well... back in time for 2009 *wiiiiiiiiink*

Well, I have managed to stay up all night completely on accident and it's nearly nine (in the morning) and I'm still awake, so why not write a blog? Since I haven't written one in more than two months, and our poor blog has nearly died, Nicole writing hopeful posts every so often, but it's like this: when I fall off the planet, I can't find it again for another three months.

HOWEVER.

It's the new year, and this is what we do. I want to write once a week--more if I like, sure, but at least once a week. Next semester will probably be as crazy as the last for me, but in a different way, although not only do I mean to blog, I mean to do my homework.

So this is not much of a post at all, but it's New Years Eve and it's the south, so craziness will ensue, which means I'll be blogging soon enough. It's good to be back =)


cheers.

obligatory november post

oh blog... our poor little blog. it's been over a month since anyone has shown you any love. i should be doing hw, but i thought of you and how there wasn't even one single post in november, and i couldn't let that happen. it's almost december, after all. how sad! i don't know where we've been. just a crazy month, lots of things happening, i suppose. hopefully we will return to you soon! if not, i fear the pants may remain stolen, never to be returned...

:-(

perez hilton -- a blogging icon

it's 12am on friday morning and i am weirdly wide awake and decided i wanted to blog. sadly, besides the fact that sam waterson from law and order was on my plane back from charlotte to wilmington, i have no interesting information to give. so, i thought, hmm... what were sara and i just hysterically laughing about thursday afternoon? that would be something good to talk about.

well, we were, of course, brought to tears by none other than the fabulous perez hilton. for those of you less media savvy and up-to-date on your hollywood gossip bloggers, perez is the genius behind perezhilton.com (whose blog is listed at the bottom right of our blog under possible pant thieves you should check out--and yes, you should check it out), where he posts pics and news bits about anyone and everyone that calls themself a celebrity.

sara and i can't decide why we love him more--our shared hate of miley cyrus or how he calls zac efron 'zacquisha,' or any of the other reasons he is hilariously amazing. and i personally share his adoration of a certain musically-inclined trio of brothers from jersey - OJD!! sara knows that i'm slowly fostering the love of them in her, too. because come on, they are just so dang cute, how can you not? but i digress, this is not another post about my OJD, this is about the awesomeness that is perez.

he speaks his mind, which is often the truth and opinions that others have but might not be as inclined to share, and we respect him for that. he is, after all, a king amongst bloggers, whose own celebrity we can only dream of acheiving. though he is loved by many and hated by some, no one can begrudge him the fact that he has managed to turn his little gossip column into a phenonemon that is referenced in tv shows, magazines, and has earned him his own tv slot. all that talk about celebrities has turned him into one! *insert jealously here*

so, here's to you, perez: keep doin' your thang, girlfriend! we'll be reading. much love <3

you know it's time to clean when...

About twenty minutes ago, I was sitting on my couch completely and totally relaxing, not doing anything at all, which is basically the most amazing thing in the world when you don't ever get to do it (or if you're doing it instead of very pressing homework). Which, apart from hanging out with friends, has been most all of what I've done this weekend (and it has been fabulous).

But anyway, this post is about Kids Say The Darndest Things.

So like I said, was chilling on the couch. And then I hear that fast, insistent, incessant knocking--the way kids who don't know proper knocking etiquette knock. I don't know, whatever, it's annoying. And I figured it was some kids, there have been a few times when they've come over offering to take out the trash for a dollar. Which is fine, and it's sort of cute and if I'd had more than two neighbors within half a mile when I was a kid, I probably would have done the same thing.

Anyway, I went to the door, and it was the kids. Well, I didn't have any cash on me, but I felt bad so I went to see if I had any chocolate bars or anything and I didn't, but I ended up giving them some other candy. But while I was looking, one of the little girls sticks her head in and goes, "Daaang y'all house is dirty."

I'm not a big emoticon person (at least while blogging), but the one that fits this exactly is: -_-

And the truth is, our house is pretty trashed. Basically it's uninhabitable.

But it gets better. I went outside a few minutes later to grab something out of my car and there are the little girls again. We're talking six and seven years old, by the way. And we started talking again for a few minutes and they were asking all those questions kids ask. As follows:

"How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"Oh wow, you're... young!"
"I don't know, I'm kind of old..."
"Do you have a son?"
"No--"
"Do you have a daughter?"
"No, I--"
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No."
Pause.
And the other girl said, "No life, huh?"

Uh--what the heck?? Seriously? Okay.


Well they are silly kids and while I totally disagree and don't even get me started on why being single is actually great right now and the Christian culture (or culture in general, I don't know) puts way too much pressure on getting married and all that, and honestly I do not want to get married five minutes after I graduate. Great for people who do, I just think, as they say, I only have now now. And there's a lot I won't be able to do when I get married so I want to make sure I get to do all the things I want to first. If that makes sense.

Anyway, I didn't actually get that freaked out and mostly I thought it was funny and cute when they said it. And that wow, haha, kids will just say it. And then I told them to go a few doors down (to the roommate's boyfriend's apartment) and knock on his door and try to get his trash. And, not even kidding, when they were describing who sent them, they totally described us as the people with the 'real messy house.'

october is the best month ever

should be pretty self-explanatory, but let me elaborate.

october is the best month ever because of the following:

1. it holds the highly esteemed, revered, and celebrated date of birth of one the world's greatest living treasures--me.
2. the last day of the month goes out in inimitable style with free candy and costumes and parties and spirits roaming the earth! what more could you ask for! and finally...
3. the much desired and awesomely timed fall break occurs here as well, giving us poor, tired, worn out students a very deserved break in the middle of the semester.

not to mention that this year, the release of the highly-anticipated (not just to me, ask anyone) HSM3 is oct. 24... even better for october's clout!!

fall gets into full swing here, too, so the leaves are changing all kinds of crimsons, tangerines, and butterscotches. and the weather is finally starting to cool down. there are hayrides and leaf-pile-jumping and trips to the pumpkin patch!

i mean, honestly, when does any other time of the year offer so much? that's right, none.

tomorrow it is off to jersey for me. the forecast for both flying dates claims sunny skies, so hopefully there will be no delays or missed flights. i will try my hardest to find some crazy people in the airport yelling at their kids or running to catch their plane in high heels and a mini skirt for me to blog about next week when i get back.

safe breaks, everyone, and happy october!! :-D

there's nothing better than the sound of laughter, except maybe...

And three weeks later, she writes... do you see? If I've ever said on here (I know I've said other places) that I'm cyclical, let this be evidence to that. In the next week or two, I'll probably write four or five posts, and then I'll fall off the planet again leaving poor Nicole holding it up without me, although she's done a fantastic job. (She's like Atlas, isn't that cool? No shrugging, though. And I know, I'm lame--but Ayn Rand is a crazy person.)

Actually, speaking of lame, oh man I amaze myself. So I could live off of bad puns. This is why Tim Bass completes my life. Today, I got back from my lunch break during work, and I'd gotten pretty hot driving around in the car (that's important, I'm not just telling you). Well, I came inside, set my stuff down in my office, and then decided I had to use the bathroom. After I came out of the stall, I was walking up to the sink to wash my hands and saw in the mirror how red my face was from the heat and said out loud: "WOW I'm flushed."

Teehee.


Okay, but it gets better than puns.

This weekend I went on a retreat with Intervarsity and on the way there I rode with Alicia, her boyfriend, friend Jamie, and other friend Nathan (not Ned, if anyone remembers his butter post). We stopped at KFC on the way there to eat, and let me tell you, we spent the whole however long we were in there cracking up. And we were loud, oh man. Basically I was dying, couldn't breathe from laughter, Alicia couldn't quit snorting, and Jamie laughing is an event in and of itself.

Now you should know we were laughing at this sort of thing: Nathan unwrapped his snacker, spread it out all girly with pinkies out. And then a few seconds later grabs his belly and says, "Guys, I really shouldn't be eating this." How old are we? Surely twelve. Because that sent me into convulsions, and everyone else sort of followed. And I was convinced everyone in the dining area wanted to yell at us, but we were enjoying ourselves and apparently we weren't the only ones enjoying us.

BECAUSE. About five minutes before we left, this guy came up to our booth in the corner and said,

"I just wanted to let you guys know that the sound of your laughter in here made my night."

Pause. Aw, thank you. You have a wonderful night sir. Those sorts of thoughts, and I think we started to say them. We smiled at least, got at the thank yous. But then he continued,

"There's nothing better than the sound of laughter, except maybe sex and laughter."

