starting hygiene school, or looking for a real job starting this summer. I figure it's better to be skeptical and then pleasantly surprised if something does come around, instead of optimistic and constantly being let down.
Other than that and mom's drama, which includes her being "careful" as accelerating the amount of dates per week they go on (last week it was 6, compared to their 1 before the article hit). My aunts want her to end things, I don't really care at this point. She's clingy and needy, and needs a man in order to feel whole. At least that's what I'm gathering out of all of this. Last night she whined to me that she "misses him," even though she just saw him 2 nights before that, and is going on another date with him today/tonight. She really doesn't get my sympathy. Call me bitter, I don't care. I miss mine and all she can do is be careless and whine about hers like 1 day in between dates is too long to wait. I actually flipped her off last week when she said that.
On the bright side, I do get to see TJ in a week and a half. He's coming here while on his spring break, and I'm so excited I can't wait. I think we've got our church picked out, just need to do a little more research in that department and we'll have that all set. Ok I'm done updating with no new news, have a good day.

...who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!!!

2006-02-20T09:05:00.000-06:00

I just spent a weekend back at Luther hanging out with some friends and I really really want to go back. I had so much fun, it sucks returning to the real world, especially when it involves my family. Apparently, mom's new boyfriend is plastered all over the front page of the newspaper in town here. Yeah. It's an article about something that happened forever ago, and appropriate action had already been taken for it, so it isn't any big deal, but Eric Lundquist of Eau Claire, WI decided to smear my mom's boyfriend's name all over the news anyway. That was a lovely piece of drama to come home to. It even made the evening news on 2 channels here. This town has nothing better to do, and no better news to report than to deface someone's character over something that wasn't as bad as they're making it sound. For the love of pete, this is dumb.

So different story: I finally got to bed last night and was sitting down with a book at about midnight, and suddenly, the rotating music box that hasn't been touched in months starts spinning and playing slowly on its own. I repeat, it hasn't been touched in months. The only way this thing is supposed to work is if you hand-twist the figurine around on its base. I was pretty creeped out, and after it stopped, I called TJ right away to calm me down a bit. It was eerie, just spinning slowly and making out-of-tune dinging noises. It was seriously something out of a horror flick to me. When my pulse finally stopped racing, I stared the figurine and waited for it to go off again. 10 min later and nothing, so I went to sleep. At 2:30, the thing started up again, it sounded louder to me, and was spinning faster this time, same off-key dinging to the music box's tune which I don't even recognize. It played for a longer period of time this time too. Insert freaking-out me here. I grabbed my cell phone and pillow and high-tailed it up to my mom's room. This time I wasn't sticking around, that's just too creepy-weird for me to continue sleeping next to. I explained to mom why I was retreating to her room, and she confirmed that she had also heard it and wondered what was going on. This morning after waking up, I went back down to see if maybe someone had played with it over the weekend, but it had about a good quarter-inch of dust on it. What was even more odd, was the fact that there was no dust ring underneath where I had just picked it up. It was about a noticable distance off to the side from where I had just lifted it. Whatever psycho thing this is, I don't like it. I exiled the thing into the den and hopefully things will come back from the Unsolved Mysteries episode last night and not happen anymore. Yesterday went so weird, all I can do is laugh anymore.

One drink maximum

2006-02-15T12:18:00.000-06:00

I just got this in an email and have to post it:

Due to company policy, there will be ONLY ONE DRINK per person at the next company picnic:

WTF

2006-02-06T08:52:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to think God forgot that I exist.
I made the mistake of moving home to live with my mother. Two nights ago, the woman who usually goes to bed around 9:30, especially when I want to hang out with her, went out on a date with the new man. I reiterate from my previous entry, I like the new guy. It's mom I have a problem with. Two nights ago, my "can't stay awake late enough to watch a whole ER episode with my daughter" mother was out until 2 in the morning without so much as a phone call or heads up in any form of the matter. It was a snowy/icy night and she was 3 towns away on that date. Among other things, before she finally strolled in, I thought she was dead in a ditch somewhere. This is also the woman who wouldn't let me live it down if I got in 15 min past my 10:30 curfew (in high school), and made me call and narrate how my night will go if I was to be out later than anticipated. She also continues to make me tell her how late I'll be out now that I'm home again, or whenever TJ and I are both here. Umm, can we say hypocrite? She apparently doesn't think she owes me the same respect and makes it seem like it would be dumb of her to return the favor.
I told her after that one, that she can gain my trust and forgiveness back by redeeming herself the next date and giving me a heads up on how late she'll be. Last night she had a shining opportunity. Did she? Oh no, that would be too much to ask. Before she left last night, she said "Oh, I'll be home early, he's leaving for Colorado tomorrow morning at 7, so it'll be a short night." So apparently, to my 9:30pm bedtime mom, 12:30am means early. I told her, yeah in comparison to your last marathon date it's early, but in "mom time" that usually means 8pm or something like that. I didn't expect her at 8, but I figured she'd be home before I went to bed at 11 (I was sick and couldn't stay up any longer). No phone call, nothing this time. I refused to let myself worry about her and concluded that she's really not worth it anymore. Christ, woman, at least think of me as a roommate who cares about you, especially since I'm your daughter! I admit I have some adjustments to make in getting used to her late dating schedule now, but she can at least help me out a little and not leave me at home worrying and guessing. She yelled at me today "I'm NOT YOUR DAUGHTER!" to which I yelled back "Well apparently you forgot that I AM, and that you're acting like a teenager who's too cool to call your caring family!" And that leaves me at now. I'm forced to live with this, while the one person who I love and can't wait to get to live with is 300 miles away. I hate my life.

A day in the life

2006-02-03T09:01:00.001-06:00

Well now it's back to real life and a big, new school where I don't recognize a single face. I actually kinda like the anonymity in my classes, it makes me feel less pressure. Back at LC, I believe a good 3/4 of the school continues on to grad schools of some caliber or another, so you're in constant competition with those in your small class around you. Everyone knows everyone, or at least recognizes the face, so when you ask a stupid question in class, you feel, or at least I felt, constantly judged and compared to everyone else. It's to the point now that if I don't get into dental school, I'll feel like a failure, because everyone else I know who applied to their various school got in.
I've started back at work at the good ol' OG. I forgot how good that place smelled. There isn't a work day that goes by where I don't have a huge craving for alfredo dipping sauce with some breadsticks by the end of my shift. No, I'm not gaining weight working there. I'm actually hoping it'll help me finish off that last 10 lbs of college "freshman 15" weight. I wore a pedometer to work 2 nights ago, and figured out that on a slow night of a 6 hour shift, I walk about 7 1/4 miles. Tonight should be even more considering it's Friday and we're open later, it's typically a busy one.
Between work and school, I don't really have time for much anymore. I'm feeling lonely once I come home now though. Most of my friends have moved away, and the ones that are around are busy with other things, so it's pretty much just me and mom now. Oh wait, now it's pretty much just me, because mom is dating again. Don't worry, I actually like this one. Mom's being dumb about it again though. She's acting like she's never ever been on a date before, and even took 45 min last night staring at herself in the mirror with 1 outfit on that she's gonna wear to a breakfast with the guy this morning. Who spends 45 minutes staring at themselves? I told her she was being overly anal about it. While engrossed in herself, she kept asking me "does this look okay?" After the fifteenth time I said yes with her not believing me, I left the room and told her I'm not giving her my opinion anymore when she's asking for it but doesn't listen to it. Ugh, 40-something year old teenagers!

