A Change of Location

Hi all!

Well, I've been feeling badly lately about my inability to post as much as I used to. I just don't have the time anymore to write lengthy posts, and so I've decided to stop using Blogger. I've spent almost all of 2010 here, which is amazing, but I just really do not have the free time for long-form blogging anymore. So I'm heading back to my first blogging platform, Tumblr. It makes it a lot easier to share the little tidbits of fun I find while trolling around the Internet all day, and still allows me to occasionally write a longer post when I have time. So, while I'll keep this link active, there won't be any more new posts. Sorry. :-(

The good thing is, you can follow me on Tumblr! My link is here, and you can subscribe to me through your own Tumblr, or on your RSS feed! Yay!

Hope to see you there!

Amelia

It's That Time Again...

Registration time!

Yes, I'm back in the thick of it all...making my schedule (although, technically, Richie did this), picking my field site (although my fieldwork coordinator did this), and registering for classes (I get to do this! Woohoo!)...it's definitely time for registration.

Luckily, I'm registering on time this semester...I love when things come together perfectly, and I don't have to stress about tuition on a daily basis! And since my classes are getting more and more focused (and therefore harder and harder to get into), it's definitely a relief to be able to register on time.

I'm pretty excited for the courses I'm going to take next semester, especially Psychosexual Aspects of Human Development. It's with the same professor I had for my very first Steinhardt Psych course, and I really can't wait to take a course with him specifically in his field of expertise.

Doing Fieldwork is definitely going to be fun as well. I'm applying to a few different places, but my top choice is going to be working within an HIV/AIDS community, and I'm really excited about it.

I still can't believe that I'm registering for the second semester of my junior year, though. So soon, it'll be time to register for senior year...and I don't know if I can handle that! Being a senior in college? I've definitely never thought that far ahead. Well, here's hoping everything goes as planned!

Update

I know, I know...it's been over a MONTH since my last post. But seriously, I have been the busiest person in the world. Classes, work, AND having a social life? It's amazing I find time to sleep! (I actually don't have that much time to sleep...sigh.)

So here's a quick bullet-point list of what my October has been:

• I went to New England with Mom and Danny over Columbus Day weekend. We climbed Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire (which, while mountain climbing isn't really my thing, was AWESOME), then went on to Maine for lobster and relaxation. It was a great weekend, and it was really nice to just get away from NYC for a little while and get back to my roots...trees, mountains, and the great outdoors! I love living in New York, but every so often a little bit of wilderness is just what I need.
• Classes have been REALLY crazy. I'm in the stages of deciding what my Fieldwork site is going to be for next semester (my fingers are crossed for the NYPD-SVU!), taking midterms, working on projects, and just generally trying to keep my head above water. I'm also still working 20 hours/week, which is kind of a mixed blessing: it sucks up so much of my time, but I also have a lot of opportunities to get some homework done while I'm there.
• Last weekend, Jimmy and I and a few other friends camped out for SNL tickets (my first time since spring of freshman year, and his first time ever)! While we didn't get into the show, it was still a really fun experience (even if it was FREEZING).
• This weekend coming up is going to be absolutely insane. A midnight screening of The Room, then the Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C., and then making it back in time for Halloween parties Saturday night! I also have a huge draft of my Fieldwork lit review due on Sunday, but luckily no other homework this weekend.
• Speaking of Halloween, I'm going to go as Ke$ha. I'm really excited about my costume, and it's going to be so much fun! I'll be sure to post a picture or two!

Otherwise, it's just been the same old same old. Too much to do and never enough time! Here's hoping that I can update again soon!

The Week In Review

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super busy lately. What with "real" work from my classes setting in, trying to balance my homework with my job, and my hour-long commute (each way), I feel like I never stop long enough to catch my breath. So here's the important things that went down this week:

• Last Friday was Alex's birthday. Jimmy and I went to dinner and a few movies (hooray for movie-hopping!) and then headed up to the Upper East Side for her party. It was really fun, and it was so good to see everyone all in one place! I feel like we've all been so crazy with our busy lives that we've never really been able to all spend time together yet, so it was really good to see everybody. It was a late night for me, but definitely worth it.
• On Saturday, Richie, Gerard, and Jimmy came over for dinner. I love it when people come over (since it rarely happens, it's even nicer for me when they do). Richie and I had found a recipe for Turkey Swedish Meatballs that I had made for Rosh Hashanah, and he wanted to have it again. So we had Swedish meatballs, macaroni pie, and chocolate chip cookies. I think we'll probably all keel over soon from the cholesterol, but it sure was a good dinner.
• Sunday was football day, of course, so I headed over to Brittany Hall to do homework (which I barely did) and watch the games (which I did a lot of) with the boys. Plus, Chinese food!
• Monday through Thursday were pretty normal days. I've been really short on money this week (getting sick the same month you have to buy textbooks is a very bad thing) but other than that I was doing okay until...
• Friday. Friday was supposed to be payday for me. Unfortunately, I didn't receive a paycheck. Why, you ask? Well, apparently there was paperwork that I was supposed to fill out before the semester started so that I could continue to be paid through the work-study program. But no one, not my boss, not any of the three people who deal with paychecks, told me this. So I had no idea. Needless to say, I noticed on Friday when I didn't receive an email saying my check had been deposited. As of right now, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I don't want to have to call my mom and ask her to front me the money for rent, but I don't know what else I can do. I've considered calling my landlord and explaining the situation, but that feels so immature. I'll get the check I'm owed by next pay period (on October 8), but I don't want to have to call him and say he can't cash my check until then. I'm really just frustrated because this isn't my fault at all, and now I'm the one having to stress about not having enough money to cover rent.
• Saturday was a pretty easy day. I considered doing homework, but instead watched Intervention (Have you seen it? You really should. It's excellent) and hung out with Richie. We went up to midtown to try to win lottery tickets to Next to Normal, since his friend Jess and a friend of hers were coming down, but unfortunately we weren't successful. We ended up just getting dim sum at Ruby Foo's. I then ended up just going home; there's been a lot of drama going on with some people here, and it all just kind of came to a head last night. I'm very frustrated and hurt by the whole situation, but there's nothing I can do about it, so I'm trying to just be adult about it and take the high road. Sigh. Some things never change.
• Anyway. Things here are good, for the most part. Classes are going well, and I'm feeling more confident about them. I'm making friends in my classes, too, which is really nice; I'm starting to feel connected to the people and the program, which isn't something I'm used to, but which I certainly like!
• In other news, I'm going to Maine over the Columbus Day weekend! Mom and Danny decided they wanted to go hike up a mountain (sometimes I don't know how I'm related to them...) so we've rented a cabin and found a park to explore. I was lured along with the promise of shopping, beautiful views, and lots of seafood. My mom knows just how to get to me.
• Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to post more regularly, but there's just so many other things going on!

Classes!

Okay, after this, I promise I'll calm down with the torrent of posts. It's just that I have a lot to write about and a little bit of free time right now.

Now. Classes!

My schedule this semester is unlike any I've had before: finally, I have classes that consist purely of my major requirements. This is also the first semester I've been part of a "real" school, not just LSP (which, while they try to make seem like a school, is really just a sorry excuse for a program). And so far, it's...pretty much exactly the same.

