holiday burnout

Let’s move the serious entry closer to the bottom of the page.

I hope everyone had a joyous holiday that involved some combination of relaxation, fun parties and baked goods! On the day before Christmas Eve I was going to post a cutesy little “Christmas card,” a.k.a. a picture of myself at age 4 wearing an oversized Santa hat and a horrendous seafoam sweatsuit. But then I couldn’t scan the picture and I couldn’t download a cute enough font and oh, the dysfunction! And then, well, the day after that all the craziness began and it’s really just dying down right about now.

I think I would much prefer to write a Christmas update entry about my presents and such later, when I have time and energy to upload my pictures. For now–it’s THE BITCH AND MOAN HOUR!!! Yayyyyyy!

Thing One: On, about, or around (name that stand-up comic!) Christmas Eve, my whole family started to just degenerate into disgusting wintry sickness. I had a viral cold, my mom was getting over the flu and my sister had a Mysterious Fever. By the time we got back from our family party, my dad had caught some permutation of each. It was gross. We are gross. I coughed up mucus today. I’m also experiencing sharp, stabbing pain in the hinge of my left jaw. It’s akin to the pain and soreness I felt after I had my wisdom teeth removed, but um, unless someone’s been performing maxillofacial surgery on me in my sleep, that theory doesn’t make sense. I have no idea what it is, but it really hurts and is becoming kind of worrisome. So, uh. I guess I will like. Get that checked out.

Thing Two: Uhhh, living at home is like, totally bumming me out. Man. It’s turning me into Keanu Reeves over here. My sister, Matt and I have determined that my parents are in fact verbally malicious and abusive, but I’ll save that for another entry, I think. Also, it’s really weird to be almost 21 and have to get lectured about seeing an R-rated movie. And it’s also annoying because I can’t leave my clothing scattered all around my room without getting yelled at. Basically I’m saying that it sucks being semi-independent for 4 months and then living at home and getting treated like a kid. Gross.

[/rant]

Now a few awesome things!

• Matt bought tickets to Avenue Q for Christmas and we are going! ::does the Cabbage Patch:: ::and the Running Man:: ::And the Macarena:: ::Okay, not the Macarena.:: Eeeeee!
• My dad set up a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse for me to use with my laptop, so it’s like using a desktop! I <3 realkeyboards! ME + REALKEYBOARDS = TRU LUV 4 EVA!!
• I bought a new face wash at Sephora. It smells like Froot Loops!
• I also bought nail polish and gave myself a manicure. Ooooh.
• I’m like. Tired
• Now.
• So I
• Think I’ll Go
• To Sleep
• Now.
• Okay.
• Bye.

the corners of my miiiind

I’m feeling pensive tonight, so it’s going to be a serious entry. The last four months have been taxing–not hard, per se, not arduous, but monumental.

Yesterday was the last day of fall semester, which means:

• JPE–my semester of student teaching–is officially over, and
• because of the decision I made, this also marks the last semester of being an Education major, and thus
• the longest, most difficult semester of college so far is finally over, sooo
• I get a brand new start!
• Yer gunna maaaaake it after alllll

But something that makes me kind of sad is that next semester Matt is studying abroad in England, so that means:

• yesterday was the last time we would ever been in my townhouse on campus together

I don’t know, the thought made me all watery-eyed and sentimental. Additionally, I was the last roommate to leave, so I got the job of lonesomely turning all the lights out and walking away from four locked doors.

Sometimes, especially during unavoidably poignant moments like leaving a dorm room for break or for the summer, I get especially emotional because of…well, because of the experience I’ve had so far at college.

My first year was really awful. To put it bluntly, I didn’t have any friends. For a while I thought I had forgotten how to make friends. I remember eating alone a lot. Eating in college is a remarkably social thing. I remember feeling anxious before every meal, wondering who I would go with or how I could get away with eating by myself. I remember spending a lot of time getting ahead on work in the library. I remember trying to befriend the girls who lived two doors down, knocking on their door at awkward times like 11 AM and 8:45 PM, when they would inevitably both be talking on the phone with their high school boyfriends of four years. I remember a constant dull ache in the small synapse between my heart and my stomach, which didn’t go away for a very long time, even after I made friends.