Florida Fun

2006-01-26T15:10:00.000-06:00

This past week was spent down in Florida with my mom, aunt, and sister. We went everywhere in Orlando that was related to Disney; Epcot, MGM, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, my sister even did a ride-along in a Nascar-car at this speedway thing. The trip started off really sweet with the airport. We were scheduled on a direct flight from MSP to Orlando, and right before they announced people to board, they asked if anyone would volunteer to be bumped. My sister looked into this prospect and found out that we would each get a $300 voucher for the airline if we took a flight that would head to Memphis then to Orlando, getting us there 2 hours later. We had nothing planned for that day, so we went ahead and did that. I'll have to use it within a year, so I've been trying to figure out where to use the voucher for ever since.

The rest of the trip went well, we ended it in St. Petersburg and Tampa on the last 2 days, yesterday involving my sister and I parasailing 800 feet above the Gulf of Mexico. This is actually my favorite picture out of the whole trip. It's my mom and aunt taking off for their 600' parasail right before my sis and I went up:

So today I woke up to a 40 degree "warm" temperature for this region feeling especially depressed noticing that the last time I experienced salt, it was as the sea spray while on the boat on the Gulf of Mexico. Today I experienced salt in the form of it being stuck on my car, sprayed onto there by the streets of Wisconsin. Bummer. Oh well, it's back to the real world and real life, however that may be. For now, it means I have my first homework assignment of the new semester to do.

Adventures at a bridal expo

2006-01-15T23:22:00.000-06:00

Today was the city's annual bridal expo, and boy was that an adventure. A couple of my bridesmaids and I ventured downtown to check things out. We got there in time for the noon fashion show, which included various local businesses' bridal-associated attire. After the false fire alarm halfway through the show, which left many of us paying more attention to the emergency exit options, things started getting interesting. The fashion show included the one place I've affectionately come to know as "the bitchy lady store." The store itself is a nice place, it just has one bad egg that ruins it for me. The first time I set foot into the little shop, the "bitchy lady" immediately said to me, "If you're not here to buy anything today, you're wasting your time," which really seemed to mean that we were wasting hers. Every time I went in after that, she treated me like she had something better to do and that I wasn't worth the effort. I ended up buying the same wedding dress elsewhere for cheaper, thus ruining the commission she would've made off my gown. I thought that was probably silent revenge enough; that was until she came walking across the fashion show stage. She was the last dress of the bridal section of the show, the grand finale if you will, and apparently she wanted to go for shock value. What she got was 300 brides-to-be and associated people laughing at her and whispering to each other during her entire strut through. She had on a blood red, scrunched long-trained skirt, strapless monstrosity that suited her well, considering she went for the demonic impression every time I met with her. On her head she wore a jeweled netting which invaded the entire top of her head, then regurgitated a veil out the back for the heck of it. Hee hee. Actually, I'll be lucky if I don't have nightmares about that tonight...
We then ventured on to the many vendors scattered around the convention center, and I learned just how on-the-ball a lot of brides are these days. Most people could plan a wedding in a year and get everything they wanted without a problem. Today I found out that if I don't act soon, I won't get my first choice of photographers. Keep in mind, I have a year and a half before the wedding rolls around. Times are definitely changing... I'm torn between two photographer groups. The pricing almost evens out to be equal, one is a husband/wife duo, and the other is one woman. I meet with the hubby/wife crew tomorrow morning to check out their stuff. There are so many questions, options, and so much money that gets considered between these two that my head is going to explode! I came out of that expo so overwhelmed, I can seriously almost say that I'm tired of wedding planning right now. Don't call the newspapers yet, I said almost.
I better get to bed so I can get everything done tomorrow that I need to before leaving for Florida this Wednesday. Yesterday I did my laundry, so I finally have socks again, and put my new flannel sheets that my sister got me for Christmas on my bed. They're Cinderella sheets. I always wanted Cinderella sheets, I just never thought I'd be 22 when I finally got them. Oh the joys of moving home to a twin sized bunk bed... I'm actually looking forward to sleeping in them; they're extremely soft, and I haven't gotten new sheets since I moved out to college, 4 1/2 years ago. Maybe they'll keep me from having nightmares about the bitchy lady in the red/netted abomination.

good vs. evil

2006-01-13T11:47:00.001-06:00

So yesterday was a mixed kinda day.
It was great in the fact that I got to go to the cities with southerncanadian and M to look for bridesmaid dresses. We pretty much found it at Wedding Shoppe Inc. on Grand Ave. in St. Paul. It's a Bill Levkoff dress, under $150, and has detachable spaghetti straps so the girls can wear them for dancing and wandering around at the reception if they'd feel more comfy doing so. I had southerncanadian try on the bridesmaid dress I have posted below, and it looked gorgeous, but it was above the $150 ceiling I'd like to put on these things, and I'm not sure how the cris-cross boob thing would look on some of the girls. The bottom was not form fitted, that model is just standing dumb like I thought. Anyway, back to the current dress, the dress color will be an ice-blue, and the sash will be a darker blue.

Now for the bad part of yesterday. I got home and picked up the mail. What did I find? A thin letter from University of Minnesota. You guessed it, rejection letter number one. I got so pissed that I kicked a dent in the wall downstairs. Apparently because of that, I signed myself up to patch it and repaint that hallway. Woopee.
Not helping matters, my mother is now dating someone new and told me she wants to invite him to our family's Easter to introduce him to everyone. I told her straight up that this was an inappropriate time to do that, that if she wanted to introduce him, she should take him to Hudson out to dinner to meet her siblings that way. I then told her if she wanted to bring him to Easter after introducing him elsewhere, that would be fine. She apparently doesn't see a difference in this and considers me the selfish one in all of this.
I hate my life this week.