Uh. That guy just went there. Seriously? Well I don't know, and none of the rest of us have any idea, but that guy was convinced. Man sex and laughter, that's where it's AT! (That is, man! the exclamation, comma, sex and laughter. Not man sex like man-sex. Just to be clear.) And then he sort of creepily backed away and walked out, only to walk right past us a second later (outside, through the window) blowing kisses at us.

So I guess I'm glad we made his night. And even now I have no idea how to respond to that. Except that I want to pick at the sentence and wonder if he meant the sound of laughter while having sex? Or the sound of laughter and the sound of sex, because then it just gets even worse. I'm seeing this man living in his apartment complex with a glass cup pressed to the wall with his ear pressed to the glass, listening.

let's talk about freshmen

those 12 year old looking, overstuffed backpack wearing, "where is S&B?" asking, born in 1990, all over everywhere can't escape from freshmen. yeah, you know who i'm talking about...

they don't even have to wear their typical teal t-shirts with the big "ORIENTATION 2008" stamped on their backs to alert us to the fact they are, indeed, first year students. but of course, they do anyway... usually because this early on it's probably the only UNCW-related clothing item they have (unless they're one of the chosen few whose parents bought them a sweatshirt or hat when they came for a tour while they were still in high school or as they were here for orientation in the summer..."here you go, bobby! wear this UNCW shirt and soak up some seahawk pride before you even get accepted!").

you can't NOT notice them even if you wanted to. they walk around shouting "CLASS OF 2012!" while still wearing their "CLASS OF 2008" high school t-shirts. please just go around yelling, "CLASS OF 2012 INFANTS!" it's more accurate and much more amusing for the rest of us. man, 2012... seems light years away. we'll be graduating from grad school by the time these kids make it outta here. let's hope the mayan end of the world comes before they're set loose into life. they're who'll be running the country with and after us? lord help us all! they'll probably end up with miley cyrus as president. and her alter ego hannah montana as VP. they want the best of both worlds!

it doesn't help matters that UNCW let in an inordinate amount this year, resorting to triple occupancy rooms in certain dorms... that's right... TRIPLE. *flashback to freshman year when you remember being stuffed into that 2x4 over-sized closet with some random person you'd never met before in your life -cringe- now imagining it with a THIRD random person taking up what little closet space you already had, not to mention general breathing room -double cringe-*

there are two kinds of freshmen: the shy, quiet ones who walk to class with their head down and sadly :-( sit alone in wag when not awkwardly going with their roommate, afraid to say something aka anything that would make them come off as the scared and unprepared froshie that they are; and then there is the egotistical, still think they're seniors in high school, know someone who goes to the college already, i'm-in-college-now-and-have-more-freedom-than-i-know-what-to-do-with-so-i-think-i'm-really-cool-and-need-to-let-the-world-know-it-so-they-don't-think-i'm-the-scared-and-unprepared-froshie-that-i-am freshmen.

let's be honest here, kids. both of those just end up screaming "I'M A FRESHMAN! WHAT DO I DO WITH MYSELF?!" to the point that you might as well walk around with "2012" stamped on your forehead, just to make things a little bit clearer. but like i said, we already know you're a freshman anyway, could smell the unmistakable mix of fear, naivete, and angst on ya from all the way down the other end of chancellor's, so don't freak out and lock yourself in your dorm room, we won't actually make you do that.

i mentioned they were born in 1990, right? 1990! i mean, come on! they can't even pretend to the remember the eighties like us 1987 and 1988er's do because they weren't even ALIVE. while we were running off to kindergarten, they were still learning how to walk and use the potty. the Power Rangers weren't even Mighty Morphin' anymore by the time they got around to watching TV besides barney! i don't know if that statement just made me more feel like i'm pushing granny status or that the freshman are even younger than i thought (tell me, is it pampers or huggies that are the better at protecting against diaper rash these days?).

and it's true. i'll admit it. we were all freshmen at one point. in fact, we're freshmen twice counting high school, which was basically the same scenario, except we were big-headed, 13 year old, just 8th graders aka kings and queens of the middle school, so of course we were even more awkward and terrified then. but let's admit this, too...we were never THAT awkward and small and all over the place. i'm barely 5 feet and i feel like at any moment i could step on one of them and that'd be the end of that!

but i digress. my goal here is not to froshie bash. well...ok...maybe a little (don't deny it, you love and do it, too). my point is this: chin up, kids, because we're all essentially awkward. you all just happen to be a lot more awkward than any of us upperclassman are at the moment, but it's really just because we've learned to hide it better. and hey, in less than a year you'll already be sophomores and YOU'LL be the ones froshie bashing, swearing on your lives that you were never that weird and managed to be both a freshman and cool. uh...yeah, keep telling yourselves that...

(but us upperclassmen as freshmen? yeah, sorry, we actually were that cool.)

good luck, class of 2012!

not everyone loves the jonas brothers

And I quote from WauwatosaNOW in Wisconsin:

"Pop idol comment leads to boy popping off

Not everyone loves the Jonas brothers.

A 17-year-old Brookfield boy was arrested for disorderly conduct in Mayfair Mall, 2500 N. Mayfair Road, after defending his non-Jonas-like appearance.

According to police:

Mall security watched as the boy, seemingly walking alongside a 17-year-old West Bend boy, turned and hit the other boy with a closed fist about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. The West Bend boy fell backward into a store display.

When mall security intervened, the victim said while in GameStop, he told the Brookfield boy that he resembled a Jonas brother, a music group popular with young, teenage girls.

Offended by the comment, the Brookfield boy followed the West Bend boy outside of the store, struck a fighting pose and told him to say it again to his face. When the West Bend boy walked away, he attacked him.

He told police he overreacted to being called a Jonas brother. He suspected his attention deficit disorder was responsible for his poor decision."

absolutely HILARIOUS. i love people. only in America, folks...

that thing about music i was going on about earlier

[Note: this post is actually taken from a letter I wrote to an old friend about two weeks ago, a small part of which I've already posted. I've edited some out, but I haven't really rewritten any of it, so if there are parts that address or reference a person or a thing and it isn't ever actually explained, that's why. The point of this anyway is music, and that's all you really need to know, because I'm not sure much other than music makes sense.]


I saw Prince Caspian again the other night, and honestly, I'd forgotten how much I love movie music sometimes. And it is absolutely incredible. Now this is important for two reasons. First, there's only one other thing that gets me the way amazing music like this does, and that's equally amazing writing, and even then it's different (I think music is more pure--while with writing, you do get those moments, but there's more sorting through the parts that aren't as emotionally wrought as the rest).

This listening to a clip of "Arrival at Aslan's How" from the soundtrack: Good writing should be like good music. It builds, it lifts, it moves in you, and when it's finished, you go back to it again and again, a reaching hand in the dark for a thing you can't see or hear or fully understand or really even articulate, the kind you can only feel, the kind you only want to feel. And so you fall into it, turn it up, let yourself be moved to somewhere only it can bring you.

That music is incredible, and I want to write words like Harry Gregson-Williams writes music. It's funny I say that too, wanting to write like he composes. The same is true of Hans Zimmer (especially) and John Williams. And you'll know more about this than I do, but the thing the three of them seem to me to have in common is that they all have a knack for writing music full of "heroic grandeur" and "lyrical and heroic themes" (quotes from a description of the Caspian score), and really I just have a soft spot for that kind of thing. I'll go on all day about hope, and I love the beautiful, lyrical things that just build and fill you up and I'm doing a bad job of explaining, but you know the feeling in the music that I mean. I'm missing it with words, I can't quite reach it. But listen to that track, to music like that that's big and beautiful and swells and reaches and does the same thing looking into the sky or even particularly emotional worship does.

What I mean--I think--is this: music like this does something only music like this can do, and it only ever leaves you wanting more of it. In writing, if you're good enough, you can have the reader feeling what you feel, some strong emotion. In music, specifically in the Caspian soundtrack for example--the first time I saw that movie I cried through the whole thing and I'm not making that up (really I'm just a big softy, but don't tell anyone =p). And it wasn't just the fact that the movie was big and noble and amazing and made me wish things were like how they were in the movie, and it wasn't just that this whole living in a world we don't belong in thing is actually real, that every day we're fighting for Christ's kingdom the way Peter and all of the Pevensie children fought for Narnia--all of that's true, but the music embodied it and every time I listen to it it's all I know.

You and I have always been so alike, and I think this is what it is. We both understand and love all of this (in the knowing and feeling way), we're both moved and floored by big things like this, and we're both going to, one day, and with any luck, make music and writing that gets at those things. I'm thinking right now of a quote Tristan's got on his facebook (and so the circle is completed, haha, since it was only ever the three of us in high school nerdy enough to go on about all this) by C. S. Lewis:

"When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends, or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as 'the journey homeward to the habitual self.' You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We are mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can. 'Nobody marks us.'....The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longings to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret."