In all fairness, I'm not exactly taking the most riveting courses this semester. Research Methods I isn't going to be a big bundle of fun (although the professor actually seems to manage to do a good job of keeping us all awake). And Developmental Psychology, while important, is not my kind of class. We're concentrating solely on development ending in adolescence, and as someone who wants to work only with adults, it's really frustrating (yes, I know that it's important to know the background of what makes people into the fully-formed adults that they are, but I'd still rather concentrate on the cool stuff). Personality Theories has so much potential to be interesting, but the professor is just so boring. It doesn't help that the class is at 9:30 AM, either. Fieldwork I was actually a class that I wasn't looking forward to, but it seems like it's going to be my most useful class. We spent the entirety of last class discussing how to format title pages and use in-text citations in APA style. This sounds duller than the most dull of all possible topics, but it actually is extremely useful: APA style is the iron rule of this major, and no one has ever taken the time to teach it to us before (in all other classes, MLA has been the law of the land, and there are lots of very important differences). The other exciting thing about Fieldwork is that it sets us up for the next two semesters of Fieldwork, where I'll actually get to go out into the real work and work with professionals in the field. I'm really excited and nervous for that!

My other class is the required New Student Seminar, necessary for any first-semester Steinhardt student. It's a class tailored more to freshmen or people that have just transferred to NYU from other colleges, but luckily I'm with all transfers, so they're mostly people that are in my other classes.

That's the other strange thing: I have so many of the same people in all my classes. I've never experienced going to classes with the same people all day, and while it's weird, I know that come midterm and final times, it's going to be awesome. It's also really nice to be able to make friends with people in my own major (I love my Tisch friends, but it's nice to have some people I can talk to that aren't obsessed with themselves).

All in all, I'm really happy with my schedule this semester. It's also allowing me to continue working 20 hours/week, which is super important (if only rent would go away when school started again)!

Recovery

No, this isn't a post about Eminem's latest CD (although it could be, since that album is so good). It's about my saga with this sickness.

As I posted, I was pretty ill for the whole first week of classes with what was diagnosed to me as mono. I was prescribed two medications, an antibiotic and a steroid, and I took them for five days with no improvement whatsoever. On Saturday, I decided enough was enough, and went back to the Student Health Center. I saw a different doctor this time, and she was concerned enough with my lack of improvement to refer me to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. The way she described it to me was as a clinic for ear, nose, and throat conditions, and that it would be a relatively quick visit.

With this mindset, I took my time getting there, first getting lunch with Richie, then grocery shopping, then hanging out and watching a few episodes of Family Guy. Finally, at about 3:00, I decided it was time to mosey on over to 14th Street and 2nd Avenue and see what they could do for me.

This was a poor decision.

I arrived at the infirmary at about 3:15, and signed in with a nurse. About ten minutes later, she took me in to an examination room to take my temperature, blood pressure, and to figure out why I was there. She then sent me back out to the waiting room for what she said would be a "short wait" to see the doctor.

Three hours, six episodes of (the completely mind-numbingly horrible) Spongebob Squarepants, and tons of insurance and admittance forms later, I was called in to see a doctor. He looked at my tonsils, made disapproving noises, prescribed me two different meds (a different antibiotic, this time penicillin-based, and a stronger steroid), and sent me away. Three hours of waiting for three minutes with a doctor. Sigh.

The good news, though, is that I feel much better. I wasn't able to get the prescription filled on Saturday, but I started taking the new meds on Sunday, and by Monday morning was starting to feel like a person again. At this point, I'm not quite at 100% (maybe 80%), but I've been feeling steadily better with every passing day, and I think I'm going to kick this thing.

The only thing that confuses me is that mono is caused by a virus, so an antibiotic shouldn't do anything about it. My personal opinion is that I actually have tonsillitis (another condition that all three doctors discussed with me) and they just wanted to slap a "mono" label on it because of my age. But whatever. It doesn't much matter. The only thing that's important is that I feel better!

Cyborgs vs. Robots

Last night, I went to the Highline Ballroom to see one of my favorite bands: Ludo. I first saw them perform senior year of high school, when they opened for The Spill Canvas (yeah, so I have a bit of a love for emo-rock...don't judge me) and their energy and fun songs won me over immediately. The second time I saw them was when they headlined The Knitting Factory, in winter of my freshman year here at NYU. This was exactly my kind of show: quick openers, followed by a long set by the headliners, in a small setting. I don't like going to huge shows; I much prefer a smaller club, and I like that even at this point in their careers, the guys from Ludo are still playing relatively small shows.

I've got to say, though, last night's show was probably one of the best concerts I've ever been to. It was the first one I'd ever gone to alone (which was my own fault, since I completely forgot to tell anyone about it until the day before the show), but it actually was more fun than a lot of shows I've gone to with good friends. I always get self-conscious at concerts, about dancing and singing loudly, but this time I was with a bunch of people I will never ever ever see again in my life, so I just went all out and let myself go crazy.

I got to the Highline at about 7:15 (the show was scheduled to start at 6:30, but I've never been to a concert that began on time, and there were four openers scheduled). I missed the first opener, Tommy and the High Pilots, but I saw The Graduate (who I really liked), Jet Lag Gemini, and There For Tomorrow (whose cover of Ice Box I actually have on my iTunes, and they played). Finally at about 9, Ludo came out, and the crowd went wild.

Now, a side note. I really, really, really like this band. A lot. I think they're very talented, and the members have a great way of interacting with the crowd, even at a slightly larger show like this one. But some of the girls at this show...they were just crazy. I never really understood that whole "OH MY GOD HE'S A SINGER AND I LOVE HIM AND I'M GOING TO MARRY HIM AND HE TOUCHED MY HAND! I'M NEVER WASHING THIS HAND AGAIN!" mentality. Is there something really sexy about a guy standing up on a stage, completely rocking out and making awesome music and obviously doing what he loves most? Absolutely. But these girls that began sobbing when Andrew Volpe walked up to the microphone...they kind of scare me.

But anyway. They opened with "Go-Getter Greg", which has been one of my favorite songs by them for ages, and they didn't have a bad song all night. They played all the classics I wanted to hear: "Love Me Dead" (probably their best-known song), "Good Will Hunting By Myself", "Drunken Lament", "Lake Pontchartrain", "Topeka", "Hum Along" (probably one of my favorite songs of all time), "Save Our City", "Broken Bride"...and on and on it went.

They also played quite a few songs from their new album, which I'm not as crazy about as their older stuff, but which is still pretty kickass. The highlights were "Anything For You", an incredibly sweet love song; "Rotten Town", which is about pirates and is therefore automatically awesome; and "Whipped Cream", their new single. For "Whipped Cream", they had everyone in the audience do the dance from the video, and it was hilarious.

For me, though, the best moment of the evening was when everyone in the band took their break and Volpe stayed on stage, playing "The Horror of Our Love" with just a guitar. It was gorgeous, and with the singing along from the audience, really quite haunting. I wish the show had been taped, because that was one of the most beautifully creepy moments I've ever experienced.