R.I.P. Stuey <><

2006-01-09T17:25:00.000-06:00

Stuey
Stuey the goldfish, 2, of the new 10-gallon tank in my bedroom died today.
Funeral services were held in the adjacent bathroom toilet bowl at 4:00 pm this afternoon where he received an honorary burial at sea.
He was a happy little fish, always content with his surroundings, and was able to live in extreme conditions such as delayed bowl cleanings and whatever else dorm life dished out to him. He had recently moved out of his tiny 1-gallon mobile-bowl into a brand new 10-gallon tank, fully equipped with filter, bubbly thing, and light bulb. Cause of death is unknown, although those close to him think the luxourious lifestyle might have been just too much for the little guy to handle.

Poll the readers

2006-01-02T12:48:00.000-06:00

Question of the day:

What is your new year's resolution?

new year

2006-01-02T12:25:00.000-06:00

Happy new year! Okay so I'm a day late, but this is my blog so I can do whatever I want. Christmas ended up going a little bit better than the rant I made below, TJ's family was really nice about everything. I felt pretty bad about the gift-giving; TJ's parents ended up buying me at least $200 worth of stuff, including a $100 gift card to Younkers, and all I got them was a couple of candles that spell JOY when you set them next to each other. TJ hadn't gotten them anything yet by Christmas day, so on the 26th, we both pitched in for a $60 gift card for a really nice and ritzy-expensive restaurant called Biro. As soon as we handed it to his mom, she started bawling and said, very seriously, that we shouldn't have gotten them that, we should've saved our money. Blink Blink. She then informed us that her father, TJ's grampa, wasn't doing so well, that he might not last through the day. He passed away a couple hours later. TJ's parents went down to Florida for the funeral and left TJ and I to watch the house and dog.
So far all I've been doing is sitting on my butt watching movies and tv. I wanted to go for a run this morning, considering it's almost 40 degrees here, but it's now thunderstorming, pouring rain. So, once again, I'm sitting on the couch watching Unsolved Mysteries right now about hauntings. I'm glad that it's daytime while I'm watching this, TJ's house is old and really big, so my being alone in the basement makes me a little creeped out.
The most exciting thing that's happened around here lately was that one of my best friends and her fiance came up to ring in the new year. It was pretty fun.
I'm having trouble sleeping lately. I'm getting really nervous about dental schools now that it's January. Marquette told me they'd make a decision on me this month, after they receive my updated grades from this past semester. I got decent grades, and even managed to argue one of them up from a B+ to an A-, in a 4 credit class even, so I'm really starting to get nervously excited about things. I think it will help when I head home and get to go running again. I'm seriously considering the offer I got to be an aerobics instructor at one of the health clubs back home. I've already got my job at Olive Garden lined back up, so at least I know I'm set with making money one way or another back home. I'm really hoping I find out I'm in dental school before I start classes, so I can just work and make some money next semester.

I hate this holiday!!!

2005-12-22T21:05:00.000-06:00

I seriously and truly hate this effing holiday. When I was little, it meant pageants where we'd recite the story of the birth of Christ. Now it mean hard feelings and pissed off families. Both my mother and my sister hate me right now. All basically because I decided to be with my fiance's family 300 miles away for Christmas, for the first holiday that I've spent here in over a year, and not by my own blood relatives. I thought getting away from them would help me feel less guilty about it, but because of the blessed cell phone, I've managed to get reemed out by my sister, whom if she wasn't blood related I wouldn't even associate with anymore, and made my mother feel like crap and cry. About a week ago, my sister invited mom with to an 11pm mass in the next town over for Christmas eve. Mom never said yes, but then recently went ahead and made plans with her ex-boyfriend, who she still hangs out with all the time, to go to a 10pm mass in a different next-town over. My sister is not happy that mom chose Jim over her, and I agreed with that to mom and reminded her that my sister did ask her first. Mom kept trying to say "well she asked me for 11pm and all the way over in ___", and I told her that 1 hour isn't much difference, and she's going all the way over in ___, which is no difference in distance. Insert crying mother here. She laid on the guilt trip about how my sister and I chose to do Christmas eve with others in the first place and "why should that be any different for me?". I really didn't know what to say to that and so now I feel like royal crap. This holiday is no longer about Jesus, it's only about materialism, and feeling like crap for as many things as possible; such as if you can't afford gifts for people but they buy you great stuff anyway, or if you have to choose between families to spend it with, or if you're alone on the holiday you feel like lonely crap as well. The latter was me last year.

Dental School Difficulty

2005-12-12T10:35:00.000-06:00

I called the dental schools I applied to today. I'll abbreviate their names in light of the talk that these people might be reading and I may get in trouble... M, H, T, and UM all have my application materials in and are starting to get going on letters of acceptance/rejection. C1 said they haven't gone through their most recent mail yet so they don't have my app stuff, but C2 doesn't even seem to like to pick up the phone. I called them for the 5th time since retaking my DAT and can't get a hold of a single human to find out a fax number to send the scores to! Today I just rattled them off into the head of admissions' answering machine so she could at least hear them on my behalf.
Aside from that, my finals are all on Thursday and I lack the motivation to start studying right now. I have 3 whole days in which I can study, so why now at 11 on monday morning should I start right this second? Don't worry, I will start today. I plan on using the DAT method and reading my textbooks, and on biostats' behalf, cover to cover. I've got some errands to run today too so I need to get my butt moving. It's really starting to hit me that I'll be gone. My room is pretty much bare now except for some snack food and random walmart bags lying around. This past weekend was entertaining. I definitely made it my last big hurrah on Friday night. That was a fun one. Saturday night was an 80's party, which was also fun, but towards the end of the night, I started acting like an idiot and I feel bad about that. Actually, both nights involved things I feel bad about. On Friday night I borrowed one of Jared's sweatshirts to go to the bar, and long story short it ended up getting stolen. I'm not 100% responsible, but I'm still responsible 'cause I borrowed it in the first place, so I want to replace it or at least give him a gift certificate to the book shop for most of its price. Maybe when I return my $200 ochem book I can use some of the money to buy it for him. Oh well now I better get my butt moving if I'm gonna accomplish anything. 4 days left...

Found 'em!

2005-12-09T00:34:00.000-06:00

I believe I have found my bridesmaid dresses! Here are their pics. I won't have them in two-tone like the pictures, they'll be all one color, and the back-view makes it look like it's extremely form-fitting, but I believe the model is just standing like an idiot 'cause the front one looks like there's a lot of loose fabric.