This is exactly what I'm talking about, except I'm absolutely crazy sentimental and tenderhearted and probably very foolish, and so I prefer not to think about the fact that the beauty he's talking about is going to turn away, or that we're going to fall away from the feeling we get when we see (or hear) those beautiful things. As always, I'm only ever thinking words like always, like I can keep things I know I can't, that things can stay forever the way, even though I know they shouldn't, I'd like them too. It's like with Colombia--I could never have kept it, the way everything felt while I was there. It felt that way precisely because it was impermanent, the way, to use an awfully cliche example, shooting stars are only beautiful because they burn out so brightly and quickly. The nature of the thing keeps it from being an ''always'' or an ''only ever,'' and I know this, this is rational, but like I said, I prefer to think that maybe we keep things like that forever just because they're so amazing while they last that I'd rather just forget they end and totally immerse myself before, like C. S. Lewis was talking about, we go back to the habitual self.

But there's also something very real in those moments in music. Lasting? Maybe not, I'm not sure, but you can return to it, make your own small beautiful thing. Turn it up till it's all there is.

the road

Not the book by Cormac McCarthy. But you should read that.

No, I mean the streets of Wilmington and all the craziness they usually cause/result in/otherwise take part in in some way or another. So yesterday, lame lame tropical storm Hanna came through and didn't actually do much of anything, but people were freaking out. Which I don't understand, because this is the coast, and apart from the college students, people here (should) have been through hurricanes before so they (should) know that a tropical storm or a category one hurricane is basically just an excuse to have a party, maybe park your car somewhere else if you live in one of the (many) areas in Wilmington where it floods every time rains. But people hear the words tropical depression and forming off the coast of Africa and suddenly there are two loaves of bread and one gallon of milk left in the whole store. But what I'm getting at is that it ALSO affects people's ability to drive (normally), mine included (I'm loving these parentheses today and I don't know why, it's sort of annoying me as I write).

First, when I went to work yesterday morning, I left about an hour later to go out and grab some breakfast. And on the way to food, I pulled up behind this woman in a Mazda X-something another--anyway, it was a little red convertible with the top down. Mind you, it's misting outside, or whatever you call that thing it does when it's not quite sprinkling, but there's definitely a mist of water falling. And she had in her left hand an American flag. She was holding that thing straight up in the air, and I was behind her for at least a mile and a half, maybe two miles. And to top that, we sat at a light for five minutes. I KNOW her arm was getting tired, she didn't let her arm down or switch arms or rest in any way. And I don't why the heck she was doing it, that's why it was so weird. I mean, maybe she was evacuating and wanted people to follow her? Maybe she couldn't hook it in her window with the top down and, well, couldn't bear to not fly it? Or maybe she just really, really, really loves the states.

And then, then. There is this huge smudge on the inside of my windshield that's only visible at night, particularly in the glare. Well, after prancing around in the wind and rain and lake-puddles last night, we decided to go out and find some energy drinks for all night staying-uppage (I know, I know. You don't have to say it). Once we got the drinks, we were right by campus and one of our friends needed to get something from her apartment so we headed in that direction. At that point, it had started to rain fairly heavily--at least hard enough that, already basically having to stick my head out the window like the Joker just to see anything, I had no idea which way car was even pointing. It was bad. I'm so glad there weren't many cars out there or I'm certain I would have gotten into an accident. BECAUSE, right as we were about to make the left into her apartment area, well--I couldn't really see the left, and it looked like the two lane kind of road that's divided by a grass median, so I tried to go on the other side of the grass. Except it was a regular undivided road, so I turned into where there was a sidewalk and a sign and lots of grass instead of pavement. With someone behind me and another person approaching the intersection, but of them assuredly thinking I was drunk. So while I promise I drive well (if a bit aggressively), I've pretty much proved to everyone that I can't. It was great though, I completely missed the road.

And that was pretty much the most exciting things Hanna brought. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. But I grew up on the coast for all the hurricanes in the '90s, so I admit I'm a little biased, wanting another Fran to hit and all. I woke up for the worst of it around three this morning, and the trees were tossing around a good amount, the security light going on and off. Not much lightning, which is weird, because it wasn't forecast and I remember very distinctly there being almost constant lightning in all the bigger hurricanes I went through as a kid. Maybe we'll get a big one this year? Or next?

But now. Back to the homework I'm not doing. cheers.

thank you, hurricane hanna!

ok, so technically i don't have classes on fridays anyway...but for all those that do, i know there is campus wide rejoicing going on, as the eminent hurricane or tropical storm or w/e hanna has decided to be at the moment has cancelled classes for tomorrow. crazy amounts of rain and wind and maybe even a tornado or two are predicted.

my thoughts? everyone is blowing this whole thing out of proportion and it's gonna be a minor snafu. all i really care about is that the soccer game is cancelled tomorrow, so i don't have to go to work! yess!! i have every intention of not leaving the apartment all weekend, should there be such a storm, and reading and watching DVD seasons of my tv shows. good plan? i thought so.

everyone take care this weekend and stay safe! happy hurricaning! :)

because sometimes i'm rude and tacky

I may not be a very big Obama fan, but I think he handled this pretty impressively:

(quoted from an article on CNN)

"'Let me be as clear as possible,' Obama said. 'I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.'

Obama said reporters should 'back off these kinds of stories' and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother.

'How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off-limits.'"

I stand put in my place.

puns, politics, and mccain is digging his grave

1. I broke my car key off--my titatium key, the one that's probably thirteen years old but is also as heavy as half a roll of quarters--in my car door. I've got a picture, but it's on my new phone, and I still haven't figured out how to get it off yet.

2. At work Sunday, the golf cart we were driving to the soccer game (which we won, by the way, and it was incredible, very movie-like-intense) decided to run out of battery. But mind you, it only ran out of battery in forward. SO I got to drive about a third of way to the soccer field in REVERSE. Basically that's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Things like that only ever happen to us.

3. I'm sure I'm already forgetting some.

4. On a more serious note, I had a conversation in Spanish with a guy from Central America and although I honestly spoke pretty badly, apart from one question, it was completely in Spanish and I swear I got a rush from it.

5. And oh man THE PUNS! Really, you can skip the rest of this post and just read the puns. One by the great and wondrous Tim Bass and the other by me. Both brilliance.

Expanded version below:

1. All right. So this is what happened. Got off work (secretary job, not the concessions job) at one, headed out to my car to leave. Now, my key is pretty big. So sometimes I don't get it all the way in the lock before turning it just because the thing is so long, and it doesn't turn--but it's not anything at all, I just make sure it's in all the way and the car opens, easy enough. Well, that's what happened, it wasn't all the way in before I turned it. Except all of a sudden my wrist kept turning and my arm had pulled away from the door. And I just looked at my key in disbelief. That thing is pretty dang solid. Or was, I don't know.

So after I pulled out the piece of the key that was stuck in the lock (apparently, lucky for me, I was able to save about $200 doing that), I got a ride, got my spare from Alicia, and then went over to the Nissan dealership. First, they charged me $9 for a new copy of my key, which I was a bit upset about, but while waiting for them, two amazing things happened:

Had my conversation in Spanish with another guy waiting who had overheard me rocking out to Maná (band from Mexico), and it really just reinforces me wanting to go to a Spanish speaking country(ies) this summer. For at least two months. The other three or four weeks shall be designated to visiting friends who go far away for the summer (very sad face). I'm going to be fluent in Spanish, it's only a matter of how long, and that's it.

Best thing ever though--when I told the guy who worked for Nissan that I'd broken the key and showed it to him, he and his coworker looked from me to the key and back again with looks on their faces that absolutely said: "How in God's name did she do that??" I still have no idea. Complete disbelief. Only word for it.

2. Pretty much self explanatory. We drove the golf cart for at least two minutes in reverse. It was a rush, let me tell you. And oh man, I even backed it through a fence and up next to the concessions stand and dodged a bicylcer coming straight for me. All while weighed down by all our stuff, going downhill in the mud, a thunderstorm looming overhead. It was a feat, wish you'd been there to laugh with us =).

3&4. Turns out I did, and see number one. Actually, we'll use these for the conversation I just had with my roommate's boyfriend, Scott. So we're talking about McCain, and no offense to any McCain supporters (this does not mean I'm an Obama fan either--and I did choose to use the word fan instead of supporter for a reason) but oh man. Okay, so we're talking about how basically things just keep getting worse and worse for him in terms of winning the presidency. First, Sarah Palin. And her pregnant teenage daughter. This is bad because she voted for abstinence only sex education, and I don't know whether or not I agree with her on that or not, but sucks for her image that her daughter's pregnant now. And also, about six months ago she voted to slash funding for homes for pregnant teens.

