January re-cap

I feel like it’s been January forEVER, and now that it’s finally over I wanted to see what I have to show for this neverending horror month. So, here we go!

This month, I:

…spent $52 on makeup brushes. To be fair, they were from the Prescriptives line, which was about to be discontinued and probably thrown away the next day. So it’s like I did it partly for the environment too! I swear!! I bought a lot of makeup, as well. Like, a LOT of makeup. And I learned how to use most of it, too, thanks to various YouTube makeup tutorials.

…attempted NaBloPoMo and almost made it! I started slacking towards the end because I sort of started having a social life again. So I didn’t finish, but I still feel accomplished, because this is the best I’ve done so far. Hooray!

…witnessed some crazy events unfold concerning the elopement of Matt’s 19-year-old sister. I’m still hoping for a positive resolution to this drama, because I can tell her parents are really torn up about it, and actually, Matt is too.

…spent a good portion of the month fretting and worrying over my Rutgers application. Now that everything’s squared away, I’m freaking out about whether I’m going to be accepted. FREAKING. OUT.

…went to a Flyers game with Matt. Flyers games are officially a relationship tradition — we’ve been to at least one game per year since we first started dating. Also, I showed off my new jersey, a Christmas prez from Matt:

…invited my friend Katie to stay the weekend at my house. We had brunch and went to a charity event at my old high school and saw The Lovely Bones (which, augh. So upsetting.) and I lost my wallet at the movie theater which almost ruined the whole weekend, but the best part was just talking and talking and talking and talking. It’s amazing to have a friend with whom you can never run out of things to say.

…reached out to my friend Cait. On her blog she often writes confessions about the difficulties and stresses of her life, and it felt so weird for me to read them but not do anything about it in real life. So I’ve been trying hard to be there for her, to be more available. I hope it’s working!

…Hovered around the same weight, give or take + or -5 pounds. I accomplished this by Having A Horrible Diet Whilst Simultaneously Kicking My Own Ass At The Gym. Unfortunately, I’m still about 19 lbs away from the weight I’m aiming for. So. Should probably get on that.

…bought a giant purse!

The remote control is there for scale, and also because I have no concept of photo composition. Also, I took this picture 10 minutes ago.

…experienced a huge cut in hours at my job. In November and December I was working at least 25 hours every week. In January they pulled it back to 17-20 hours. And now, starting on February 15th, I’ll only be working at the library 12 hours a week. It’s really upsetting, but I’m glad they’re giving me any hours at all.

…experienced Wedding Fever for absolutely no reason at all. Seriously, marriage isn’t even on the horizon. I don’t know how to account for this obsession.

…read a bunch of books, some of which were very very very good, and some of which were Just OK. My favorite one of the lot was She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb, which, I know, I’m sort of late to the party on that one. But I couldn’t put it down.

…watched my little sister sing a song that means a lot to me:

(she’s the Smiles McGee on the right.)

…saw Avatar and The Princess and the Frog just like I said I would. My first impressions: I liked Avatar but I can’t believe so many other people did;  The Princess and the Frog was Made Of Awesome in way that only Disney is capable of accomplishing. It’s kind of eerie.

So that’s my January re-cap. That was fun! I honestly didn’t realize how much I did this month. You guys, this is weird. I didn’t think I’d ever do anything interesting again after college. Could it be that … this is Real Life?

…talk about eerie.

Our dog got skunked again.

You know what, I retract my previous theory that my dog and the backyard skunk are mortal enemies. Based on the frequency of these so-called attacks, y new hypothesis is that they’re having a clandestine affair (well, clandestine except for the godawful reek).

Obsessed with

• Wedding websites. WHY.
• Girl Scout cookies
• Checking the status of my Rutgers application 16x a day
• hypothetical apartment hunting
• YouTube makeup tutorials

Post-college life is not as glamorous as I thought it would be. At least, my post-college life isn’t.

go on, git!

Hey, those of you who know me from WayBack? Remember Glass Box Boys? How I’d fixate on certain members of the opposite sex who, I very creepily explained, were so cute I wanted to “lock them up in a glass box and just watch them do cute things, like eat spaghetti and make snowmen”? Remember how the Glass Box Boys were people like our friend Christopher and Joseph Gordon-Levitt? You know how I haven’t even used that term in like six years? Well, I’m breaking it out again because I’ve found a specimen worthy of the title.