I was more productive today that this isn't all I did. It was fun to look though. I got my christmas shopping done for my mom and I also picked up something for TJ. I have no idea what my sister wants this year so I'll have to look into that and get on the ball. I'm excited to be done with biostats. I've hit beyond-burnout and am almost ready to say screw it, if it wasn't for a certain dental school relying on these grades. I'm so stressed out lately that my nightmares are coming back. I couldn't get back to sleep at all last night after one. I also need to pack for my mother's arrival on Saturday. I haven't packed a single thing. I'll take care of it tomorrow I guess. All I've eaten today are pop tarts and some pretzels for meals. Autumn went to a Barenaked Ladies concert in the cities tonight. I'm so jealous and wish I could've gone with her, but the tickets were $50 and I don't have that kind of money, so I'll just have to admire her. I wonder when she gets back... Ok I'm getting to bed to prevent being fried yet again tomorrow. Goodnight!

Marquette's got funny timing

2005-12-05T23:38:00.000-06:00

3 major tests, 2 homework assignments, and 2 poster presentations to go 'til I'm done with the semester.
I'm excited as hell to be done with the homework and tests, I've hit the point of burnout and I can't get myself back. I did get a little kick in the butt today which gave me the message "God is watching, don't screw this up." I opened my SPO to find a small envelope with the Marquette insignia on it. My first thought,
"Oh no, not another thin envelope from them already!"
Last year, I got my rejection letter from them on Dec 1, which is the first day dental schools can legally tell you their answer. Ouch. So getting another thin letter four days after the first day blah blah blah doesn't bode well for the confidence here. fortunately, Autumn was with me and offered to open it. I stared at her from across the room while she read it silently, and realized she wasn't smiling. But she wasn't crying either. She started,
"Dear Ms. Komornick
The Admissions Committee of the Marquette University School of Dentistry has reviewed your application and supporting credentials for the 2006 Freshmen class."

Insert mild panic and heart attacks here

"The Committee has decided to "HOLD" making a decision on your application at this time in the process."
So basically they wrote me a letter saying they weren't sending me a letter yet. They said they already sent out acceptances and rejections, which means both that I wasn't good enough for that first acceptance group, but that I don't suck like last year anymore. They also said they're making another wave of decisions and will send out letters in mid-January. At least I have a timeframe of when I'll potentially hear from Marquette now, unlike the cable-repairman-esque timeframe the other schools are giving me (Between now and mid-April). I spoke with the head of admissions from Marquette and he already told me to my face that they'll wait to make a decision on me 'til I have my fall grades sent in to him. I guess this is just them putting it in writing.
So now I've been reminded that I can't slack on the aforementioned list at all whatsoever or I'm basically screwed. I'm sitting at all A's and B's right now, so I think I'm alright, but biostats is the one that might teeter to a C if I don't watch it on these next tests. I can't wait for it to all be over. The academic part I mean. I'm gonna miss my friends here like crazy. I don't see Jared much anymore but we're still friends, and Autumn has been such a great friend this whole semester, I want to make sure I keep in touch with them and don't drift away. So the end of this semester holds bittersweet emotions that I knew I'd have to face someday.
I'm still struggling with the Insurance vs. Mad Cash Dillema, and I've heard some good feedback so far. I just now realized I got a new comment on that and I've replied, so let's keep that discussion going and help a chica out!

To study or not to study...

2005-11-27T22:11:00.000-06:00

Update again:
-DAT went REALLY well, I'm hoping it'll be the deciding factor to get me into dental school
(currently knocking on wood 'til my knuckles bleed)
-Living at home won't be as scary of an adjustment as I thought; I spoke with mom and I'm not getting an unreasonable curfew imposed on me, she's actually treating me like a normal, capable adult
-Tomorrow I need to remember to call the cops and try to get out of an erroneous parking ticket.

Okay here's where I poll the readers again. The question has been brought to my attention that if I am to find out I'm accepted into dental school before classes start second semester, (again with the wood knocking), would I still take classes second semester?

Mom says I should continue to keep my health insurance and says it'd look good to take the classes I'm signed up for. The classes part is irrelevant, 'cause if I'm already in, they don't care what I do after I get the acceptance letter as long as it's nothing illegal. The health insurance thing brings up a good point, although I'm a healthy 22 year old woman. I'm pretty convinced I can go the semester and summer without health insurance and be perfectly fine. The only exception to this would be if a car accident was to happen during this time or any other catastrophic thing you can't plan for.
Another point in the anti-classes approach is the fact that I'd be able to work full time and save up some mad cash for maybe a down payment on a townhouse or something, depending on what housing option TJ and I go for. Or, perhaps, the wedding costs. Money is good, and I'd get more of it if I didn't take classes I didn't need for anything. I'd already have my bachelor's degree in Health too, that's another point.

So yeah, what do you think? Leave comments, I'm interested in opinions on this one.

Oh happy week!

2005-11-15T15:36:00.000-06:00

Wonderful things that have happened this week:

Yesterday: I got accepted into, and all signed up for UWEC for 2nd semester without a single glitch, despite my mother's lack of faith in me to pull it off

Today: Found out I'm getting a B in biostats (I thought I was failing),

and got a half dozen long stemmed roses from TJ with a card that reads "Good luck on your DAT Love, TJ"

and I found out our ultimate frisbee jerseys finally arrived!

I hope this continues through Thursday's extravaganza!

Things are looking up...

2005-11-14T21:44:00.000-06:00

FINALLY!!! Someone somewhere was pulling for me, 'cause something I planned for actually went right, without a single problem! It's official: I'm going to UWEC for classes 2nd semester. I got my acceptance letter today, and by 4:30 was all signed up for every class I wanted, at the times I wanted. It also turns out that their microbiology course, compared to Luther's 4 credit, 2-lab course, is only 3 credits without a lab. I'm assuming it has to be a ton easier than here, and what's even better is that I don't have to deal with the evil troll that is Dr. Enos. I'll have a total of 13 credits that included Nutrition, Intro to Sociology, Microbiology, and Anatomy & Physiology. The last one is gonna be the toughest, and I know I can do really well in it :o) OH HAPPY DAY!!! My mom admitted to me on the phone that she didn't think I could actually pull it off. I gave her a "tsk tsk" for not having faith in me and then proceeded to make her happy by telling her I don't have to buy books; we rent them. This means no more buying $300 worth of books only to return them at the end of the year for a total of $50.

I will miss my closest friends here terribly. They've been great friends during this semester and it's been really good getting to know them better. I'll make sure to come back and visit next semester when I can. I doubt my classes will be what hold me back from coming down.