And then there's the fact that McCain is really the walking dead. Scott was telling me about how everytime he forgets what his stance on a particular political subject is (yes, he forgets--possibly the alzheimer's?) first, to state that he did in fact forget, and then to say that his stance is whatever the president's is. Does he know what Bush's approval rating is?? Are you serious?? How does that help him in anyway whatsoever? So then I said that he's just digging his grave deeper and deeper. Ah-hah, because he's so old, I love it.

5. And now for the (intended) puns:

Tim Bass (greatest professor in the entire world--literally, you will cry from laughter the entire class, every single time. And you'll learn a lot and be slightly intimidated, but mostly just be in awe of the wit) walked into another class of mine before it started a few days ago, and one of the students had brought brownies to class, so another says, "Hey Tim, you want a brownie?"

He waits for a second, gets that mischiefy smile on his face, and responds, "If you were offering me Indian food, I'd accuse you of trying to curry favor!" Teheheheee.

And second one. I was having a conversation about music with a friend of mine, and he started talking about ska. So I said that was cool, did he mean like Five Iron Frenzie, that kind of thing? He did, and then started naming a few bands, so I asked if he'd heard of Enter the Haggis. He hadn't, so I told him that he should definitely listen to them, that they were awesome, that they weren't your typical ska (ie Five Iron Frenzy), but they were still ska-ish. Oh yessss, I said it.


=) it's been a good week.
cheers.

only (incredible) soundtracks and (extraordinary) writing ever do this to me

This listening to a clip of "Arrival at Aslan's How" from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian:

Good writing should be like good music. It builds, it lifts, it moves in you, and when it's finished, you go back to it again and again, a reaching hand in the dark for a thing you can't see or hear or fully understand or really even articulate, the kind you can only feel, the kind you only want to feel. And so you fall into it, turn it up, let yourself be moved to somewhere only it can bring you.

i am never going to sleep

i took an at least 2 hour nap today from 4-6, then proceeded to lay around and fall in and out of sleep until about...10??

it is now 1:08am and i am tired, yet weirdly awake and feel the need to keep finding things to do.

i've looked over all my pictures on my computer, checked my e-mail 35498 times, submitted to atlantis, looked up tons of nonsense with google, played 7825 songs on my ipod, and am now here writing a pointless blog.

at least i don't have class tomorrow, so if i end up not falling asleep until 5am, it's ok because i don't have to get up in 4 hours and walk all the way to kenan. speaking of, somewhere between the union and SLB1 are two syllabuses (syllabi??) from my ANT 207 and ENG/FST 317 class that i managed to already lose 5 minutes after i left them, so if anyone spots those floating around chancellor's walk, you know to whom they belong.

ok, i'm gonna watch a movie or something and hope i can regress to how i felt at 4pm and just pass out. wish me luck!

note to self: never do this again.

drivers of the world...

This is a public service annoucement. The roads, from this moment on, will be a safer (or much more dangerous) place. I've just gotten a new phone, and it's got a keypad, which, ironically, means it's much harder for me to text now. And what that really means for me is this: no more texting and driving.

Actually I hardly ever did it. I could probably count on my hand the number of times I've actually done it, and mostly I tried to keep it at the stoplights, and since our city is mostly stoplights and stopped traffic, it stays fairly safe. But at least for now, until I get very, very used to my phone, all's safe.

Not really much to say, although you should go see Tropic Thunder, because it's amazing hilariousness. Having lived two years of my life with a black family, there's something really funny about white people who think they're black. Maybe it's because it's so ridiculous, and maybe it's because I know very well about the things they're imititating or whatever--sort of like those ''you know you're from wherever when" things--and of course it's a generality and of course it's exaggerated, but it's got some truth to it somewhere and it is just hilarious to me. And besides, I love my black family--and in my heart of hearts, I know how much cooler/more rhythmic they are than us (BY THE WAY I'm white) and I know I can't touch it, so (can't touch this, can't touch this, it's hammertime).

(insert: go Jamaican dude who just set the world record for the 200m. Dang he's fast.)

But nuff about race stuff. 'Cause please see my post about the Olympics, and apply here, and understand that I think it's silly to be colorblind, that we can be one people and not all be exactly the same, and it's wonderful how we're not.

And OH MAN, speaking of white people who think they're black--happy early birthday to Bo Burnham because he is also awesome hilariousness and I love it! Everyone please go listen to 3.14 Apple Pi and I'm Bo Yo and laugh until you can't breathe. You'll thank me for it later, I promise =).

cheers.

...this blog ain't big enough for the both of us...

so...has anyone noticed that there seems to only be one of us that gets around to blogging at a time?

who's in colombia...or just busy...or working immensely... or trying to unpack their life again...

honestly, why has there been such a long time from when there were posts one right after another and lovely little comments left on each other's blog??

*sigh* this depresses me.

hopefully once school picks up things will get back to normal... otherwise i fear the fate of the stolen pants!

addendum: more feet in the mouth

Meant to put this in the last entry but I was watching ER and forgot. However, it was the best one of the night, so I can't possibly leave it out =).

First, it's important to tell you that I have a crazy strong sense of smell. Actually, it's probably no stronger than most people's, but I'm really sensitive to smells, and I can almost always smell if something is there. Except sometimes I get them switched up, like, for some reason, when I smell popcorn popping, it always smell like a ham and cheese biscuit to me. No idea why. It's gonna be horrible/probably pretty humorous when I'm pregnant. I'll be walking down the bread aisle at Wal-mart (which always seems to be right near the seafood section) smelling bread mixed with fish and I'll probably just throw up right there.

Well, during the soccer game last night, I went outside and stood by the window where customers order so I could cool off. And I kept smelling what smelled like dog poop, and it was nasty. Now, earlier, some grown woman came up with her dog-child (you know those women who treat their pets like kids?) and asked for a plastic bag and I figured she needed to pick up after the dog, but I also figured it was somewhere on the other side of the stadium and didn't think any more of it. And, just saying, pets aren't allowed into the stadium. But like I said, after she took the bag I didn't think any more of it.

So there I was, standing in front of the stand and there was this horrible smell and I just couldn't contain it, so I turned to Greg was like, "GOD something smells NASTY. I keep smelling crap, I know I smell it. UGGHGHG, what is that?" And so on like that. So Greg says, "I know what it is." And, overhearing, the rewards program staff standing about twenty feet away nodded. Since I couldn't see the thing he was pointing at, he had me take x steps forward, y steps right, a little farther, a little farther, until I was standing right in front of the place that, apparently, the dog had taken a dump. About eight feet from the stand, and completely in the space where people line up.

First, that dog was tiny--fit in your purse tiny. Second, the place it had gone was like four inches wide, which is at least three inches bigger than the rest of the dog. And third, retarded woman really did not clean it up all that well. She'd, like, scraped the top layer off the grass or something, but she'd left a fair amount behind. But like I said, I am sensitive to smells, so when I walked back to the stand and could still smell it, I had to do something. So I found a cone from last year, one of those little bitty cones that people sometimes use for megaphones. Grabbed it and put it on top of the spot. Problem solved, couldn't really smell it much anymore.

Well, it gets better. There was a little three or so year old boy running around who kept trying to drive off with our golf cart. Cute kid, apart from that. And all of a sudden, I look over and Greg is laughing and pointing out the window. Little boy had the same cone, holding it to his mouth yelling through it (don't worry, it was the end that wasn't on the ground). So I ran over, the best I could without falling over from laughing, and grabbed the cone from him.

Later some staff from the athletics department cleaned it up and put dirt over it. But the smell was still there, and occasionally it was awful. Come to find out, the smartest (and most considerate) pet-owner on the planet ever had taken the half of the poop she'd picked up and put it in the trash can right next to the concession stand. The same trashcan right next to the window that the hotdogs were just inside of. Worst thing ever.

So I know sometimes I just let the worst things fall out of my mouth and I don't even know why I talk at all, but oh man I hope that woman heard me. And if nothing else, she provided a very entertaining evening =).


Anyway, I would also just like to say that several months ago, our creative writing department sent out one of their emails about different places accepting submissions, and one was a magazine calling for stories about wolflore and fairytales and that sort of thing. And it just so happened that about a month before that I'd had to write my own version of Little Red Ridinghood for my English class. It was just one of those things I'd done the night before it was due. Really straightforward, the girl wore a red jacket with a hood, she was visiting her grandma, etc. The story was cute, I guess, but had little real depth and I would never workshop it in a writing class, so I just sort of sent it in because of the coincidence and didn't really care because I know I can do a heck of a lot better and just whatever. One of those "shrug, what the heck" kinds of things.