I think of myself as a freshman, suppressing every quirk I had and feeling like I didn’t know myself, and compare that girl to myself now, and I compare both of those girls to the way I was in high school…

::

In high school I was really involved in band, which meant that I arrived at college having come from a place where I had lots of friends, a great big bubble of friends that served as a school community for me. My closest friends were and are my best friends, Linds, Karen, and Ilana. We were basically inseparable–we did everything as a unit. I was so attached to them that the idea of not seeing them every day and having them be an immediate part of my life literally frightened me.

And you know, sometimes I step back and I look at how our friendship has changed, how we roam to new places and make new friends and have new experiences separately from one another, and it still scares me how different everything is. I find myself forgetting how it felt to go to the same school as my best friends, to pass them in the hallways, to toss notes over other students’ heads at the end of the day at our lockers, to stand at the band room lockers in a secretive and secure little circle… little memories like that.

Unlike TV best-friendships, we don’t have distinct characters or roles that we assume, but instead we have crafted a group dynamic that simply doesn’t exist when one of us is missing. We are a four-woman force. I feel stronger and more whole in the presence of my three best friends, and perfectly at ease. I feel lucky to have these three people in my life and I love them very much.

Wow, I’ve gotten severely off-topic. Oh, well.

Onward!

Or maybe not. It’s late and I’m ready to go to bed. One last thing before I go:

Today I went and saw Juno, which was, Jesus Christ, so good. It was funny but serious, and the dialogue was all true to life and whatnot. It was like Garden State, but about teenagers instead. Garden State, Jr. Also, Michael Cera. Enough said.

Blogemon MASTAH

Holy noise reduction, Batman!

Right now I’m wearing earplugs just for kicks. Caitlin bought some for finals week so she could study without letting herself get distracted by various Townhouse shenanigans. Do you know how earplugs work? You squish them up into tiny little wormies, and then you shove them all the way into your ear canal, and then they expand and totally fill the inside of your ear so you can’t hear ANYTHING, not the clacking of your own keyboard, not the knocking of your friends outside your door saying Melissa, there’s a fire out here, please come out!, not the lusty gasps of the murderous stalker breathing on your neck HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU OMGZ.

Heh.

Okay, these things are giving me a headache now. I’m gonna take them out.

Matt insisted that I start posting again even though finals week is technically not over for me. I was deluding myself that if I didn’t allow blogging to be an option, I’d actually like, study and get work done more quickly and efficiently. To which I reply heartily: AHHHHhahahahahahahahahahaha.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

haha.

What have I done in the past couple days? Exchanged presents with my roommates. Had a lovely 7-months-into-this-relationship commemorative dinner. Ate a lot of chocolate. Stayed up many nights with the girls until like, 4 am, just talking and watching YouTube videos and doing roommate things like looking up wedding dresses. Watched like, seventeen movies.

No, seriously. Let’s take an inventory of the movies I’ve watched since my last entry:

1. Mean Girls
2. Elf
3. Snakes On A Plane
4. A Very Special Macauley Culkin Nutcracker (well, that’s what I call it, anyway)
5. The Notebook
6. Amelie
7. Love Actually
8. The Princess Bride

Um, am I wrong, or is that a rate of like, one per day? Also I went and saw movies in the theaters, like:

• The Golden Compass (not that good)
• Fred Claus (satisfactorily Christmasy, but also not that good)
• The Mist (okay, this was pre-Finals Week) (also, this was probably the best one)

That’s probably too many movies. That’s probably not responsible student-dom. Hey, it’s not my fault that Finals Week happens right before Christmas. How’s a girl supposed to get through the holiday season without watching Love Actually at least, oh, six or seven times??

I guess I should like, get ready to go take my last final. But um, hello blogosphere! It’s good to be back! I hope you enjoyed that Short Hiatus! Wish me luck on my final!

small break.

Things to be done between now and Friday:

• One (1) 10-page research paper
• One 5-page paper that I was supposed to have done, like, a month ago?
• An “e-portfolio” ewww.

Also, things to be done between now and the 18th:

• “Unit revisions,” aka “in which Melissa tears her hair out re-doing a unit on Othello that she hasn’t touched since October.”
• A whole slew of teaching-related poetry. Maybe 15-20 pages of poetry.

Well.

Well then.

I’ll see you guys on the 18th.

The most interesting thing that happened to me today?