On that note, I'm going to knock on wood and pray my DAT goes well on Thursday. I've lost the will to study, but have become increasingly nervous as the date draws near. I'll crack open the biology section tonight before bed and read through that as much as possible before I fall asleep on the book.

what's on my mind

2005-11-12T11:47:00.000-06:00

Not much has happened in the past couple of days to warrant a new blog entry, I just felt like typing. I take the DAT this coming Thursday and I'm not sure how ready I am. I have been looking over the stuff like crazy, and I took a practice round of the thing and improved my score since last time, but- wait, I'm not going to think about it like that. If I get myself worked up, I usually get this paralyzing fear which makes me not want to look at the stuff. It's weird and ass-backwards, I know, but it's something I do. I can't wait until I'm done with it though. Then I can finish my grad school and hygiene apps, and be all done with that shit until they eventually send me their fateful letters. I've been trying to figure out what to do if I don't get in to either type of school. I know I'll move in with TJ, but then what? I don't want to work a dead end job and get stuck with that. I don't know how many more useless classes I can handle taking just to try to impress dental schools again, or what it would take to get me into hygiene school after that point. At least I'll be with TJ. I'm afraid I won't be able to put forth enough money to hold up my end of things in the household. I believe in an equal partnership, so if he's making all the money and paying for everything, I feel as though I'm not holding up my end of the deal, mooching, which I absolutely hate the feeling of when I do. Plus I don't want a "tab" brought against me. He's never done it before, but I have this fear that when I do start making money, I'll have this guilt that I should start paying for everything in order to make up for however much he took care of. He wouldn't do that, it's just an irrational fear, but money problems scare the shit outta me. Past personal experience I guess...

Irish limerick

2005-11-09T15:53:00.000-06:00

I just got this in an email from a friend of mine and had to post it:

Just thought of this..it's cheesy, but limericks are associated with Ireland, which is associated with luck, so hopefully this will bring you good luck on your test:

There once was a girl named Cat
Who totally aced the DAT.
Her efforts relentless,
She'll make a great dentist,
There is no doubt about that!

What I learned from college dorm life:

2005-11-09T15:02:00.000-06:00

These are things I learned during my 4 1/2 year duration of dorm life here at Luther.
Feel free to add your own to the list:

- Wrinkle releaser spray is a must. Ironing is a thing of the past unless you go broke (See next point)
- If you've run out of wrinkle releaser spray and can't afford a new bottle, a curling iron is sufficient to use to iron your clothes in its place.
- Duct tape is the fixit tool for anything. Even if you eventually have more tape than sandal (if that's what you're fixing), it's still perfectly good as long as it's one piece. (Duct tape can also double as a disposable strapless bra)
- Hemming pants can be quickly and easily accomplished with a simple Swingline stapler
- Laundry can be stretched to last from break to break by purchasing more underwear on sale at Walmart
- Dusting can be averted by putting a school book on top of the dust. Repeat when book gets dusty. It also makes mom and dad think you've been studying hard to see books stacked all over your room.
- Hard liquor doesn't freeze, so you can easily hide it in the little freezer up in the corner of the fridge where no one ever looks
- Goldfish can live up to 3 weeks without food
- Clothes don't need to be washed after you've only worn them once. A cheap bottle of Bath & Body Works perfume will keep your stuff fresh and clean for a few more rounds
- Taking silverware from the caf/Marty's isn't stealing 'cause they let you give them back at the end of the year without question. Take as much as you want. I think I had a full place-setting for a family of four by the end of last year
- Ramen noodles and pizza become a staple in your diet, and even turn into their own major food group category: , the "broke and hungry" food group
- After you've graduated and someone questions something you may have done in your past, you can easily excuse it with the phrase "while I was in college" and they'll understand
- As long as you're on the college internet network, you'll never have to purchase a CD again
- You get really good at math and word problems, i.e. "You have 2 large pizzas for 16.99 and 8 people going in on it. How much does each person pay including a 15% sales tax?"
- Space management becomes your forte. You're able to turn a 10x10 square foot cubby hole into a bedroom, office, and living room. The hot pot becomes its own kitchen
- You appreciate the eventual day when you'll get at or above the poverty level

Here it is: your Moment of Cute

2005-11-07T20:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, the Daily Show has its "Moment of Zen," I am now giving you your "Moment of Cute" so here it is:

Why females should avoid a girl's night out after they are married...

2005-11-03T16:20:00.000-06:00

The other night I was invited out for a night with "the girls." I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, "I promise!" Well, the hours passed and the margaritas went down way too easy. Around 3 a.m., a bit loaded, I headed for home. Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hall started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times. I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution, in order to escape a possible conflict with him. (Even when totally smashed...3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals 12 cuckoos = MIDNITE!) The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, and I told him "Midnight". He didn't seem pissed off at all. Whew! Got away with that one! Then he said, "We need a new cuckoo clock." When I asked him why?, he said, "Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said, "Oh shit.", cuckooed 4 more times, cleared it's throat, cuckooed another 3 times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted."

Bad friggin week

2005-11-02T21:33:00.000-06:00

Today has been a shitty kind of day. My neighbor next door, the one with the alarm clock issue about a month ago, keeps playing opera music way loud early in the morning and then sings along with it. This is while I'm trying to sleep after being up really really late studying last night, as well as after a big test I took that day before. I was due for a whole good night's sleep. While she has a really nice voice, hearing it bellowing through the solid brick wall at 7:30 in the morning just makes me want to do the thing Ariel had done in The Little Mermaid (where she loses her voice) until my alarm goes off at 9:15; then she can have it back. Morning went as usual after that until I got to biostats. I studied my ass off, hours and hours for that test, and I did horribly on it. My study buddy got an A. What the hell am I doing wrong? I haven't had a life in weeks because of the ochem test friday, the biostats test yesterday, the health test tomorrow I just remembered about an hour ago, and the DAT 2 weeks from tomorrow. I cried for a good half hour after getting back to my dorm today. All this hard work and lack of friends and lack of sleep is getting me nothing, no rewards, no benefits, nothing. All for me to pay $1000 towards applying to something that doesn't even seem worth it anymore. I've done everything for these people, I didn't drop out when my father died at the beginning of Junior year, nor did I drop out when my grandmother died 4 months later, or when my sister was in a serious car accident and ended up with a neck brace 2 months after that, or when my mom was hospitalized for complications from surgery and needed 3 blood transfusions, yep, you guessed it, that same year. Most people would've committed suicide by the end of that. I picked myself back up and got ready for the next blow. The thing that really stung at the end of all that was when the dental schools said "well we see that your father died, but your grades that year are low." That's like saying "we see you were pushed off a hundred-story building, but you broke your arm" as a reason I didn't get in. Assholes.
I completely got off subject there. Oh well, I need a good rant, cry, shoulder to do the aforementioned, and SOMETHING to go right for a change. Maybe this is God's way of saying it's my turn for the lightning bolt to hit me. It's hit everyone else in my immediate family, I'm just waiting to get struck.
I'm going home this weekend. Maybe it'll be a good recharge and 'reset' button for me so I don't lose my sanity before Christmas break.