Well, I heard back today from the editor. Now, the magazine is really small I think--the guy has a facebook and added me. And I didn't get the story in, which I expected. He said the things I thought would be issues, about it being really straightforward, etc. But he wants me to revise it for publication. Which is really cool, I'm pretty excited about it. But thing the thing I'm really, really happy about is this: the response he sent me. Whether he had flat out told me they didn't want the story or if they told me it was the most amazing thing they ever read, the fact that he sent me a personal email--and not just a few sentences. This email was five or six very long paragraphs long, full of suggestions and advice and thoughts about the story. That just amazes me. Like I said, I know it's small, so I suppose he has more time to send out personal messages like that, but the fact that he did, only that he did. I got from him as much as I would get from any professor whose job it is to do that. And I think that's wonderful. I wish all editors were/were able to be like that, and I hope that if I ever decide to become an editor that I could be that kind, and doubly so if I ever teach, which I hope to.

But right now, I'm getting dizzy again and I don't know why, so time to end the post.

cheers.

open mouth, insert foot

I am absolutely the all-time leading ruler ever of putting my foot in my mouth. Honestly, it's awful--funny later, but pretty bad when it happens because when I do it, it's one of those really horrible awkward ones and I never mean to do it but combined with not always thinking before I speak and being a bit uncensored with those kind of things anyway, things just kind of go down that way. So. Twice, just today.

First, we were in the dining hall on campus getting ready to go volunteer to move in tiny freshmens. And while we were waiting this woman came up to us and she was showing us her shoes. They're Rainbows, but they're teal. Apparently some guy who now works for the Ellen Degeneres Show convinced the company to make them in teal specifically for our school, which is cool, except for the first thing I thought when I saw them was oh God those are ugly. Now, I thought twice, decided not to say I thought they were ugly, and then asked if they were real leather (looked like the rubbery shower shoe kind). Come to find out later, that woman was the chancellor of our university. Would have been fabulous if I'd told Rosemary DePaoulo her shoes were not workin'.

And then later, I was working concessions and it was about eight thousand degrees in the wooden shed box we work in. So, called my roommate, she brought me some shorts and flipflops so I wouldn't die, but by the time she did, we were pretty busy. Before, I was just going to kick out my coworker (he's probably in his late thirties, I don't know) and change real quick before anyone could see, but since we were so busy couldn't close the stand for a minute, and I didn't have time to run to a port-o-potty or anything. But I just figured I could change in there, we could manage. So without really thinking I told the customer that I'd be back, I had to change. And Alicia, who was with me, who shielded me while I took my pants off with the door to the stand open and Greg serving customers, said, "Man that's so unsanitary." And I realized it totally is. I don't know how I'd feel if I knew the person handing me my hotdog was standing next to the hotdogs not wearing pants a minute ago.

And all that is just a fraction of how off the wall things have been lately. Craziness, crazy day. And everything's just starting, so here goes.

(p.s. I told you I never wear pants.)

way #789 to piss me off

Sit in the parking lot in your SUV with the engine running, waiting for whoever to get out of the grocery store. Seriously? Seriously? Because I haven't been driving anywhere at all but to work and the grocery store for the last three or so weeks because gas was more than $4.00 a gallon when I got back from South America and basically I spent all my money while I was down there and now it's either gas or some other bill. And everyone's like oh, whatever we need to do to lessen our reliance on foreign oil, and No drilling Alaska when I'm pretty sure it's all going to run out anyway eventually, whether it's ours first or theirs. And since we can't make up our mind what we want to do, our best in-between is sitting in running parked cars because THAT conserves gas.

And not even kidding, I pulled up next to this SUV which, as I've said, had its engine turned on, and when I finished shopping and rolled up next to my car, guess what was STILL THERE with its engine STILL ON with the same skinny beach ho reclined in her seat, hair blowing in the air conditioning wind.

There's this movie called Fried Green Tomatoes, and if you love southern movies for women--Steel Magnolias-esque, only less classic--it's quite lovely, and funny too. So there's this part where one of the characters gets really mad that these two young girls stole the parking spot she'd been waiting to park in and all of a sudden she just snaps. Goes from letting everyone walk all over her to ramming those girls' car about seven times. Movie-style, in my head, with my little car and its band-aid on the back, that's what was happening.

Seriously though. If you want to waste your gas that way, shut the hell up. Or fill up my tank. Or buy a Hybrid and turn it off when you're not driving. Thanks guys.

cheers.

i am in love with the jonas brothers

soooooo...just got in from the concert and OH.MY.GOD. *insert shriek of screaming teenage girl fan*

it was AMAZING. i, like, don't even have words to being to describe how amazing and awesome and incredible and insane and wonderful it was. but, i guess those are a few good ones to give you an idea :-P i maxed out my over 100 picture memory card and all my almost 20 minute recording space. so, we were kinda up in the nosebleeds, what turned out to literally be the LAST row in the garden, but it was still so ridiculously FANTASTIC that i barely noticed. (except for maybe when joe was running around the stage reaching out and touching the hands of the girls right there on the floor...then i wasn't so happy to be that far away...but other than that!)

OH YEAH, AND.... that concert was being filmed for the 3D movie coming out next year of the tour. that's right! all across america in theaters everywhere will be the concert that i was sitting in! i can watch and see a certain part and say, "GUESS WHAT?! I WAS TOTALLY THERE. SAW IT IN PERSON. OWNED."

ok, maybe not QUITE like that..haha..but something to that effect. it is now 2:30am and i am STILL so freaking pumped and excited from being in the same room with joe jonas, the rest of the bros, and demi lovato that i don't foresee sleep anywhere in my near future, which is why i thought i would come on here and share that little bit with you. i'm gonna go and try to wind down or something. wish me luck!

p.s. everyone should go out today (of course at normal hours) and buy their new album!!! i know i am!!!

oh, and one last thing...clearly i'm still a 12 year old actually almost 20 year old. for instance, i bought a way overpriced $35 t-shirt with their faces on it and i can't wait to wear it!!! like i care! whatevs. they are awesome and i love them and i am OBVIOUSLY not afraid to show it. but hey, that's just the way i roll! ;-)

obligatory ''i'm alive'' post: ie /go world/

I promised. I've been promising for nearly two months now. I've had that very real thing called intention most of the time, but also that thing where you don't follow through and you just come out saying you'll do it and disappointing your kids and becoming a bad father or something. Since I've been watching first and second season ER episodes obsessively, everything reminds me of ER. And I remind myself of George Clooney right now. Can't commit to the blog, can't give it the quality time it needs, will go looking for ways to mess it up. Or something like that, I don't know, I'm rusty at this and I really just keep thinking about ER and I'm not sure why. But hey! Hey. First, a story. This is a true story, a very ironic story (but I WON'T SAY WHY), and the perfect description of my wonderful hybrid ghetto redneck neighborhood. (Seriously, I love where I live).

Was taking out the trash the other day. The only reason I do this as of late is so I can run into my Spanish speaking maintence dude, Jaime, who incidentally is amazing and also from Bogotá. However, on the way there, trying to look around all inconspicuously and walk slowly in case he comes out (the guy gives me fresh peaches sometimes and does many very cute things, so, really, this is justifiable), all of a sudden out of nowhere this girl about my age comes running out of her house like someone's chasing her with a knife or something. And then I hear Girl's momma or somebody hollerin' from behind her:

"IT'S STATUATORY RAPE, JEANIE, DON'T DOOOO IT!!!"

Not even kidding. Roughly, this was translated from "eeuhts state-chuh-torry ripe, jeanie, dawn't doooouht." Honestly, the southern english language is about impossible. Anyway, Girl throws herself into her car and tears out down the street, assumabely into her fourteen year old lover's arms, mexi-stach and cut-sleeve tank tops and all (to show off his muscles, of course).

And that, my friends, was the highlight of my week. And not in an oh my life there's nothing happening but ER and work, but in a that was incredible and doesn't actually happen in real life, only ever happens here in the slowed down southern world way. For this reason, Miss Nicole will be travelling back HOME within the week. We miss you!