I saw an episode of Tyra called “How to Spot A Fake.” There were four separate segments, each dedicated to a different arena of snobbery: designer purses, designer clothing, hair (like weaves/extensions) and diamonds.

Now, let’s not forget that I’m the Duchess of Wanton Materialism over here. I buy makeup almost exclusively from Sephora. A year and a half ago,I spent the earnings from summer job on a $400 digital camera. I have a BLACKBERRY, people. I’m a 20-year-old college student and I have a Blackberry WITHOUT THE BLACKBERRY NETWORK. I don’t need 24-hour access to my e-mail or the internets. I don’t need to check the status of the stock market. The only emails I get are from Facebook, notifying me that some girl I talked to at my freshman orientation lost her phone, “give me your numbers bitches”! I got it because it was pretty and had a glowy scrolling orb. Sue me!

So I mean, I’m The Target Consumer, right? I’m just gullible enough to believe that premium denim can somehow be seen as an “investment.” But for some reason the first half of this Tyra episode rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed to me like it was coming from a condescending place, particularly when Tyra mistakenly identified a fake Gucci bag as a real one and then, upon being informed that she had guessed wrong, immediately squealed “Oh, HAYL no! Ew! Ew!” while swatting the purse away from herself and onto the ground.

Then later on I found out that the episode was created as a call to action in response to a recent expose that revealed that counterfeit merchandising is a billion-dollar industry that’s linked to all sorts of horrendous things like drug trafficking and child labor.

And then I took my right foot. And promptly placed it into my gaping, assumption-making maw.

I think I’ll give the opinion-forming part of my brain a break for the rest of the week.

the luckiest.

A typical conversation between me and Matt:

Me: I want a Big Mac.
Matt: (with considerable disdain) No. No, you do not.
Me: I WANT A BIG MAC.
Matt: Trust me, you don’t want one.
Me: YOU don’t want one because it will annihilate your digestive tract. But I can eat them. Thank Jesus.
Matt: Well–
Me: TWO ALL BEEF PATTIES SPECIAL SAUCE LETT–
Matt: I can get you the special sauce aheh heh heh heh
Me: (stern silence)
Matt: Ahem.

Later that day, Matt delivered a Big Mac to my doorstep.

This is how I know that, as Ben Folds would say: I am. I am. I. Am.

The luckiest.

artsy smartsy afternoon

This is in fact a picture of me and Matt at the art museum, although we neglected to pose in front of the actual entrance. I guess it’s okay. Half of a partway-decorated Christmas tree that’s for some reason tethered to the ground with some kind of industrial cord is just as picturesque. This is one of maybe 3 good pictures of me and Matt, so I’m happy. And I thank the nice man who agreed to take this picture. I’m always afraid to approach strangers to take a picture for me, for fear of seeming like one of those employees at kiosks in the mall who lunge at you with nail files or head massagers or herbal remedies. But Matt did all the talking, while I hissed, “NO DON’T MATT STOP WE CAN TAKE IT OURSE–Thank you! Thank you sir! Yes, you just press the button down, thank you!” And I guess I’m thankful he did, because it turned out quite nicely.

OKAY and now I will stop babbling about this picture.

There are 4 main exhibits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Amazing and Captivating Impressionistic Art, Impossibly Ornate Renaissance Art, Creepy Rooms of Perplexing Yet Totally Fascinating Modern Art, and Solemn/Boring American Art. There was also a Renoir exhibit, which we did not visit because it cost extra money.

We spent a long time staring at the Monets up close, then running to the other side of the room to gush over them from afar (“Look how you can see all the DEPTH from here!”), then running back up to them to see the different points of color, then running far away, lather, rinse, repeat. I also nearly fainted in rapturous joy over seeing van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in person. Yes. I am a nerd.

There’s also a cool exhibit of armor and weapons–the biggest collection in the country, I think. The world? I don’t know. You can check on the website if you’re really wondering. Anyway, it was really funny to see how small people used to be back then. For some reason, armor strikes me as totally comical, and whenever I see it I experience a desire to be able to punch through the glass, put it on, and dance around all giggly, squealing “I’ve got on armor” between chortles and snortles.

I know that’s weird. Don’t mind me. I’m uncommonly strange.

Matt gave me a lesson on World History, and I felt very, very dumb.