Halloween Prank

2005-11-01T18:53:00.000-06:00

Jared toilet papered my room in honor of halloween yesterday, so I decided to get him back. Later that night, while I was hanging out with him, he ditched me to go to La Rana, leaving me feeling awkward alone in his room. So I decided to mess with his sh**. Now keep in mind, Jared earlier that evening taped a ton of opened (unused) condoms all over his neighbor Jay's door, so Jay was happy to help me.

There are two things you need to know about Jared before I continue:
1. He hates zombies, and
2. He hates the French.

Jay came in and we put a big creepy zombie as his wallpaper and added a halloween screensaver. Then Jay password locked it.
The password: i love the french
The password hint phrase: f--- you Jared

I wasn't satisfied with just that

Jared has this "baton" from the frat he was in, which is actually a dildo that's a replica of Ron Jeremy's 'member'. I found the Ron Jeremy and hung it underneath his roommate's bunk of the bed, hanging down pointing at Jared's pillow. I figured he'd come home drunk that night and just crawl in without even seeing it, then look up and have it one-eyed staring at him. I then added shaving cream to it, making it look like it came on itself, making sure to leave some hanging off the end so it might possibly drip on him if he fell asleep under it.

I still wasn't quite satisfied.

His roommate suggested, "take his sheets." I figured it would be too obvious if the entire sheet set was missing, so I took the fitted sheet only and hid it under his bed, then covered his bed up so if, again he came back drunk, he'd realize in surprised annoyance that it was gone.

That still wasn't doing it for me, so I found the condoms I supplied Jared with earlier (to tape to Jay's door) and unrolled one onto each of Jared's glasses temples. These were lubricated condoms too.

I stopped back down to see if he was back, and I had perfect timing. First it was Joe (Jared's RA, also my RA last year). He returned to a room that, in the words of Jared, "looked like spiderman [came] all over". We (Jared, a bunch of his cluster mates and I) toilet papered the crap out of it earlier. So Joe picked up all the TP and threw it onto Jared's bed. This was a heaping pile of toilet paper. Right after he walked out of the room, Jared came back. Of course, first he noticed the TP on the bed. Then he went to his computer and discovered it was locked. Jay eventually told him the password and made Jared type in "i love the french" to fix it. Next he saw that his sheet was missing, which then his clustermates took the opportunity to tell him something else was messed with in his bed. He then proceeded to crawl into his bed to see if something was hidden inside, not seeing the dangling fallace right in front of him, and ran forehead-first right smack into it, shaving cream and all. It was shortly after this point that I high-tailed it out of there. Even though he was messing with his computer first, and sat back down at it after the aforementioned run-in, he still hadn't noticed the glasses that were right next to his left arm. I didn't stay to catch that discovery, but he IMed me later to say it was all lame, probably to make himself feel better about it all. I went to bed feeling pretty proud of my Halloween prank :o)

friendships with the opposite sex

2005-11-01T00:59:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to think it might be impossible for me to have a good plutonic friendship with anyone. I have remained on good terms with my ex boyfriends to the point where I'm in one of their upcoming weddings, and all but two of them have apologized to me for how they treated me during the short time we were together. But for the most part, I seem to be incapable of maintaining a good friendship with those of the opposite sex. I'm referring to the types of friendships where we'd call each other on a regular basis for updates, and be able to turn to each other if either of us has had a bad day, etc. This is an exception with TJ of course, as he is my best friend of the male persuasion, but I don't consider that to be plutonic, I'm marrying that one. I can never seem to get my guy friends to open up to me and be able to come to me with good/bad times. My one, "closest" guy friend here at school doesn't even stop by to hang out ever, I usually have to initiate everything. Am I just too much of a "girl" to be close to guys? Is the fact that I'm even blogging about this my downfall? Even as a tomboy when I was growing up I seemed to repel boys from being my friend. Teasing was our only form of communication, and that still seems to be a factor for a few of my current ones. I love my girl-friends, but it's nice to have some guy friends to put a male-spin on the world too.

get me outta here

2005-10-30T19:11:00.000-06:00

I swear I'm going freaking nuts. I need to get off campus for a while. I'm going home next weekend, maybe that'll "reset" me back to normal. Thanksgiving can't come soon enough...

reminisce

2005-10-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm going to Winona to hang out with Katie, and also with a friend I haven't seen in a long time. She was my best friend in middle school and one of my first friends after moving from Chicago. She was in one of my classes and seemed really nice, which was comforting coming from a parochial class size of 13 to a class size of 400 at a public school. When I first met her, I was really intrigued by her but didn't know how to communicate with her because she was hearing impaired and I didn't know a single thing about sign language. I actually stopped her in the hall and got out a piece of paper and pencil and wrote, "Hi, my name is Cathy, I'm in social studies with you. What's your name?"
I then joined the sign language club at the school and my mom bought me a sign language dictionary. We became good friends, hanging out at each other's houses, sitting at the lunch table with her and her other friends. By the end of the year, I was helping interpret during classes sometimes if the interpreter was sick or late. At the time, it even prompted me to want to become a speech therapist. She and I became good friends, hanging out at each other's houses, sitting at the lunch table with her and her other friends. We kind of drifted apart a little during high school, I got involved with sports and the choir crowd, etc. Sometime during high school I loaned my SL dictionary to someone I was in choir with. She never returned it, and then moved away. It's gone and I'll never get it back. That still kinda stings that I was stupid enough to loan it out.
I'm really excited to get to catch up with her this w/e. It's been so so long. She's engaged now too, on her 5th year at Winona State. I hope I don't embarrass myself too much with the amount of SL I've forgotten. I warned her that I'm pretty rusty at it now. I'll have to resort back to my basic spelling-out of words, I still remember the sign language alphabet at least so I don't have to primate myself back to paper and pencil communication.
Well that's it for the reminiscing, I'm off for some fun hangin' out time with a former 6th cluster-er tonight. Goodnight!

GOSH, IDIOT!!!

2005-10-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

GODDAMMITSONOFABITCH!!! I am a FUCKTARD!

I think I did fine on my whole ochem test except for the easiest math portion possible: I called 1/5=25%, thus botching the whole problem. Fuck fuck fuckedy fuck fuck!

I'm going to lie down and wallow in my own stupidity for a while. Tonight, we drink.

The Child Is Gone

2005-10-27T19:34:00.000-05:00

Not much new stuff going on here. I figured out a way to read my 950-odd page DAT study book before I take the test in 3 weeks from today. That's making me feel better about retaking it. The first time I took it, I didn't even crack it open once.