So, this is my life now. Working, waiting for school to start. Everything seems sort of on hold right now, like I'm just waiting to get to the part where everything starts back up again. I'm not sure what it is, only that everything was holding while I was Colombia, too, but in a different way. I didn't post while I was there for the same reason I didn't take very many pictures. (In total, I took about seventy, while my roommate's boyfriend took over a thousand.) What I mean is that, one particularly cold night, Alicia's dad drove us all up to this point on the mountain you can see in the picture from her window, and we stood on the edge of the road and I just looked and looked at it. This whole lit-up thing. And all of a sudden (not for the first time), I didn't want to leave, I just wanted to watch the city, remember exactly the way it looked and felt up there and close my eyes and pretend it wouldn't end.

So, same thing. Although it makes less sense with writing, because generally that's how I remember things. But I just wanted to remember it and throw myself into Colombia like when you turn the music up so loud that there's only that and everything else is just afterward, and everything sounds different.

That said, I wrote a few things, but not Pants kind of blogs. But after all of that, when I first got back, I hated it. I wanted Colombia so much I just hated everything about being back and really was pretty drained from being around people constantly for a month and a half, so I just sort of turned into a bear and hibernated (ironic, since coming back to fatty, processed American food had its effect on me and I'm officially normal-sized person now, which is fairly unusual, having always been a bit undersized, and I'm still kind of adjusting to it). I'll say this: I've since reconciled with being in the States, lest anyone think I'm harboring anti-American tendencies. No worries--and besides, you should hear me go on (gush) about the Olympics. Very proud of our swimmers, currently.

But yes, so I don't know where I'm going with all this. Watching the Olympics as I type. Men's diving: United States: 5th; Colombia: 6th. I really love the Olympics, especially the summer ones. And really, part of the reason I love them so much is the same reason I'm so against globalization. I see all the countries, all the different cultures and how much people love their people and there's something to the identity in that. I'm doing a bad job of what I mean, but globalization sterilizes that. We can be one people without being the same people, and for that, while I understand the reasons other people wanted to, I'm glad we didn't boycott.

Anyway, haha, this is what happens when I don't blog for two months, I just go on all kinds of different tangents for five hours. But we're back now. We being me, since Nicole held down the fort all summer because she is AMAZING! And if you're reading, thanks for not forgetting about us. Be back soon.

cheers.

you're the light that makes my darkness disappear

well, kids... here it is. i am proud to write the first substantial, significant post in, well... a really long time. who's excited?! i know i am!

do you see that date? it's august! august, for crying out loud! where has the summer gone? i feel like it was just yesterday classes were ending and everyone was going off doing their own things, and now here we are, all coming back together and classes are just around the corner... in a little over a week! it's madness!

how i spent my summer vacation: working nearly 40 hours a week, somehow ending up at the movie theater even when i wasn't working those almost 40 hours a week because there were LOTS of movies i needed to see that include going to the dark knight midnight showing (my first midnight showing ever) and in IMAX (which was AWESOME by the way), watching america's got talent/secret lives of women with melinda (and sometimes cait), playing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain with cait, getting my first massage/facial ever, panera/maggie moo's dates with lizzie, going to my last yankee games at the old stadium, and topping it all off with my very first concert EVER: THE JONAS BROTHERS @ MADISON SQUARE GARDEN!!!

now, let me comment on that last point there. the concert is tomorrow night. in less than 24 hours i will be screaming at the top of my lungs and singing along for every song because i of course know all the words with over 15,000 other jobros fans, most who will, admittedly, be younger than me, but do i care? not one bit! i am going to buy a ridiculous over-priced tour t-shirt and take pictures that will probably be indiscernible to anyone but me as our seats are in the 400s... but it is all good. i'm so ridiculously excited it doesn't even matter. i am going to be in the same room with the jonas brothers (specifically joe<3) and that is all that counts! ah! best day ever!!! come on... tell me you don't think they are adorable! [for those that don't know (shame!) from left to right: nick, kevin, joe] anyway, there will undoubtedly be a post in the near future where i will be ranting and raving on about just how fabulous it really was and better than i even expected, so look out for that.

overall, it's been a pretty nice summer. i wish it could go on longer, but as i've already said goodbyes to almost everyone, it's nice to be getting back to my NC loves that i've been away from for FAR too long and remind myself that oh, yeah, i'm a college student. not to mention a 3rd year college student. uh, when did that happen? i think i need to have a serious discussion with father time. remind me to do that.

so, since i'm leaving in 3 days i should probably start packing or something, right? i would do some tomorrow, but there's kind of no point since i know i'm just going to be tearing apart my closet looking for the perfect concert outfit, ya know, in case from 4 levels aaaallllll the way down joe notices me and tells me to meet him backstage after the show, even though it will inevitably end up just being jeans and a shirt, so any time i would spend trying to organize things would just be wasted. i'll just save myself the trouble and do everything the day before i leave. like that wasn't going to happen ANYWAY? haha

when i finally do get down to good old NC, my aunt and i will be beaching it and gallavanting around town for a week before classes start. going to arlie gardens, and orton plantation, and southport! i am super excited, and a little mad at myself that it's taken this long for me to get around to seeing everything. i feel like i haven't left s. college and market st. i'm finally getting out there! i'll be sure to update everyone on our adventures next week. thanks for sticking with us through the treacherous nearly blog-free summer. it's good to be back! :-)

our poor little blog! :-(

oh, my. you have been so neglected! we're very sorry. you know how it is! it's summer... things get hectic, distracting, people go to colombia and get life-consuming jobs... i promise we'll be back to you very soon with substantial things to share! just hold on! you can do it!

why so serious?

does everyone know what is coming out this week?!?!?!! THE DARK KNIGHT! THAT'S RIGHT!!!!!

i have been seriously considering going to the midnight showing. this mostly depends on what time i have to be up for work the next day, not to mention how tired i am thursday night, because lord knows i won't be getting home then until 3am. (and yes, i know it's summer and i'm 19, but i'm an old lady and that is waaaaaay past my bedtime) this is heath's last film he completed, too. :-( *moment of silence* so, there is a VERY large possibility that i might cry the entire movie from his first screen appearance until the ending credits. (sorry, i'm a sap like that, especially concerning my fave actors)

this also means it will be MADNESS at the theater this weekend. O JOY. maybe even though it's batman everyone is still going away and down the shore and what not, so not as many people would be around as if it were during the off-season. yeah, right. but hey, a girl can hope. i'm actually on my way out to go to work, but wanted to get in a quick little blog since it has been over a week, again, and i think the blog is starting to feel disowned.

remind me next time to tell you all about my very first spa experience! back soon!

xoxo

i miss wilmington

well, it's been nearly a week and a half since the last post. i was waiting for sara to come on here and yell about how horrible it is that the blog has been deserted before i could come on here and write something, but looks like i beat her to it!

sorry for the gap, people. work HAS been owning my life and therefore taking up any time i might be doing something else and getting lovely interesting stories to impart with you all (work is kinda boring). so besides me not being on the computer much, the very fact that i have really nothing to talk about is the reason for a lack in things. hence, why i have decided to come on here and rant about how much i miss dub town and want to go back like...yesterday.

besides working, life is generally fine. have been seeing all my awesome amazing friends and being a big old ice cream eating lazy bum fattie as we know i do so well (might be my greatest talent), and love so much. but i INCREDIBLY miss all my NC lovers and cannot wait til i'm back on campus, running around wag, actually writing again since calling it "homework" seems to be just about the only thing to get my butt in gear these days when it comes to that...

i miss the warmth and beauty and beach and flaming amy's and outback adventures and the riverwalk and sara-nicole dates and late night frosties! i miss all of it! :-( *sigh* at the end of this week there will be just about a month until i am finally, thankfully back, and let me tell you... it CANNOT come soon enough!

there is something so wrong with this picture

i have to work 6 days in a row...count 'em...6! and sara is off gallivanting around south america.

sweet. nice life, sara! :-p

the movie theater will not own me!

so all my complaining about not working has, of course, come back to bite me in the @$$. they are taking over my life!

not only are the shifts to upwards of 9 hours long, but it goes from either being a whole lot of nothing to a whole lot of madness! and i'm not really complaining about the nothingness because that is certainly better than the madness, but i hate standing around looking like i'm not doing any work because, oh yeah, there isn't any work to be doing. you can only clean the counters so many times, ya know?

i never thought i'd say this...but i actually miss concessions at school! i know! what is going on?!

i guess, of course, it could be a lot worse, and i could be working everyday, which might end up being the case later this week...thank god i took off tuesdays or i might never see the outside of that place again! geez! but, i think i should stop complaining because it will only, once again, end up causing me more problems later..as we know!

i think i'm gonna work on that "The Secret" thing... ya know, where the whole trick to getting everything you want in life is honestly believing it and sending the good vibes out into the universe so they come back to you and you get it, etc. etc.? yeah, i'm gonna try that. especially after i just spent a good half hour man bashing my friend's ex boyfriend and even said something about the defectiveness of the Y-chromosome... yeah... haha.