Here is Alex Day. He is British. He is in a band that writes songs about the classic sci-fi show Dr. Who. He’s also doing this:

(You can watch the rest of the series here]

Cute accent + Big old sci-fi geek + snarky, scathing commentary on Bella Swan = GIT YO SELF IN THAT GLASS BOX.

A couple things:

• Why did I just hear Ice Cream Truck music?
• Why does my dog seem to have “Get Sprayed By Skunks Often And Frequently” at the top of his Life List?
• Why are John Green and Hank Green not my friends IRL? (Oh wait, I know the answer to this one; it’s because John lives in Indiana and Hank lives in Montana. So I can’t invite them to my house for cake balls and show up to nerdfighter events. If they lived in, say, Mt Laurel, NJ and Philadelphia. That’d be a different story.)
• Why, when I ask for more hours at the library, am I offered a shift on the EXACT ONE DAY that I have promised to hang out with Caitlin? Now I have to be all “PSH HELL NAW.” Okay, maybe not quite like that.
• Why can’t we make clementines happen all year round? If we can clone a kitten, we can at least do that.
• See again: My dog. A skunk. A battle of the ages. That my dog always loses.

Exactly.

There’s this poster that hangs on the wall across from my desk in the Youth Services department. When I first saw it I thought it was sort of cheesy, borderline cliche. But now I like it a lot. It’s a reminder of why libraries and literacy are so important to me. Every time I see it I know I’m going down the right path.

The more you read,
the more you know.

The more you know,
the smarter you grow.

The smarter you grow,
the stronger your voice

When speaking your mind
or making your choice.

I believe the children are our future

Matt and I went on this weird website that supposedly combined our faces and showed us an image of what our future baby might look like. I’m inappropriately obsessed with the results.

Here’s Matt (Hee! Remember when you had a scraggly goatee? Also, you has a pretty eyes.)

Here’s me, and part of Caitlin’s head. And part of Mark’s back.

Here’s our fictitious baby!

This is arguably the best result we got. One of them was accidentally the wrong race (because Matt thought I was “South Asian” instead of “East Asian”), one of them looked creepily like Matt’s sister Katie, and one of them was an accidental morphing of our adult faces, which just looked like me with a mustache. But I like this one. I’m going to pretend it’s accurate and realistic and not just my face superimposed on Matt’s face superimposed on a picture of an already adorable Asian baby. Yay!

What I did this weekend

Went out for drinks with Matt. Bought some makeup and some muffins. Stayed up until 4 AM talking to Linds. Read some books. Took a super-sweet nap. Thought I might see Avatar, then didn’t. Made plans with Katie (she’s going to visit me next weekend yay!). Had a BLT. Played Super Mario Wii at Game Stop (WAAAANT). Stressed out about grad school. Ate a muffin. Felt better.

You?

catch my breath

Every now and then the gravity of my decision to go to grad school hits me and instead of being excited and nervous to be accepted like I usually am, I’m filled with dread and anxiety. I’m applying to go BACK to school? For like … three more years? Why?? I’ve started to really like not being in school! I’m loving that I have Work Hours, and then, Leisure Hours, free time in which I don’t have to feel guilty if I’m not working on something immediately productive. Grad school will rob me of that luxury, I know, at least for a little bit. And sometimes I feel like three more years of school means going into a suspended phase where none of life’s milestones can occur, like marriage or … well, pretty much just marriage (but that’s an entirely different blog post).

I can’t picture myself in grad school yet. I’m just sort of getting used to the idea. I guess that’s normal. I mean, I just want to be a librarian. And you HAVE to get your Masters in Library Science to be qualified to be one. So I never got to make the choice, to research and weigh my options and realize, “Yes! I want to be a graduate student!” Once I knew I wanted this career, the choice was made for me.

I think this is all stems from the fact that my applications are finally complete, transcripts and recommendations and GRE scores and all, and soon there’ll be a decision, and then I’ll be back in the world of course registration and advisers and textbooks and binders again. It’s all just happening so fast. I need a second to catch my breath.

transfer

Instead of reading my blog today, I’d much prefer if you’d go to Ree’s site, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman,  read her latest entry, and post a comment. For every comment she receives she’ll donate 10 cents to Haitian relief efforts, and she’s gotten almost 20,000 so far. Thanks for letting me know about this, Karen!