Not much else going on. I had a counseling appointment today and really didn't have anything to say to the counselor. Why is it that whenever I go to those, I always feel worse the rest of the day after? I'm past all the "issues" that were going on last year, and the dad/grandma thing is old news now.

I've been pretty down and out lately. No reason in particular, just not much to really say to anyone, I don't feel as excited about simple things like I was last year when we had all the girls here in the cluster. I could crack jokes and feel pretty good about life considering all that was going on, with my whole life being turned upside down and everything over that previous year. I'm really happy that I have a friend like Autumn still here. She's a good listener and is very understanding about a lot of things.
I went for a drive tonight just to get out of the dorms and brought my Fiona Apple CD along. It's been a while since I've listened to that one. The song that really hit home for me tonight was this:

Honey, help me out of this mess
I'm a stranger to myself
But don't reach for me -- I'm too far away
I don't wanna talk cause there's nothing left to say
And I suddenly feel like a different person
From the roots of my soul comes a gentle coersion
and I ran my hand o'er a strange inversion
as the darkness turns into the dawn
The child is gone

The child is gone.

Tree Monkeys

2005-10-23T22:40:00.000-05:00

Wooo buddy, it's been a long time since I've updated. Maybe that has something to do with why sleep has been tough to accomplish lately too... It actually seems to correlate with the exact days TJ and I finally got to spend together over the last week. We went to a wedding here in Luther-Land and then I spend the rest of my fall break at his house in Sheboygan. He had to study and was working on homework pretty much every moment he wasn't gone for class, so I really didn't get to spend much time with him there. I did get some quality quilt-shop-helper time in with his mom though.

One night I had a plan to make an elaborate dinner that included fresh chicken cordon bleu, with a side of long grain and wild rice and a vegetable of fresh green beans, with a bevarage of hot apple cider with a dash of cinnamon. For dessert we were to dine on baked apples. I even called and got the recipe from my mom. Turned out, nobody would be home to actually eat the meal. I was thisclose to tears, I was so dissappointed, but then TJ's dad asked if I wanted to go out for a burger with him at this little mom and pop joint in town. I never really got good one-on-one time with his dad before, it was really interesting hearing about him. He's always so quiet, I'm usually so intimidated. Too bad it took me 5 years to get to talk to him like that, but better late than never.

TJ's fall break started Wed, which was when my fall break ended, so we drove back here and got some quality time in 'til today. Last Friday TJ and I climbed a tree on campus, which turned out to be not as easy as I remember doing on a daily basis when I was younger, but managed it anyway, and took some pictures of the two of us in it. We look like monkeys in a couple of 'em, but if we cropped them, they'd be really nice. What'dya think? This one's my favorite:

I'll get to see him again at Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I've got a sh*tload of stuff to accomplish, including studying my butt off for the DAT. I take the torture device in less than a month, and I still don't understand most of the gen chem concepts anymore; it has been 4 years since I've seen any general chemistry, so I'm definitely gonna be a bit rusty with it. One day at a time. After this puppy's done, I just wait for the letters from the "suits" determining my future and figure out my life from there. I have to finish my dental hygiene apps too, which includes re-doing my personal statement. If anyone has suggestions or a life-preserver in that department, please let me know. That's about it on the homefront for now. Back to the grindstone...

The type of person TJ is...

2005-10-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

In honor of the fact that today is our 5-year anniversary, I thought I'd share a journal entry that I wrote while I was taking a creative writing class at UWEC. The format of it required every sentence to begin with "___ is the type/sort of person who," and I decided to write it about TJ. The stuff in brackets ([]) are because I wrote this in the summer of 2004 and the numbers have changed:

TJ is the type of person who would be a complete goof in order to get me to smile.
He is the sort of person who gets all of his friends together on a regular basis in order to maintain a bond with all of them.
He is the sort of person who has a poker night with the guys.
He is the sort of person who would never cheat on anything or anyone, he has a good and faithful heart.
He is the sort of person who would never settle for 2nd best.
He is the sort of person who wears shorts and a t-shirt to bed.
He is the sort of person who sleeps under a large pile of pillows.
He is the sort of person who hates waking up early.
He is the sort of person who wears boxers instead of briefs.
He is the sort of person who you could call at all hours of the night and talk to for hours if you just need someone to listen.
He is the type of person who would pay my entire way to Florida just so I could be with him for my first ever time to Disneyworld.
He is the type of person who didn't get upset when I almost lost the silver necklace he bought me while he was in London [3 1/2] years ago.
He is the type of person who calls me every day and does it because he wants to talk to me.
He is the type of person who is a loyal hockey fan.
He is the sort of person who loves to rollerblade.
He is the type of person who has high hopes and dreams and believes he will achieve them someday.
He is the sort of person who likes smaller dogs.
He is the sort of person who takes pleasure in showing me the finer things in life.
He is the sort of person who is shy about showing affection, although it does not mean he doesn't love me with all he has.
He is the sort of person who loves fast cars.
He is the sort of person who loves going to movies.
He is the sort of person who takes good care of his appearance, only not in an obsessed kind of way.
He is the sort of person who makes to effort to visit me often.
He is the sort of person who is in a [5] year long-distance relationship and is happy.
He is the sort of person who is willing to move and follow me to wherever I go to dental school just to be with me.
He is the sort of person who doesn't like Polish borscht, but is very Polish himself.
He is the sort of person who I never want to see hurt, sad, lonely, mad, or crying. I want to make him happy.

seeeepy kitty

2005-10-13T13:06:00.000-05:00

This morning was the first time that I've actually gone to class in my pajamas. In my now 5th year at Luther, I've never done it before. It wasn't like I changed out of my pj's into sweat clothes to wander over for my 8am extravaganza; I just put on a bra, laced up some shoes, and wandered over in the clothes I had just curled up in for the past 6 hours. I planned on taking a shower after class anyway, and didn't want to stink up whatever clothes I was going to put on for the day, so it just made sense to do it. No, I didn't wear kinky jammies that gave anyone a fun wake-up show, just simple sweatpants and my trout fry shirt that has a fish on the back sitting on a lawn chair saying "Rock out with your block out." Not my finest fashion statement, I'll give you that, and I was ready to fall asleep on my desk about 8 times during the first 45 min of the class, but I was comfy dammit. If only I had showered last night, I could've wandered back and taken a nap before lunch at 10. There's always tomorrow!

More decisions for miss indecisive:

2005-10-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

The newest tough question on the block: Do I stay here or go home and take classes at UWEC 2nd semester? If I were able to get into all the classes I wanted at both schools, UWEC would be a hellofa lot cheaper, and probably way easier classes than at Luther. The downside would be leaving my friends here, but the majority of them have already graduated away anyway. And if I took classes in EC, I could work at the Olive Garden and make some decent money, whereas if I stayed here, I'm not sure I could even find a job for that semester... Too many tough decisions.