I told him the story of Les Miserables, which somehow ended in a one-woman re-enactment of the last half of the show (“And rain—will make–the flowers…….::dies, is bathed in white light::….groooooooow!”) in the middle of the Museum Store.

All in all, a completely fulfilling day trip. Next stop: NJ Adventure Aquarium? Eh? Eh?!

first snow, exhibitions

Lorelai: Michel, it’s the first snowfall of the season. It’s very lucky! Make a wish.
Michel: Get away from me.
Lorelai: Oh, you’re not supposed to say it out loud.
[Michel answers the phone.]
Lorelai: [dreamily] The world changes when it snows. It’s quiet. Everything softens.
Michel: It’s your mother.
Lorelai: And then the rain comes.

::

It snowed here last night; I tried to get a picture of the view outside my window but:

1. My camera was dead and my charger is nowhere to be found
2. My phone takes a decent picture, but
3. My phone and my computer are apparently in some sort of Paris/Nicole feud and won’t have anything to do with each other, even when forcibly linked by a USB cable

So much for that.

Matt and I are supposed to go to the Philly Art Museum today because it’s free on Sundays and because I have a sick and pathetic obsession with museums, aquariums, science centers–if it has exhibits, I want to go. Like, now. Aquariums are my absolute favorite. Whenever my family goes on vacation I insist on visiting whatever sort of aquatic-life-attraction they may or may not have where we are, much to my family’s chagrin. I don’t think anyone else I know finds the combination of the smell of salt water and air conditioning quite as enthralling as I do. The last time I went to an aquarium was two years ago in Boston, and I spent about 20 minutes with my nose pressed up against the glass of the “Deep Sea” tank, whispering raptly at a lone anglerfish: “Heyyyy, little guy! You’re creepy, arntcha?! Who’s a little creepy? You are!”

Hopefully we’ll still make the trip to the art museum today despite the snow. Maybe we’ll find some gray sweatsuits and trudge up the steps, Rocky-style. Maybe we’ll just use a side entrance so we don’t have to walk too much in the 13-degree cold. In any case, I’ll try to find my charger so I can take pictures and share them at a later date. Off I go!

virgin entry

Two days ago, after a panic-attack-inducing, eye-opening stint as a junior year student teacher, I decided to abandon my life-long dream of becoming an English teacher oh WHY GOD WHY WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE that ultimately, although I like the idea of teaching and I wanted so very badly to love actually doing it, try as I might, I simply didn’t love doing it.

So. Now I’m starting over, an almost-second-semester junior in college with my whole life ahead of me and three semesters left to decide what I want to do with my life. Three…short semesters. Basically…basically a year and a half to figure out what the hell one does with a BA in English and a minor in Creative Writing. God, who minors in Creative Writing? What the crap was I thinking? Will somebody please GUIDE ME?! ::sobs heavily into the keyboard::

Wait! I mean! At least I figured this out now! I’m only 20! I’m young! This is my chance to turn it all around! Yes! Brand new start! Clean slate! Tabula fucking rasa! (Oh wait. Is that how you use that term? I just think it sounds cool.) (Don’t listen to anything I say.) (Particularly when I begin using parentheticals.) (Excessively.)

In celebration of new beginnings and turnings over of new leaves and such, I’m starting a blog. Again. For the fourth time. As you can see, I’m sort of the queen of false starts (with the exception of that last diary–I kept that one for almost 3 years, I think), so I won’t make any promises about writing daily, but, well, with my former life plan currently in shambles, I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot to ponder in the next couple months.

Additionally, at the end of the semester when I go back home and my parents see my grades, I will probably be either hidden in the basement, a la Harry-at-the-Dursleys, or kicked out of the house and forced to pay rent to live in the shed. So in one case I’ll have tons of free time to post in here, and in the other case I’ll be able to change this blog’s theme from “career and personality crises” to “Survivor (Wo)Man: Surburban Backyard.”

Either way, this is my introduction to the Blogger community. This is what I’m all about. Nervous introspection and self-degradation. So come back every so often and visit, okay? You’ll feel better seeing someone in so much unjustified despair. It’s called schadenfreude, and I learned about it from Avenue Q.

Oh, I’ll also probably talk about the day-to-day normalcies of college life, my relationship with my dorky and wonderful boyfriend, Matt, and…pie.

So.

Enjoy.