As the evening ended with "Girls on Trampolines" (the encore, for which they brought out tons of people from the other bands, playing tambourines and cowbells and whatever else was around), I danced and sang and screamed and felt fully happy. I always forget how much I love concerts until I go to one, and am reminded of how wonderful it feels to just let go and completely release yourself to the music. It's a moment of catharsis that I never really find anywhere else (since I'm almost always too wrapped up with what's going on in my head).

Sick!

Well, this wasn't how I wanted to start off my junior year.

Classes started Tuesday, and I missed the first session of one of mine. Why, you ask? Because I was at the Student Health Center, being diagnosed with mononucleosis.

My tonsils and glands had been swollen for most of the weekend, and of course, being a holiday, everything was closed. So I went in on Tuesday morning to see a doctor.

The long and short of it is, I've had mono for probably around a month and a half or so. No wonder I've been feeling so run down and fatigued all the time! Finally, after so much time of me not doing anything about it, the virus kicked itself up to the next level and made me pay attention to it.

The doctor prescribed me a steroid (to bring down the swelling in my tonsils) and an antibiotic for my immune system. I've also been taking extra amino acids, vitamins, and Aleve in addition to my birth control. I've never in my life been on this many pills at once, and it makes me feel like an old woman who needs one of those labelled pill cases.

The biggest reason this has been such a drag, though, is that my tonsils are so swollen that they're affecting my swallowing (it hurts to swallow anything, even water) and my voice (I sound like Cher, or as Richie put it today, like Helen Keller). It sucks because I've been trying to introduce myself to people in my class, but I can't make my voice go much louder than a low whisper!

I'll write about my classes and everything later, but for now I need to go to bed and get some rest. This illness is kicking my butt!

So Summer Comes To An End Again...

Well, this is almost the end of the summer. Not technically, of course, since it's around until September 21st, but in the sense that matters, the sense that counts, it's winding down quick. I went home last weekend for the last time until probably Columbus Day or Thanksgiving, and it was lovely to spend a few days relaxing and getting away from the high stress of city life. Then, this past week has been super busy: seeing everyone that's back in the city after the summer break, trying (and failing) to get back into being excited about classes, and figuring out how I'm going to manage my time taking five classes and working 20 hours/week.

The most exciting part of the past few weeks, though, is our new couch (in the photo at the top of this post). We actually moved it in today, and was it ever an ordeal! Luckily, we had Aubrey's boyfriend Patrick and Emma's boyfriend Andrew there to help us. All in all, it took a couple of hours to move it about seven blocks and up our two flights of stairs. And while there was a bit of a plaster casualty and a lot of cursing, everyone eventually pulled together to get it done, and we celebrated with extra-large Slurpees (have I mentioned how happy I am that I live two blocks from 7-11?) and lounging on our new living room centerpiece.

I actually am pretty excited about starting school again. It's going to be the first semester where I can take all classes in my major, and while I'm getting a bunch of not-so-fun requirements out of the way (Research Methods, for example), I'm really pumped for Personality Theories and Developmental Psychology. I know that I've picked the right major for me, and I'm really glad that I'm going to be spending the next two years taking classes like The Counseling Interview and Group Dynamics. I can't wait!

All in all, this summer has been...different than what I expected. At the outset, I imagined it would be the best summer of my life. And while there were some down times, overall, it was a pretty damn good one. I wish I felt more rested and ready to go back to school, but hey, I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

All Kinds of Fishy Things

Last Monday, I went to Jimmy's new apartment after work. I met his sister, we went to get dinner and then grocery shopping, and then ended up on his couch watching Finding Nemo. I had never seen it before, which caused a minor controversy when I first told Disney- and Pixar-obsessed Richie. I just didn't really have any interest in watching a kid's movie about fish, especially when there were so many other movies that were more deserving of my adult time (like Knocked Up and Clueless). But I finally agreed, and we watched the movie.

And it was AWESOME.

It was funny, and sweet, and I cried (of course). Ellen DeGeneres can make anything better, in my opinion, and this was no different. This movie was so good. I still can't believe I hadn't seen it before. I've decided to reevaluate all the friends I've had and yell at them for never making me watch it before.

Jimmy was very excited about his new extra-large HDsomething something TV. I personally don't care one bit about whether a TV is HD or LCD or flatscreen or 20 inches or 60. It just makes no difference to me. My aunt and uncle have a TV that's like 64 inches or something ridiculous like that...and it makes my head hurt. It is great for playing the Wii, though.

But I digress. After watching the movie, I decided that I needed to get a fish.

So on Wednesday, he met me after work and we went to Petco to get my fish. And the photo at the top of this post is Winston! He's a betta, and I had to buy all the special crap that goes with bettas, but he seems to like his new home. I even colored a picture of the fish tank gang from Finding Nemo and put it on the wall next to him for him to look at. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I swear it's making him smarter. I think he's a fishy genius.

Writing

When I was a kid, I hated writing.

Not the creative part, though. I hated the physical, pencil-on-paper act of taking what was in my mind and organizing it and trying to cull the barrage of ideas I had. I always had more going on upstairs than I could physically write down, and so I found it incredibly frustrating. That was probably a large reason why my papers were always marked down for handwriting: I was too busy trying to write down everything in my head as fast as I could that I didn't care about making my letters pretty.

But I feel like as I've gotten older, I've slowed down. I don't have a thousand ideas bouncing around my head all the time. Part of that is a good thing, in that now I can concentrate on writing papers about psychology without being distracted by a developing story about a girl that goes back to the time of the dinosaurs and fights Darth Vader (I was a weird little kid; I'm pretty sure I actually wrote this story at one point). But I really feel silly for never having things to write about.

I know that it's summer, and at this point I'm just kind of going through the motions, waiting for classes to start. Get up, go to work, hang out with people, come home, go to bed. I have no crazy professors to talk about or papers to complain about or weird classmates to psychoanalyze from afar. But I used to be so creative all the time, with daydreams of unicorns and the beaches of Normandy and a hybrid potato/corn plant (like I said, I was a weird little kid). I think with all the analytical thinking I've been doing the past few years, and the increase in the scientific, logical reading I've had to do for classes, I've started to infringe on the part of my brain that holds the creativity.

The Past Year

Well, the new school year is fast approaching. More than any other time of year, this is the point at which I always end up reflecting on how much my life has changed in the last twelve months. And this one sure was a doozie.

I've done a lot of growing up since this point last year. I'm a lot more sure of who I am. I'm far more confident with regard to my major, my friends, all of the things that are really the basis of the college experience. I've learned some really tough life lessons that were horribly painful. I've lost touch with people that used to mean more to me than almost anything else. I look at the person I was a year ago and almost don't recognize her. The person I am today would never take some of the things that that girl did, at least without one hell of a fight.

I'm also just a heck of a lot happier than I was a year ago. Freshman year of college really took a toll on me, from being away from my mom for the longest stretches of time in my life, to dealing with things that happened with friends that seem almost unbelievable now. I thought I had dealt with everything that had occurred when I returned to school for the beginning of sophomore year. But as it turned out, that challenge wasn't quite over for me yet. I spent the next few months going from being someone's best friend to not knowing her at all. The demise of this relationship still saddens me, but I can look at it with a more objective eye now than I did then.

