breaking my silence with -- what else? -- a list

First off, I'd like to apologize for my unannounced absence. I've spent the last two months alternating my time between freaking out about school, freaking out about work, and freaking out about when Matt might propose (SQUEE WAITING IS SO HARD). I've been slowly accumulating levels of stress/anxiety only previously seen in certain Cathy comic strips.

But the next two weeks are going to be hellish beyond imagining. Those of you who have endured/are currently enduring higher level education can understand the panic and terror that comes along with the last couple weeks of a semester. Finals, term projects, research papers, presentations... after I graduated with my BA I swore that I was done with this world, but this semester I am eating my words. I have SO MUCH to get done before I am home free, and so little time to do it.

To get myself through this, I've been compiling a list of everything I get to do once this is all over. Behold, 

THE THINGS I SHALL DO WHEN I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THE SEMESTER

1) I will get a haircut. My hair is a shaggy horror right now. I need a good two or three inches off the ends, and I want to get my awkwardly-growing-out bangs cut into some sideswept bangs for the summer. Cause I'm not going to try to maintain blunt bangs in NJ humidity. I'm just not.

2) I will play The Sims 3 for as long as I damn well please. 24, maybe 48 hours at a time-- who cares? I WILL HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITIES BITCHES.

3) I will allow myself to obsess over every pre-planning detail of my upcoming cruise with Matt. I LOVE getting ready for trips. I find it almost as fun as actually going on the trip, because I am a big weirdo. But as of right now I'm trying my absolute hardest to not fixate on the cruise when I have so many other things to take care of. But as soon as May 6th rolls around... we're talking itineraries, packing list spreadsheets, new bathing suits and dresses, potentially even new luggage. Okay, I need to stop talking about this because I'm starting to get a little too excited about it. Whew.

4) I will hang out with my friends every day that it is possible for us to hang out. Enough said, I think.

5) I will blog every day. I'm serious. Every day between May 6th (the day the semester ends) and May 15 (the day Matt and I leave for our cruise), I solemnly swear that I will post daily. I have a lot to make up for :)

So there you have it. Right now I'm just a busy girl with dreams of being not-so-busy. I hope I'll be able to check in again before finals hell is over -- my birthday (which is also my blog's first anniversary) is in less than a week, so I'll try to post then. I'll see you on the other side! 

Hi, it's me.

Three weeks in Blog Land is like a lifetime. Do you know what kinds of Things can happen in three weeks? Big Things. New Job Things. Tiger Blood Things. Tsunami Things. Supermoon Things.

It feels like the world's gone all tilty and fisheye since my last post. Suddenly everyone is worshipping Charlie Sheen and there's been a horrible natural disaster and a song like this has gone so viral that I've willingly watched it at least ten times to date.

And also I've been thinking more and more about 

gulp

writing a book.

It all started when I re-discovered some of my old writing from college. Most of it made me cringe, but I happened upon this super-short story I wrote back in sophomore year, and... I don't know. This crazy thing happened where I was able to read the piece outside of myself, see the potential in it. Hm. There's an actual voice here, I thought. There's a story in here somewhere, too. Hm.

Something was ignited in me that day. Something that I've been trying to shake as I've been struggling to balance work and school and the rest of my life over the past few weeks. Because I can't want this right now. I have another dream, another life goal that's even more important to me and almost in reach: becoming a librarian. I should be focusing on finishing school, developing professionally, and finding a job. But I'm sitting here right now, consumed by the notion of writing a YA novel.

For the first time in several months, I'm really, really confused. Am I just looking for a distraction from school, which sucks (sometimes)? Is this the final phase of my quarter-life crisis? Or is it just residual effects from the Supermoon?

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

it's aliiiiive! ("it" is me. i'm alive.)