in lighter news, our dear sara is in colombia with alicia and scott experiencing new people and getting their latin grooves on.. love shouts to them all and we hope they come home safe and soon!!! <3

reasons i should stay here forever, except the part about time

Some things I've learned so far in Colombia:

1. Sometimes it hails, and when it does, being inside doesn't help you any.

So about four hours after I'd gotten to Alicia's family's apartment, she and Scott and her brother and sister and I went to take Samuel, her brother, to his Taekwon-do lesson. When we first left the airport it was really sunny and hot--a little hotter than normal, apparently, since Bogota is normally cloudy and cooler--but in only a few hours the clouds looked like they sometimes get in Wilmington. But we made it inside before the rain and we were sitting on the second floor on this little balcony that overlooks the place where the kids practice, so we were good. Well, something about the roofs: not all of them, but a lot that I've seen so far, are made of half cylinder shingles, don't know what material, but they're kind of like skylights. You can't see anything through them, but they let a whole lot of light in. Best I can describe it. And so I discovered that they let a good deal more than light in. It started pouring, and I mean really coming down. I was sitting next to her sister, Alejandra, and we both felt it at the same time. It was raining inside a little bit. But then it started hailing. And it started hailing inside, through the roof. It was absolutely amazing. And Alicia and I promptly ran to the door downstairs to watch it.

2. My shampoo bottles explode.

That one's pretty much as good as it sounds. I suppose it's the difference in air pressure. Apparently I'm supposed to squeeze the air out of my bottles before I leave so that way they have room to expand. But I definitely got in the shower, opened up my shampoo, and the whole thing blew up on me.

3. People here don't like clocks.

I don't know if that's completely true, but they must be much less worried about the time than I am. In this whole apartment, there is only one clock, and I only just found it this morning. I never really know what time it is, and it's an interesting thing going on. Although I'm already understanding much more Spanish than I did at first, sometimes I just have no idea what people are saying. So if Alicia's dad and step-mom are talking and I don't know what about, if it's bad, I don't worry, because I just have no idea. My days, too. I've been confused about the days. I know it's Sunday, but only because people have said. And I can just forget about knowing the actual date. And the food schedule is so different here. Lunch is like dinner for us, except they eat it around three. And so three feels like six-ish, and then I expect it to start getting dark several hours before it does, and by the time nine or so rolls around, I'm ready to go to bed. So all that said, I'm very confused about anything to do with time.


The picture is my view from the window at night. See the mountains in the background? I pretty much want to stay here forever. It's been amazing, and with the exception of the guy in customs, the people have been incredibly nice. And I think I need to come back here periodically, if for no other reason but to get my hair cut. I got it cut and styled by this guy called Alonso and my hair has never looked so good in my entire life. I got a picture of it the next day after sleeping on it and it still looks amazing.

And the traffic, oh oh the traffic. It's like a dream come true. If there are two lanes, they might make three. If there's a stop sign, they might stop, or maybe they won't. People here kind of have their own rules about driving and it makes an incredible ride. And I've realized I'm not nearly the crazy driver I thought I was. And speaking of that, I'm leaving today on a fourteen hour bus ride that travels through the rural parts of the country and along the edges of very tall, steep mountains, and I'm totally pumped. It may be dangerous, I realize, and I don't only mean the driving. But I'm really just excited.

So that means I'll be in Santa Marta tomorrow morning, for about ten days, maybe a little less. And I'm not sure if they'll have internet there, but I'm thinking probably not. So if I disappear for that long, that's why, but I'll be sure to make up for it with crazy stories when I return.

cheers.

voy a ir a colombia

I’ve definitely fallen off the planet in the last week or so, minus my rant about J. K. Rowling (who should not be compared to C. S. Lewis, not ever ever ever). My mom and brother came down to visit me before I, you know, leave the country, so I’ve got plenty of stories about that. And before they came down, I found out that Wilmington has alligators. Real ones, ones that like to cross the busy highway and float past people in a park. And the last few days I’ve just been kind of panicking about the trip, running around packing and avoiding packing and freaking out about things that I’m sure I’ve forgotten and just generally going off the deep end. So, the last two weeks:

I should tell you first that a really good friend of mine from high school is staying in Wilmington for the summer, which I have really enjoyed. In fact, a lot of this summer has felt like old days. All the girls left and it’s just been me and the guys—and I’ll tell you, even though I’m really excited about Colombia, I’m definitely sad I won’t be seeing these people for four weeks. I don’t think I could have had a better summer so far.

So since Tristan has been down, when his girlfriend came down to visit we all decided to go to this park. It was about 109 degrees like it’s been for the past few weeks and all I really wanted to do was jump in the water, and the only reason I didn’t was because near the edges there was green slime so thick I dropped a pinecone on it and it didn’t sink through. Good news. When we were crossing one of the bridges, we stopped to look at a bunch of turtles swimming underneath. About five minutes of that, and this massive alligator, like eight feet long, swam right underneath us. Just floated around down there, the turtles sort of scattering. And the thing is, we could have walked to the end of the bridge right down to the edge of the same water the alligator could have swam to the edge of. And then later, we were walking on a wooden path next to lake—and by next to, I mean we were nearly level with the water—and five feet to our left there went another gator. Just floating by like hey. On the way out of the park we saw a sign that said, yes, there are alligators in this park.

And this past week, I was driving around with my mom and brother in the car and let me just say this: first, people in Wilmington drive like crazy people, so much so that insurance in this city is highest than anywhere else in the state, which sucks. Well. I had just gotten gas and I was driving down this somewhat narrow road when, in front of me on the other side of the road, this huge submarine boat car pulls out, toward me. Now, crazy old lady crappy driver took the turn out of her driveway wide. As in, she pulled into my lane before she turned forty-five degrees back into her own. Had I stopped and let her pass, she would have destroyed the back end of my car. But instead, I had to monster truck off road it between a bunch of mail boxes. Pulled my car all the way off the road—actually, I just kind of drove into the ditch, but it all happened really fast. I only mean that ‘’pulling my car off the road’’ is much safer sounding than the actual Nascar evasive maneuver I had to pull off. And I knew, I knew my whole little car was going to get smashed into, but somehow, by maybe three inches, she missed me. And kept driving, probably into somebody else. But my little car is safe and has not been attacked and I’m still quite happy with it!

So now it’s Colombia. My actual flight is in around nine hours, but we’re leaving here in six. And I can’t believe it at all. Four weeks in South America. Here’s to making it, to learning Spanish, to becoming adopted Colombian. To flying for the first time, to not getting eaten in the rain forest or contracting Yellow Fever. To seeing the Caribbean, and being higher in altitude than I’ve ever been in my life (currently, I live at ten or so feet above sea level). This is for my story about fathers, it’s for language and how if I had my way, I’d say drop me in a country, drop me in another language, let me live there and be immersed in all of it, the people, the words, the life.

I’ll say this: I’m nervous for all kinds of reasons, and even now I don’t quite believe any of it. It’s sort of like you’re growing up, and all the while you’re looking toward the moments where you’ll be living, where you’ll be doing what you wanted to do when you had grown up or got to the point where you could, and that’s the thing. Getting there isn’t something you realize. I’m here. I’m at that point now, the one that’s only existed before in the things I’ve written. I imagine marriage will feel something like this. Suddenly I’ll be standing at the altar and I won’t realize when I got there, when a whole part of my life began. And I’m not sure now when I got halfway through undergrad, when I got to leaving the States for something bigger than the things I’ve done so far. I feel like I’ll wake up sometime later and I’ll have already published and I’ll have children and it just all seems so fast. Not too fast, and I’m not at any of those places yet. I only mean I can’t believe I’m already where I am now, and it’s only quickening, and maybe when you cross over lines in your life you don’t know it, you don’t have time to ask yourself whether you’re ready, it’s only suddenly you’re doing it and when did it ever happen, but you must have been ready because you got put there and you didn’t sink.