I think the major reason for the breakdown was a lack of communication. Neither she nor I was willing to be honest about our feelings for a long time, and then once we had each reached a breaking point, there was too much irreparable damage done. I spent a lot of time crying over this loss, but luckily I had an amazing support system, both at home and at school, that opened their arms to me, listened to my troubles, and wiped away my tears.

I've learned that you really have no idea who your true friends are until you hit your lowest point. I did just that: hit the lowest point I'd been in for years. And I had friends that came over, spent the night with me, made me food, took me out when I didn't want to leave the house, and told me what a fantastic person I was. And you know what? I started to believe them.

The amount of self-confidence I have now, versus the amount I had a year ago, is astounding. I no longer have to lean on someone to stay upright; I can stand tall all on my own. And that's the biggest change I've experienced in the past year. I'm smart, and funny, and pretty, and really, really good at what I want to do with my life. I have great friends, a great boyfriend, a great family. I'm really, honestly happy. Finally.

Now, this is not to say that I'm done growing up. On the contrary; I still think I'm mostly a little kid playing dress-up, who still can't figure out how anyone would allow her to live in an apartment in New York City by herself. But I'm in a much better place that I've ever been, I think. And there's a lot to be said for that.

Do I still mourn the loss of the relationships I used to have? Of course. I'm only human, after all. I wish things could have turned out differently. There were points where I acted like an idiot, and I recognize that now. But I'm at a point now where I can recognize my own faults, apologize for them, and work towards being the very best me I possibly can.

Reflection

Today, I came across this article on the New York Times' website. As a psych major, and someone who is planning on spending the rest of her life talking to people about their problems in a setting similar to the ones described here, I found it fascinating. I don't intend to be a psychiatrist, which is the type of therapy that the author of this article has the most familiarity with, but I still think this is one of the best articles on the subject of the "therapy experience" that I've read in a long time.

I've always been the kind of person that other people open up to. I really enjoy talking to people and helping them work through what's going on in their lives, and I think that these two things combine to make me an ideal candidate to be a psychologist. I won't be a psychiatrist. That much I'm sure of. And it has nothing to do with the schooling (I'm going to be in grad school for five years to get my Psy. D. no matter what), it has to do with my beliefs about the use of medications in therapy.

Now, I think that there is a time and a place for medication. There are people that have chemical imbalances in their brains that can be corrected through medication. And I think that these people ought to have (strictly controlled) access to those drugs. But I also think that our society is quick to over-medicate, or to prescribe medication when it isn't necessary at all. I personally rarely even take aspirin. And it has nothing to do with my views on the economic impact of drug companies on our society or any of that. It has to do with the fact that there's nothing wrong with feeling a little bit of pain. Pain, be it physical or emotional, is there for a reason. It's to be paid attention to, not squashed with medication. I've seen numerous people be prescribed medications that do nothing for them but cost money and give them a sense that all of their problems will be solved with the little pill they take every morning.

So it comes as no surprise that I'm an overwhelming advocate of talk therapy. And that's why I've decided to be a clinical psychologist. People open up to me easily. Seriously, this happens to me all the time; I've just got the kind of personality that says "Tell me your secrets!", I suppose. Richie likes to say that all of a sudden people just find themselves in tears while talking to me, without any kind of understanding as to how they got there. And I think that's pretty accurate. (It doesn't hurt that he's probably going to be the subject of my thesis, once I get to that point.)

There is, of course, a difference between being a good friend and a good therapist. But I honestly think that being a good therapist will be easier. There's a lot that goes into being a good friend. It's a big effort, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly. I do my best to be a good friend while also standing up for myself and what's best for me. But in a therapy relationship, there's none of that. I'll have to listen and work through things with patients, but there'll be no required emotional response from me. This is perfect for someone that hates opening up about herself, but loves having other people open up to her. At the end of the day, I'm glad I've chosen this profession. It suits me. And I think I'll really be good at it.

A Lighter Note

Well, my last few posts have been a bit...serious. And I'm not all about the sturm und drang. So it's time for a bit of a recap of what's going on in my life.

• I had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, Jimmy and I went to the Regal in Battery Park to see The Kids Are All Right and Despicable Me. Both were very good movies (in very different ways, of course). I wasn't really sure what to expect from The Kids Are All Right; I knew from previews and a few news stories that it was about a lesbian couple that had raised two kids, that were then interested in meeting the sperm donor that had made their existence possible. It was a really well-written story, and I thought Julianne Moore and Annette Bening did a good job of portraying a believable couple. The movie made me cry (of course) and so once it was over I was ready for a cute, fun film. Despicable Me was just that. We were definitely the oldest people in the theater that didn't have kids with us, but it was just such a fun movie that I didn't even feel out of place. Other than wandering, hot and hungry, around the (terrifying on a weekend night) Financial District for a while in search of an open downtown R station (which was my fault, I should have researched weekend service changes before going to an area of town I'm not familiar with; damn my New York cockiness!), and taking the seventeen escalators each way to actually get to the theater part of the Regal building, we had a lovely time. We went back to my place and ordered delivery BBQ, and then spent the evening hanging out, playing Apples to Apples with Emma, Aubrey, Patrick, and Andrew, and heckling guidos from the rooftop: always good uses for a Saturday evening. Sunday was a lazy day. I meant to clean the apartment, but spent most of the day watching episodes of Bones on Netflix. Whoops.
• I'm still working extra hours this week, since Camilla is on vacation (lucky!). It's leaving me pretty tired, but it's going to be totally worth it when I get my paycheck. The thought of impending book costs and tuition bills...sigh.
• I'm heading to Jersey this weekend to see Richie star in Into The Woods. I've never seen the show, and so all of my friends are keeping totally quiet on everything having to do with it (since they want me to be surprised). Either way, I'll just be happy to get out of the city one last time before school starts back up. Plus, I'm going with Ella, maybe Jimmy, and probably seeing Gerard there! Hooray!
• Other than that, there really isn't too much going on. The next few weeks are going to consist of trying to save as much money as possible for books, registering for classes (I guess I should actually get on that...whoops...), and prepping for Welcome Week. It's going to get a lot busier around the office, what with classes starting back up, and I'm so excited to get to see all of my friends that have gone home for the summer!

So, I'm Not Afraid of People...

This post is going to come off as a little self-congratulatory, and maybe a bit high and mighty, and for that I'm sorry. Just know that I'm not trying to be a conceited brat.

So, I've dropped a pretty significant amount of weight in the last few months. It was never really a conscious decision, just something that happened more or less organically. But either way, I'm looking pretty good these days. (I think, anyway. I know some people will disagree with this, and that's fine, whatever. I feel good about myself and that's enough for me.)

I like this. It's weird sometimes, like when men on the subway stare at me or when construction workers catcall. But do those things make me feel bad or afraid or like I'm being unfairly objectified as a woman? Absolutely not. If anything, they make me feel a little bit better about myself. Blame it on a lack of self-confidence in my important early adolescent years, or a need for male validation because of my relationship with my father (seriously, I'm a psych major, I could give you reasons all day long), but at the end of the day I just feel like I'm being appreciated for the hard work I put in to look good. I also have a lot more self-confidence now than I used to. So I take it as a compliment.

I like compliments (uhm, duh). And do I care if they come from my mom or my boyfriend or my best friend or a coworker or a construction worker or a random stranger on the street? Not at all. To me, I see no difference between a construction worker catcalling and a girl telling me she loves my outfit. They're both telling me the same thing: that I look good, and I should know it.