Wow. Here are the main reasons I've been so bloggily absent recently:

1. My relatives from the Philippines stayed at my house from last Saturday to this Sunday, and we had to entertain them 24/7. Which meant lots of late nights, exhausting shopping excursions, day trips into Philly and New York, and extravagant restaurant meals that left me food-comatose and totally useless. Also, I had to sleep on the couch all week, and although our couches are very comfy, they're not really great in the way of lumbar support. I didn't get a lot of good, quality sleep. Is what I'm trying to say.
   
2. My computer is eight kinds of broken. First of all: VIRUSES. AUGH. What kind of an evil creature is lurking in his or her basement creating stupid, terrible viruses that do stupid, terrible things like hijack your web browser so that you can't Google anything and every so often a message pops up saying that I won a prize and it won't let me do anything unless I accept it and give the website my very personal information? To this person I say: Die. Die a horrifying and painful death. Second: I got the dreaded Blue Screen of Death the other day. And we all know what that means. I might as well just throw it in the garbage right now. Third: My computer is Very Elderly. It's on its last legs. Actually, I don't even know if it has legs right now! Maybe it's just dragging itself along on its front legs! 

This is way funnier than it should be. Please, someone else tell me this makes them laugh.

So the fate of my blog is up in the air until I can figure out what do with with my sad, old computer. I'm thinking I'm just going to throw in the towel and buy a new one. I need one for grad school, anyway. 

Anyways, I just wanted to pop in and say: Hey! I'm not dead! And I've been keeping up with everyone else's blogs even if I haven't been commenting, I swear! Is anyone out there? Hello? ::taps microphone:: Hello??

back in the saddle

Urghh... I've been away from the Internet for exactly a week, and there are currently 44, count'em 44 unread blog posts in my Google reader right now. I'm going to work on chipping away at that unreal number until 12:45, when I have to go to work. But for now, here's my week in a nutshell.

- My sister graduated high school. She gave a speech. And I was like, MY BABY'S ALL GROWN UP AND SAVING CHINA!

- I went to see Toy Story 3, which we all know is officially The Greatest Movie Ever Made (no seriously, I don't know if there have been any negative reviews of it except for these two douchebags). The experience was so uniquely Pixar. Half of the time I was laughing unabashedly and obnoxiously. The other half of the time I was a whimpering, moist-eyed mess (I don't let myself cry in movie theaters anymore because I cause a real scene). Those of you who have seen it can probably relate. I had to think about all sorts of inappropriately hilarious things and fan my face vigorously to keep myself from bursting into tears.

- Remember when I got all excited about finding people to play D&D with? Well, on Saturday we started creating our characters and we had maybe a little too much fun with it. Matt's character is an eladrin wizard who wears a prosthetic beard loaded with razor blades (because eladrin can't grow beards, what's up with that?), Jewel's character is an elf ranger with "ginormous knockers," and my character is a halfling rogue with a Napoleon complex. Also, that was officially the nerdiest sentence I have ever typed. Scotty gets off a little too much on being Dungeon Master, I think, as he kept on saying things like GOD DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD CHOOSE YOUR AT-WILL POWERS YET, DID HE? I think we may have created a monster.

- We celebrated Father's Day lounging around the house, doing nothing, as per my dad's request. He wanted Father's Day to be about conserving money and resources, and so we didn't go out to eat or go shopping or anything like that. We all just went about our normal Sunday, which for me meant attempting to clean my room but then just falling asleep for several hours instead.

- I have successfully made it through another week of being incidentally vegan, and I've learned one very important thing:

in which i make my flustered and ungraceful return

HALP! I am drowning reader feeds! And I haven't posted all weekend and a lot has happened happened and I don't know where to start! I've fallen, bloggily speaking, and I can't get up! Just like this puppy! Only I'm not as cute as that! (Almost, though.)

This is what happens when you leave the Internet for four days. Blogging is perhaps the only hobby that keeps on going even when you're not there.

Currently plotting my strategy to get back up to speed. Expect multiple posts today. In the meantime: how was your weekend?