This is what that is, I think. I’ve flown past the starting point because it’s all now, happening is now, Colombia and writing and living are now and if all those waited for me to realize I was ready, now would be a perpetual holding, a waiting. But here I am, and next time that will be South America. And who knows after that, only that I began toward there longer ago than I know. So see you guys on the other side of the Caribbean.

i'm going to marry someone with a j-name...it's official

i'm being entirely serious here. there is no doubt in my mind that it is going to happen. break out the tarot cards, ouija board, magic eight ball, and crystal ball. all signs are pointing to yes. an important one that should have tipped me off was that my very first celeb infatuation was with jonathon taylor thomas... Jonathon taylor thomas.

don't believe me? let's examine the evidence. here are a list of all the guys i have either liked or thought were attractive throughout the course of my lifetime that all happened to have names that started with a J... coincidence? i think not:

• jonathon x2
  
• josh x2
• john x2
  
• justin
• jared
• jensen
• julian
• joe x4 <~~this one scares me a little... ok, alot
  
• jason x2
  
• james x2
  
• jake
• jordan x2
  

see what i'm saying here?! that's insane! there might even be more i just can't think of. did you count? that's 12 different names and 21 if you count the repeats!! what is up! the universe is most definitely trying to tell me something.

to be fair, there have been several name frequencies in the nicole list of crushes: 3 erics, 2 ryans, 2 billys, 3 toms, 2 nicks, 2 davids, etc... but still, nothing like the j's!!

maybe i'm crazy... maybe it's nothing... but you remember this when i announce my engagement, just in case...

and i said you were my favorite person in the world

This, my friends, is beautiful. I can't remember the last time my brother smiled like that.

i spoke too soon

the movie theater called me last night. i start on friday.

ha ha... that damn universe again! it thinks it's sooooo smart. just when i say something, it decides to turn things around. shoulda known...

the universe has a twisted sense of humor... and i hate it

let me start off by saying i had absolutely every intention of working this summer, which might come as a huge shock, i know... but i mean it. the impending doom of my credit card statement coming in with an amount due considerably over $500 and just about less than $1000 was looming ahead like a timer on a bomb... tick, tick, tick, BOOM - there goes nicole's credit score and any hope of doing anything else with her summer besides paying off the credit card.

this, of course, had my butt kicked into gear quickly and it was just one day past the week anniversary of me being back in jersey that i headed to the movie theater to start filling out some paperwork, excited to start, but also kinda hoping i wouldn't have to until AFTER indiana jones weekend. well, not only did i miss indy's weekend, and the sex and the city weekend, but here we are, a MONTH later, and have i worked one single day yet? NOPE! and the craziest insane part of all of this is that i actually WANT to work, so, of course, i should have known, that now of all times clearview would choose to be the biggets slackers on the planet and essentially forget they have a completely willing and able worker just dying to get on that schedule! *get ready for sarcasm* good one, universe! so very funny!

it's the universe. i completely and entirely blame the universe. i have, with the exception of college, always avoided working like having a job were the black death and i might as well lick the open wound of a leper during the plague, i openly admit it, sorry that i am the queen of slackers but that is just the way it is. always has been, and probably always will, but i swear to all of you i was honestly trying to change that this summer! you all know it! i posted it a considerable while back and said how much i wanted/need a job... but no! there goes the universe screwing with things again, thinking it's all fun and games, laughing at poor, emphasis on poor, little nicole. ESPECIALLY because it knows i hate nothing more than job hunting so if the theater doesn't call this week (because i won't pander to them by calling myself, AGAIN, since i've had to contact them about everything each stage of the application process as if i were the employer and they were the employee), i'll be forced to go back into search mode. GGRRR!!!!! >:-O

i am thankful for the time i have had thus far with my schedule being freer all thanks to not working and the people i've been able to hang out with and things i've been able to do that might have been hindered by a job. like yesterday, i got to see my first yankee game in like two years at the stadium, which was fabulous and a blast as always, not just because it was an amazing game which we won, but because this is the last season at the current stadium before they move into the new one that is, oh yeah, right across the street. yup, more on that later. anyway, this is my plea to the universe to have clearview wake up and give me some damn hours, because if i end up getting so fed up that i resort to name calling and impolite remakrs, i'm gonna have to go see those remaining 15 movies at the more expensive and less preferred AMC theater by the mall, and i really just dont' want to. bah.

amendum to all those movies i need to see this summer

first thing i must say is how excited i am that i can finally post in yellow!! sara knows above anyone else how truly happy this makes me - i kind of have a serious love-of-all-colors problem. :-P

now, in regards to the movies, i've decided that some i don't have to see in the theater and can absolutely wait until they come out on DVD, so between that and the ones i've already seen, the new list looks something like this:

ones i've already seen:

1. Iron Man
2. Made of Honor
3. Indiana Jones
4. Sex and the City
5. The Strangers

ones that i would have liked to see in the theater but i missed them and therefore must wait until DVD unless they get shown on campus:

1. 88 minutes
2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
3. Baby Mama
4. Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay
5. Speed Racer
6. What Happens in Vegas
7. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

ones that i have yet to see:

1. The Happening
2. Get Smart
3. Wanted
4. Hancock
5. Hellboy 2
6. The Dark Knight
7. Mamma Mia!
8. Step Brothers
9. Midnight Meat Train
10. He's Just Not That Into You
11. Pineapple Express
12. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
13. Seventeen Again
14. Tropic Thunder
15. House Bunny

ones that i will wait for DVD:

1. The X-files
2. The Mummy 3
3. American Teen
4. The Accidental Husband

i'd like to think this all makes some sort of difference, after all, i only have 15 left i need to see in the theater! that is nearly half the original list i was trying to tackle, but i've already seen 5, so that means i'll still be seeing a whopping 20 in the theater over the course of 3 months. not too shabby if i do say so myself! not to mention, i've already eaten at least twice my body weight in popcorn, so it probably wouldn't hurt if i weren't at the theater as often as was originally planned.

i hope you all have been filing into theaters near you, as well, and taking complete advantage of this fabulous summer film landscape. see ya'll at the movies!

someone please shoot me. or jkrowling. right away.

So apparently JKRowling spoke at Harvard's graduation. Here's the transcript of that. If you feel like you might want to put your head through something solid, feel free. I did.

I'm just gonna say. I absolutely cannot get over how she cannot get over herself. Examples:

"However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure."

That's a little out of context because she does say she has no doubt that many of them have experienced hardship and heartbreak, but that kind of blanket statement is so ignorant I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. The bigger your accomplishment, the more likely you are to have experienced failure--at least that's what I think, but that's blanket statement-y too. Can we just assume that a lot of people have gone through really tough things and that a lot of people haven't? That a particularly prestigious school should make little difference? Well, it wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't followed it with this:

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable."

Are you kidding me? Are you absolutely freaking joking, because you must be that or retarded. Now, don't get me wrong. While I have never been divorced, I have no doubt it is devastating. But statistics tell us that half the people she's addressing will be divorced at least once at some point. And being poor? Being at the poverty level, the official government defined poverty line? I have been there a large part of my life, and while it's not always comfortable and sometimes it really is awful, it's not quite the tragedy she seems to be making of it, not unless it's real poverty, India, Africa, and so many other places.

But that's not even what bothers me the most about that statement. I just can't believe she said it. How astoundingly presumptuous of her. I just--I don't even have words for that. Does she not realize what goes on in the world? Please, someone show her an actual scale of the lives of the people on this planet, Harvard grads included, and designate a place on it for failure and tragedy and then for her, for the privileged place she was in even at rock bottom. Again, I don't say this to take away from anything that anyone has suffered through, and I have no doubt it was a difficult and painful and I certainly wouldn't want to be in the place she was in--but oh man, the whole of Harvard's 2008 graduating class might never fail as badly as she did.

That, and she's still so wrapped up in her cliches I might have just quit reading the speech. She used a light at the end of the tunnel metaphor. Not saying I've never done that ever, just saying that I'm not paid nearly as much as she is and if I were, it'd probably be better spent on me. Or Nicole. Or a fair number of other undergrads. Now, I'm as addicted the the Harry Potter series as a lot of people are. I'll give her that her books are entertaining and that I can't put them down. But this isn't a post about her as a writer, this is a post about how badly she annoys me.

She addressed the graduating class at Harvard, and all she had to say was about herself. It gets better toward the end, and she does acknowledge how lucky she is to live in the country she lives in, etc., but I don't know. Between that and being such a copyright hog (not in the justified way, but in the selfish, I think I'm the greatest [writer] there ever was and therefore my name should be on every last thing even when it means that charity is no longer given to those in need of charity because at one possible date in the indeterminate future I might give money to them in my name because it's all about me my name is JKROWLING JKROWLING!).

Ugh. End rant. JKRowling, please, please. Sometimes you are not someone or something to aspire to, and as most of the writers I emulate are dead, I could use someone worth looking toward. And they're there, for certain, however less broadcast, but if you must be in the spotlight, understand that sometimes light shines toward you because you have the means to point it toward the things we all ought to be seeing. And here I'll say nothing about your light at the end of the tunnel metaphor, except that I think it's a train and I really hope that if this keeps up, one of the two of us is on the other end.