Maybe it's because I believe that people are innately good and kind and not something I should be afraid of, but I love when strangers compliment me or even just talk to me. That's one of my favorite things, honestly. I'll have a conversation with a woman at the sinks in the ladies' room or a guy on the subway platform or a little kid in line in front of me at the grocery store or even the construction workers that catcall me. It probably has to do with my small-town background, where everyone I saw was someone I had known for years.

But living in New York isn't the same as living in a small town. People caution me all the time about being careful, about looking out for myself, about making sure I don't take the train alone at night. And I listen, usually. I don't go out actively seeking trouble. I'm smart enough to realize that if I'm going out with friends, I should make sure I have company to walk home. But have there been times where I need to get from Point A to Point B by myself in the middle of the night? Yep. And so I do.

There's a certain way that a girl should carry herself when she's alone at night in New York. You've got to walk with confidence and not make eye contact with anyone. I've found that pretending to have a conversation on the phone is a great plan, as is listening to an iPod. At the end of the day, though, if you don't go out actively looking for trouble, you're going to be fine. Very few people want to seriously hurt you, no matter what Law & Order may say. Random crimes are extremely rare.

But there's a very big difference between how you should behave on a dark street, alone, in the middle of the night, and how you can and should act the rest of the time. New Yorkers get a bad rap for being unfriendly, but I don't think that's true. I love talking to people, and I never feel like talking to them is a bad idea or something that'll put me in danger.

Is this bad advice for other girls to follow? I don't know. But I think that as long as you don't behave like an idiot, and you know how to handle yourself (and pick up a few hand-to-hand combat courses somewhere along the way: they're a great workout and you'll feel ten thousand times safer) you'll be fine. Don't be afraid of people. They won't hurt you unless you deserve it. And when those construction workers catcall you, don't take it personally. They do it to everyone.

I'm Not a Very Good "Feminist"

The title of this post probably doesn't really come as a shock to anyone. After all, I'm the one who is extremely possessive of her kitchen (as in, when I'm cooking and other people try to help, I banish them to the living room). I told a friend of mine the other day that it was my fault if he was upset, since he had been in my apartment for twenty minutes and I hadn't made him a sandwich yet. I'm relatively traditional when it comes to my relationships, in that I think the man should be the one doing the majority of the chasing, and every once in a while I like being taken out and spoiled a bit. I find a lot of the posts on traditionally "female" sites to be unnecessarily self-righteous and bitchy. I subscribe to Jezebel's RSS feed, but a pretty solid percentage of the stories I read get me riled up.

Because of this, I've had kind of a difficult time with women, historically. Many that I've met while at NYU are exactly the types I can't stand: constantly preaching about the need for "equality" and "women's empowerment" while still expecting benefits that have been given to women historically but in today's modern society are completely irrelevant and, if they really thought about it, are somewhat offensive by their own frame of reference. An example: I knew a girl who constantly talked about the need for women's rights to progress beyond what they already had. She felt that the promotion of a man to a position for which a woman was also a candidate was horrible, even if the man was better-qualified for the position. When the topic turned from policy to relationships, though, this girl expected a man to be very old-fashioned: hold car doors, walk on the street side of the sidewalk, always pay on dates, ask her father for her hand in marriage.

This girl didn't seem to realize the hypocrisy of her statements. And it's these kind of women that frustrate me beyond belief. They claim to want "equality", but then also want to be treated like little pink damsels in distress.

Now, this is not to say that I don't appreciate everything that feminism has done for me. It's because of women like Lucretia Mott (of whom I'm a descendent) that I have the right to vote. I can wear whatever I want. I can join the army. I can run for public office. I can be as educated as I want. And I'm super happy about all of those things. I know they weren't easy to come by, and I think it's awesome that I'm growing up in a time where I can do pretty much anything.

But I think our society has reached a point where we've gone too far. I feel much the same about affirmative action. If all of these "minority" (and I use the term nonspecifically) groups really want equality, than shouldn't they be subject to the same standards and requirements as the majority? I find admittance and hiring quotas ridiculous: accept/hire the best-qualified people, without consideration of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic.

I remember writing an essay about this subject in my senior year of high school, as part of my college Spanish final (yes, the whole thing was in Spanish, and yes, it was awesome). It sparked a discussion among our class, and we ended up being pretty evenly split. I remember that someone said that once I had "grown up a little" I would feel differently.

Well, it's been over two years since then, and to be honest, my opinion hasn't changed. Maybe it's the moderate part of my typically left-leaning policy positions, but I think that if you really want equality for everyone, then everyone should be treated, well, equally.

A Requisite Social Dialogue.

Today, while at work (because it's not like I actually have anything to do here) I was reading this post on Jezebel regarding the ongoing debate about kids. I think this all started a while back when some parents (in Willamsburg, natch) brought their baby into a bar-type establishment. Since then, there's been a pretty consistent stream of posts on various sites giving opinions on the topic. The big question that seems to be dividing people is: Should parents be able to bring their kids wherever they want? This has gone from, let's be honest, the insanity of bringing your toddler with you to a crowded bar on a Friday night, to people saying that kids shouldn't really be allowed in restaurants or on public transportation (seriously).

Then of course you have the backlash, which is what this article focuses on. It features of lots of long quotes from one writer, who claims that trying to ban kids from certain places is ageism and discrimination, and should not be any more acceptable than telling someone they can't eat at your restaurant because they're a different race than you are.

Now really, people. Get a grip.

This situation makes me think of an amusement park, which is a place where children are accepted and even encouraged to go. There are a lot of rides at an amusement park. There are the big, scary roller coasters, with height requirements. You know why there are height requirements? For safety reasons. Because people below a certain height can absolutely not ride on the roller coaster safely. It's not because the people who run the park hate children and midgets, it's because this is an environment in which they are not safe and should not be in. It's a ride designed specifically for adults, which is meant to be enjoyed by adults.

And you know what they do at amusement parks? They have other rides. Rides that are safe for kids. So that way everyone can have fun.

Now, I don't have kids. And I won't for a long time. But I like kids, and I don't see anything wrong with having them around in restaurants, or walking down the street, or even chilling in the university building where I work (there are a lot of professors that have their kids around occasionally, and I think that's great). And there are a lot of places designed specifically for children: playgrounds, children's clothing stores, schools, etc.

So why can't there be some places that are for adults? If I go out to a club with my friends, I want to be able to get a little crazy without worrying about scarring the small child sitting there. It's not my responsibility at any time in my day-to-day life to curb my behavior because your child is around, and it's especially not my responsibility to look out for kids if I want to swear while I'm sitting in a bar. I don't have a problem with cleaning up my language if there's a kid sitting next to me on a subway, and I shush my friends who won't do the same. I think it's common courtesy to the parent. But don't bring your kid to an environment designed for adults and then get offended when people behave like adults.

That's what babysitters are for.

Party Time.

So Emma's and my collective birthday bash was Friday, and what a time it was.