If anyone feels like helping me revise my personal statement for my hygiene school apps too, please lemme know, I need all the help I can get.

Room swap?

2005-10-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

I have the opportunity to upgrade into a bigger room for 2nd semester. It wouldn't be far of a move, it's actually about a cubic inch from my door, directly next door. It is still a single room, but instead of being 1/2 the size of a double room like my current one, it's 2/3 the size of one. That'll give me maybe 8 square feet of more room. If I don't move in there, they're going to assign it to someone else anyway. I checked with residence life and they said it would be fine if I moved in there 2nd semester.

I'm now having second thoughts. After talking to a few people about it, they've questioned the reasoning behind the move. They don't think the extra space is worth moving all of my crap, "especially since it's in the same corner of the cluster anyway." I'm torn and really not sure what to do. If anyone has advice on the issue, please help a woman out. Anyone who knows me is aware of my indecisiveness when faced with two good sides to an argument, so any help on the issue is extremely welcome!

We partied like freaking rock stars

2005-10-10T13:32:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was homecoming here at Luther. This includes all of our friends that graduated away coming back and visiting for the weekend. In the case of the returning and ever famous 6th North cluster, this meant partying like rock stars. After classes were done friday, Autumn and I threw in a movie to pass the time before they got here, with frequent trips to the window every time a car pulled up to check if it was them. After about 2/3 of the movie, they all got here, and with them was a smorgasboard of booze. Our friend Chris has an apartment downtown and said we could utilize his facilities to catch up on old times. I'm sure we did a lot of catching up, but I don't think many of us remember much of it at all. It was a lot of fun. This year, Luther put some money into having a fireworks display once the sun went down, and according to PanamaJack, I was "ooh"ing like a 3 year old who's never seen them before. I just take pride in the simple things in life. The rest of the night is a mildly drunken haze, with a slight miscommunication, but things ended up really well.
Saturday morning I woke up at 9:45, and get this, it was without a hangover. Apparently my method of drinking fast and furiously early in the night allowed me to remain drunk through the evening, but let me get over the hangover part pretty much right as I was going to bed at 2:30am. Around noonish, the guys were all getting together for a grill out in front of Farwell, and since in my now 5 homecomings here at Luther, I've never been to a single football game, I figured I'd go and hang out there. The girls were supposed to call me when they were done with the football game; they never did. I ended up spending the rest of the day with the guys, some of us went out to dinner and I discovered that I really don't like crab cakes. I thought they'd be like crab rangoon, with cream cheese on 'em or something. They were more like breaded fish that got dropped on the floor at Roscoes a couple of times. Anyway, a few of us went to the Flamingo Ball. My only reason for going was to get to wear my red satin dress again, and we ended up staying for about 1/2 hour before we couldn't take the crappy funk music anymore.

Insert rock star party number two here.
There are some parts I don't remember, so I'll say in a nutshell it was a damn good time. There were a couple of girls there that nobody really knew that well, and they were being really really annoying. One of them was acting like a hoochie to the point where she was pole-dancing/humping PanamaJack's doorframe for attention. Everyone came outta that party complaining about their dumbness. I'll admit, towards the very end of the night I was getting incoherent enough to the point where I was starting to make an ass outta myself, but at least I knew the people at the party well enough where it's not as awkward as tweetledum and tweetledipshit were.
Yesterday ended up being recovery day, which included a much needed egg breakfast at a small diner in town called Family Table. Nothing much interesting after that, and I'm still a bit wiped out today from all the festivities, so I'm gonna take a nap. Autumn and I are running up to LaCrosse later to pick up some of her winter clothes now that things are getting colder, so that will be a nice little "reset button" getaway to put us back to normal so we can function for the rest of the week. 4 days 'til TJ's here :o)

Alarm clock...must...die

2005-10-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

Well this day has already started off peachy. Aside from the mystery call beeping me awake at 5:45 a.m., which from what I'm gathering by the sounds is probably my mom accidentally calling me from inside her purse, my next door neighbor's alarm clock has been going off. This isn't just a sleeping-through the piercing beeps kind of "going off", oh no, that would be too easy, that way my pounding on her door would've resulted in it being shut off. She left last night to go home and forgot to un-set it. For the sake of my frustration and the earliness of this rant, yes, "un-set" is a real word. The real kicker of this one is that it seems to be one of those that progressively gets louder as it beeps on; this alarm has been going off since 8 fucking a.m. If you notice the time I'm typing this, it's quite a long time after that. We might as well have placed a jackhammer against my headboard by this point. I should also point out that our rooms are divided by a solid brick wall and I was still ready to rip my own ears off.
My 8am class had been cancelled today and I was looking forward to a peaceful sleep-in. Sonofa-

I was chosen to do this so here it is

2005-10-02T23:22:00.001-05:00

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

Here is the, well it's my 4th sentence 'cause it was a shorty from my post "I need your help" (Aug. 3, 2005):

"There may be a thank-you reward in the form of fudge or other yummy goods
in your future!"

Ok, I've done it, now I'll follow suit and pass this puppy on:
1. Josistah (her blog)
2. Didgery Drew (Blogspot: The other LiveJournal)
3. Julie K (Juliebug)
4. Jonny T (blog this)
5. The Man Known as TJ (The Great Paved Parking Lot in the Sky)

2005-09-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

In Loving Memory of my father

William Komornick

9-30-2003

I miss you daddy :*(

The last day I saw him

2005-09-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

Today marks the last day I ever saw my father. Two years ago he was here for parents weekend. I showed him and my mom all the parks around Decorah, took them to Marty's and showed 'em the ugly architecture around campus. Dad took a nap in my roommate's foof while mom and I took a short walk to check out the football game. That would've been yesterday. Today we'd be waking up and dad would be in a hurry to get home. It was still early in the day and I wanted them to stay later, but dad insisted they get home because he "needed to get his work stuff ready for the next day." Knowing my dad, he always has his tools organized in a bucket or toolbox and all he has to do is throw it in his truck. This was b.s; he just didn't want to spend time with me anymore. I was pissed. I told him I wanted him to stay, even pleaded with him, but he said they had to go. I remember giving him an angry "fine" in there somewhere. The rest is blurry, I'm not even sure I said "I love you."
What I found out during the phone call 2 days later was that he went to Chicago, not to work that next day. He had been laid off, and decided to take that time to visit relatives. He didn't want me to know he had been laid off so I could focus on my schoolwork and not worry about him.
Freaking ironic statement of the century.