Richie arrived from Jersey around 12:30, and we went to Spice for lunch and to catch up. Then we headed back to the apartment so I could put a chicken in the oven for dinner, and hung out for a while. We also picked up a cake from Leske's Bakery, a little shop a few blocks from my place. This was basically the best cake I've ever tasted (even though Richie couldn't figure out how to tell the girl at the bakery how to spell my name). People started showing up soon after we ate dinner, and then the party really got rolling.

All in all, it was probably one of the best parties I've ever been to. Emma and I had been a little concerned about the intermingling of our different groups of friends, but everyone got along really well with each other. There were some really memorable moments, such as when Emma and I sang "Monster" to each other at the top of our lungs, when I dumped a full cup of punch in the middle of my living room floor, and when the entire party serenaded us with "Speechless".

I also received some really excellent gifts, such as an awesome muffin pan from Ella, quite a few assorted bottles of things from people, and a T-Rex silly band thing from Steve, which I'm sure will make all the six-year-olds I know very jealous.

The party went on late into the night, and as I watched the sun come up on Saturday morning, I knew it was one for the record books. The rest of the weekend was relatively calm, consisting of mostly hanging out and a lot of sleeping (it was HOT outside!)

But now it's back to the daily grind. I'm going to be getting a lot of extra hours for the next few weeks, since my co-worker is on vacation, so maybe I'll be able to treat myself to some new back-to-school clothes!

Vacation!

So I've taken a full week off of work; something I've never before done, but which was an excellent idea. I went home last Friday, and stayed until yesterday afternoon.

Going back home for my birthday (I can't believe I'm twenty) was exactly what I needed. I've been so stressed out and stretched thin around here that having a few days at home, with nothing to do but eat, sit in the sun, and have fun with my family, was absolutely perfect. I even went into Deposit (very briefly) and stopped into the Big M to see my old co-workers.

The best part of being home was on Sunday, when I went to my aunt and uncle's house and spent the day lounging in the pool and eating summer barbecue food: spiedies, corn, clams, mac salad, watermelon... Summer is definitely my favorite season, and going home reminded me why.

Summer in New York City is mostly about the fact that it's hot (really, really hot) and it smells like garbage. While rooftop parties and adorable dresses are pluses, overall, summer in NYC kind of sucks. But upstate, surrounded by trees and flowers and walking barefoot through the grass around my mom's gardens, you forget about the fact that it's 100 degrees outside, and can only think about how good everything smells and how lovely the birds sound and how nice the sunshine feels against your skin. And there is absolutely nothing in the world better than riding in the car with the windows down, belting along to the horrible country music on the radio.

As nice as being home was, though, Wednesday rolled around and it was time for me to head back to Brooklyn. The trip back was horrific (I almost missed my train, then had to schlep four bags weighing a collective hundred pounds through four subways and three blocks) but I got home to an air-conditioned apartment and a wonderful welcome from Emma.

Tomorrow is our big Amelia & Emma Birthday Extravaganza...and I'm super excited! A lot of people are coming, and it'll be the first time most of them are seeing the apartment...along with being the only time all summer that everyone that's been spending the summer in NYC will be getting together! I spent most of today cleaning (in between grocery shopping and getting a wonderful mani/pedi) and I'm happy to say that the place looks amazing. Here's hoping for a nice clear night tomorrow so we can while away the evening on the roof!

Battle of the Boroughs!

I've been living in Brooklyn for about two months now, and I've really grown to love it. But do I love it more than my first NYC home, Manhattan? Well, let's count up the points and see.

• Monthly housing & food costs: Brooklyn (rent, utilities, and food): ~$850. Manhattan (housing, meal plan, and additional food): ~$2200. Obviously, Brooklyn takes this point.
• Transit time to class/work: Brooklyn:40 minutes each way, on the subway. Manhattan: 15 minute walk. Manhattan wins.
• Monthly transit cost: Brooklyn: $89 (unlimited MetroCard). Manhattan: ~$15 (pay-per-ride). This is a tricky one, because while it's obviously more expensive to buy a monthly unlimited card, it allows me to ride the subway and not have to pay more than I normally would. This point has to go to Manhattan, though.
• Living arrangements: Brooklyn: My own room, full kitchen, dining room, and living room. Manhattan: Sharing a room, kitchen, living room. Point to Brooklyn, hands down. I actually have a kitchen more than one person can be in at a time, I don't have to worry about keeping someone up late at night with me, and I have enough personal space that I don't feel like I'm going to strangle someone all the time.
• Security: Brooklyn: Two locked doors. Manhattan: Security guard downstairs, guests must be signed in. Point to Manhattan, because while it's a pain, I always felt safe (which is not to say that I don't feel safe in my apartment, but seriously, there isn't a guy downstairs making sure no randoms get in).
• Ease of getting people in: Brooklyn: Go open the door. Manhattan: If they're NYU and live in housing, go open the door. If not, though, it's a pain in the ass. Point to Brooklyn.
• Decorating possibilities: Brooklyn: Pretty much anything I want. My own furniture, paint, put holes in the walls, basically do anything I want as long as I can make it all okay by the time I move out. Manhattan: I could put things on the walls! Point to Brooklyn, obviously. I really hate white walls.
• Company: Brooklyn: Two super-chill, awesome roomies who agree with most of my philosophies (i.e., we all usually hate living with girls because of all the unnecessary drama, there's never a bad reason to have a party, certain people are just not worth all the stress they inflict on the people around them, margaritas go perfectly well with lasagna), but who I don't have to share a room with. Manhattan: Totally hit-or-miss. I've had really cool roommates, and then I've had roommates from hell. Another point to Brooklyn.

So, let's tally it up, shall we?

Manhattan: 3

Brooklyn: 5

I guess I made the right choice after all.

Highlight Reel

I know I haven't posted in a while (again)...there just either is absolutely nothing going on, or I'm so busy I don't have a moment for thought. Here's a lowdown on what's been going on lately:

• I painted my living room! It's green. Bright green. Like, almost neon. I love it, though, and luckily my roomies do too.
• I went to the Pride parade, and afterwards wandered through the PrideFest in the West Village. It was a lot of fun (though it was wicked hot that day), and we had a ball. I've never seen so many great-looking men in very little clothing all in one place before, and I've lived in NYC for almost two years (holy cow, has it really been that long?!?!?!)
• My mom and brother came down to the city to bring me my box spring, and we went to the Yankees/Mariners game. We had AMAZING seats, and the Yanks lost, so it was a great day. Not so great, however, was Danny's realization that he really hates NYC (like, more than we thought) and being all freaked out on the subway. He said he's never going to come visit me again, and it doesn't surprise me at all.
• I sprained my ankle last Friday night (me+ballet/gymnastics attempts=injuries; this is nothing new, and one would think I would've realized it by now) and spent my entire 4th of July long weekend alone in my apartment. Sigh. On the up side (actually, I don't know that this is something I should be broadcasting, but whatever), I watched every Judd Apatow movie in our house (this includes Superbad, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall).
• Both my boss and my co-worker are gone this week, so I get to work 9-4 all week. Which means waking up at 7:30 in the morning. Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person? At all?
• Last Thursday Emma and I went to to get our nails done, and on the way back stopped in at a little consignment shop down the street. I found the most glorious alice+olivia dress I've ever seen, on sale, and I bought it. Happy Early Birthday to me!
• I'm going home in a little over a week, and I can't wait. Four days of celebrating my birthday and lounging at the lake. It's going to be magnificent.
• My ex-teacher (and moving helper) Ms. Jenson got married! Congrats!
• I saw Eclipse (illegally online, of course). Best line: Taylor Lautner tells Robert Pattinson "After all, I am hotter than you." That was the only redeeming part of the film, honestly. That and Kellan Lutz.

Well that's really about all the interesting news in these parts. I'll post more when I come up with an interesting topic (or the next time I'm super bored).

A New Project

Once again, I'm quite short on topics.

I've even gone so far as to Google search "Topics to Blog About"...and I found this list.

I fully plan on writing about each one of these topics at some point over the summer. So here goes.

1. The Story of My Most Serious Injury

This is actually pretty difficult to decide on. I've had a lot of pretty bad spills in my day (which is to be expected, considering I'm pretty much the clumsiest person ever) but there are two that stick out as being the worst. So I'll write about both of them!

The first was on Memorial Day of 2004, when I was in eighth grade. My mom, brother, and I had taken a trip to the drive-in movie theater the night before to see a double feature. In the wee hours of the morning, as we were packing up to leave, I was trying to make my way out of the open hatch of the Jeep. Danny, sitting behind me, decided to kick me, and I fell headfirst out of the car. I put my arms out to catch myself, and ended up dislocating my left elbow. It didn't hurt too badly at first, but as we were making our way towards the hospital, it started to throb. We got to the hospital, woke up whatever doctor was on duty that night in the emergency room, and had him take X-rays of the injury.

It seemed to take forever, and no one seemed to hear me when I told them how much it hurt (that's my biggest problem with hospitals: everyone there is so used to hearing people say that they're in pain that they're deaf to it). Finally, the X-rays came back and showed that my elbow was dislocated (which I had told them half an hour before, and which they could have verified by looking at the fact that my forearm was above my elbow joint) and the doctor decided it was time to reset it. He asked me if I wanted the medium strength or extra strength pain medication, and since I'm a sissy, I said the extra strength. They had to give it to me through a shot in my butt (TMI, I'm sorry) and I started feeling the effects pretty quickly.

Now, for whatever reason, the doctor had decided that right after he gave me the pain meds, he would take my mom outside the room to discuss insurance or the procedure or something. All I remember is lying on the table and starting to feel really woozy. I told Danny (who was sitting next to me) that I was feeling sleepy and he started telling me that I couldn't go to sleep, that no matter what I had to stay awake (I think he confused my injury with a concussion). But finally I did get knocked all the way out, and they reset the arm (thank goodness I wasn't awake for it, because from what my mom said I probably would have thrown up).

The recovery wasn't really that bad, but it did knock me out of the rest of softball season. Oh well. I became a very knowledgeable scorekeeper.

The second injury was my senior year of high school, near the end of volleyball season. I was in practice one night, scrimmaging with the other half of the team. I went for the ball at the same time as my teammate, and I ended up flying over top of her and landing -crunch- on my left ankle. I spouted a few choice expletives, which apparently my teammates all took to mean that I was joking around (it probably didn't help that I was giggling, which is always my first response to pain). When they realized I was serious, they all came over to help me. A lot of hugging, supporting, and wheelchair riding later, I ended up at the hospital, where my mom and I spent a solid three hours waiting around for someone to look at it. It ended up that I was the victim of a very bad sprain, and that I would have to be on crutches for at least a few weeks.

Now, I hate crutches. Sure, I always liked to play with other peoples', but having them is awful. I like being able to move, and get up and down stairs, and play volleyball, especially in my senior year.

I lucked out in the end, though, because I was supposed to be sitting out for our senior game, but the forces of nature combined with my orthopedist (who I think is getting tired of seeing me, to be honest) to give me a rescheduled game and the opportunity to play! Hooray!

I don't know how interesting these stories are to anyone but me, but maybe at some point I'll write about my experiences with Vicodin from these two injuries. Those are always good for a laugh.

In the grand ol' Catskill Mountains, by the Delaware...

Being an adult is hard.

Living in my own apartment, paying rent and buying things like toilet paper and lightbulbs, has made me realize how sucky being a grown-up can be sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, I love living on my own. I can come and go as I please, with no rules or regulations, and I can bring friends over without having to sign them in first (the best thing EVER). I can be as loud as I want (as long as my roomies are cool with it, which they are; this is a perk both of living on the top floor and living above an apartment in which a band practices pretty much 24/7). I can paint (which I did this weekend, and I am SO happy with). I can sunbathe on the roof all day. Yeah, living on my own definitely has its perks.

But there's a part of me that's really ready to go home for a bit. I'll be heading up to Deposit for a long weekend in about a month, and I'm more excited than I've been in a long time. Here's a few reasons why:

• Staying at home. This has pretty much innumerable perks: free laundry, a bed that I made perfectly comfortable long ago, a fully-stocked fridge, a big loving dog, and the freedom to lounge on the couch in front of the TV all day, never changing out of my pajamas. Plus, you know, my mom is there.
• Summer in the Catskills. It's beautiful, definitely my favorite season to be home, and I know the tiger lilies next to our porch will be blooming.
• Chilling with my family. It's going to be my birthday weekend (20!) and I'm going to see pretty much everyone. We're going to have a party at my aunt and uncle's house, and I fully plan on spending most of the day going between the pool and sunning on the deck. On that note:
• My birthday! I love birthdays (especially mine), and while I'm going to have a big party at the apartment to celebrate both my and Emma's birthdays, I'm excited to kick off the festivities at home.
• Seeing my friends. It's also going to be Lumberjack Festival weekend, so I plan on heading over to Fireman's Park one day to see everyone that I haven't seen since winter!
• My mom is going to come down and pick me up, and when she does, she's going to bring the box spring for my bed. I never before realized how important a box spring is, and it'll be nice to not be sleeping on a mattress on top of slats anymore.

So yeah, I'd say it's going to be pretty nice to head home for a few days. I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay, but at least a few days upstate will be just what I need, I think.

Hot Town, Summer in the City

I love summer.

But I feel like I don't really have anything interesting to write about. I'm steadily getting through my reading, working every day, and searching for another job. The apartment is good, my roommates are excellent, and for the most part, all of my friends and family are doing well and are happy.

A lack of drama certainly makes for boring/nonexistent posts!

I know, I know, I should be happy that things are going well. And don't get me wrong, I am. But I feel like I've hit a wall as far as posting things goes.

I just read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson. I had heard a lot about it, and I always feel silly when I haven't read the books that seem to be in the forefront of a lot of conversations. So I picked it up on sale at Target last weekend, and finished it last night.

It was pretty good. It made for easy, interesting reading (once I got all the Swedish names straight), and I certainly was entertained. Is it the next great novel? No. But I understand why it's become so popular. I think it's in the same thread as The Da Vinci Code, in that it's a fast-paced mystery with two interesting protagonists and a satisfying conclusion. I've read better mystery novels that have far less mass approval, but hey, I'd rather people read this than Twilight.

Speaking of those sparkly (is there a proper way to spell that word? AP Stylebook?) vampires, the next movie in the "saga" is coming out soon. I've read all the books, and seen both movies that have come out so far (illegally online, of course). I don't know why, since it goes against all of my better judgement, but for some reason I can't stop myself. I think I mostly just like to enjoy the "so bad it's good" phenomenon.

Also, today, I painted my room! This is something I've been wanting to do ever since I moved in (as of today, I've been sleeping here for a month) and since I got my tax refund a few days ago, I decided it was time. I worked pretty much nonstop for about six hours today, but it was SO worth it. The room looks great!

GLEE

I am a Gleek.

Big-time. I love the show. I watch it every week, and I download the songs. I've watched a few episodes more than once, and I know I'll rewatch every episode before the new season starts in the fall.

That's why last Tuesday was so bittersweet for me. The season finale was everything I'd hoped it would be (and more) but it was still the end of a wonderful season.

Watching the last song come to an end, I reflected on the characters and how they've developed over the course of the season. There's Quinn, the new mother (who had quite possibly the shortest labor in the history of humankind, but hey, that's TV), who gave her baby up for adoption by Shelby (that lucky baby is going to be raised by IDINA MENZEL). Puck, who seems just as stupid as ever, but realizes he really does care for Quinn. Kurt, who has come to terms with his homosexuality, and whose father is kick-ass about accepting it. Mercedes, who I actually am liking less than I used to (I really did not like her at all in the Funk episode; I felt that she was being generally ridiculous, and her capitulation at the end was unrealistic), but who showed that she is still an excellent singer during the Journey performance. Tina and Artie, whose relationship makes me SO HAPPY. Rachel, who I still don't like, and Finn, who loves her (though I can't understand why). Mr. Shue, who finally confessed his love to Emma, but she's dating John Stamos the dentist now! And best of all, Sue. I've loved watching her develop all season, and the speech she gave at the end of the episode was probably my favorite part of the show yet. She may have grown a heart, but she's still good ol' Sue. And that's why we love her.

At the end of the day, it was a perfect evening, spent with the perfect people, watching the perfect end to a perfect first season.

I'll take it.

Jersey Shore

I know it's been a long time since my last post, but I have an excuse, I swear!

I've been SUPER busy.

What with work, seeing friends, and looking for a second job, I feel like I haven't had a second to calm down in a while.

That's why the past few days were just what I needed. I headed down to Point Pleasant Beach, NJ to spend Memorial Day with Richie's family.

I got up bright and early on Sunday morning and headed to Penn Station. I bought my NJ Transit ticket and hopped on the train. The trip down was really nice, actually; once we got past the city, it was mostly heading through a bunch of small towns along the shore. After about two hours, I arrived in Point Pleasant. I had always made fun of the town's name before, but I understand now why it's called that. It really is pleasant: a small town right on the ocean, with tons of friendly people (and a LOT of tourists). Driving around the area made me think of the places we stayed when we spent vacations around Myrtle Beach.

I had a really nice time there, and I understand now why Richie loves being there so much. I was ready to stay a few extra days, just sitting in the sun and eating his mom's cooking! It was also nice to spend time with some people that I haven't seen in a while, and to meet a bunch of very nice new people. More than anything, though, I'm so thankful that even though I wasn't able to spend the weekend with my own family, Richie's family took me in and made me feel at home.

I got very tan, and luckily did not run into any guidos (although I was very near Seaside Heights, where Jersey Shore was filmed). All in all, it really was exactly what I needed: I had been itching to get out of the city, and since I couldn't go to my home, heading down to the beach for a couple of days was just perfect.

But alas, now I'm back in NYC, working as usual. This week will consist of continuing the job hunt, as well as hopefully doing the painting in my room over the weekend (since I get paid on Firday- hooray!). I'm still not sure what color I want- I'm thinking maybe green- but I'm really anxious to get it done so that I don't have to live with beige walls anymore. Last week I also discovered an indoor ladder that heads up to the roof, which makes me feel a lot better than the one I've been using, which is attached to the fire escape; no matter how many times I do it, I also get afraid that I'm going to fall when I come over the side of the roof backwards! I think our new apartment is coming together nicely (hopefully soon we'll be getting a couch, so we can get rid of our "crack den sofa", which is really just Emma's old mattress on the floor of our living room) and I'm really happy it all seems to be happening. We're planning a big party in July, celebrating both Emma's and my birthday (since they're only five days apart), and I really hope everything is finished by then so that it can be kind of a housewarming party as well.

Well that's about it for now...I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day!

Summer Reading

I think I've mentioned before how much I love to read.

And now that I have a commute that's an hour each way, I have a lot more free time in which to do that. Summer is typically when I get the bulk of my leisurely reading done (since I don't have to read for classes- woohoo!), and I've made quite a list for myself this year. I've taken suggestions from friends, best-new-fiction lists, and other assorted sources. Hopefully I'll be able to get them all at Bobst, so I don't have to buy them!

So here's my list (the starred books are ones that I've finished):

• Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides*
• Atonement by Ian McEwan*
• A Member of the Family by Susan Merrell*
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen*
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke
• Unaccustomed Earth by Juhmpa Lahiri
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Oblivion by David Foster Wallace
• Runaway by Alice Munro
• Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro*
• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson*
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• 2666 by Roberto Bolano
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel

I'm also trying to read some of the classics that I've never gotten through for one reason or another, including:

• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov*
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley*
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood*

Any more suggestions?

The Future!

Now that I'm done with over half of my undergrad work (!!!!), I've started thinking about what I'm going to do with myself once I graduate from NYU. Come 2012, I'm going to have a bachelor's in Applied Psychology, and the world will be my oyster.

Now, a bachelor's Psych degree is, in general, pretty useless. I could probably work for a human resources department, but that's not what I want to do. I want to have my own practice, as a clinical psychologist. And that means grad school- lots of grad school.

So, for the past few days, I've been looking at a few different places, requesting information about programs and learning more about what I'll be doing. Most schools offer only PhD programs, which isn't what I want to do. The difference between a PhD and a PsyD is about the same as the difference between CAS Psych and Applied Psych here- the PsyD is more directed towards being a practitioner than a researcher. Since there are only a few schools that offer the PsyD, my choices are pretty narrow.

So far, I've seen quite a few places that look promising. The weather here has been pretty chilly lately, which is probably why I'm feeling this way, but right now my top choice is a school in Honolulu. It's a really good school, fully accredited, and it's in Hawaii. There are some other schools as well; in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, L.A., Melbourne...of course, the program is the most important part, but I could totally see myself attending classes in between drinking cocktails on the beach for five years.

That's another thing. To get my PsyD, I'm going to be in school full-time for an additional five years. It's a long time (it means that I won't graduate until 2017 at the earliest), and being in school until I'm at least 26 sounds like kind of a drag, but I figure it's best to get everything out of the way now, while I'm young, than worry about trying to get my degree once I'm working full-time, possibly with kids. It's a long way for me to think into the future, and it's the first time I've ever seriously considered life after NYU, which is scary. But I know that this is what I want to do, and just think- I'll be a doctor!

Looking at all of these grad schools is so reminiscent of doing my search for colleges back at this time four years ago. Back then, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, or how I should even go about looking for a program. But I lucked out, and ended up at the perfect school for me. Hopefully I'll be just as lucky this time around.

A Little Political

I follow the news pretty religiously (I enjoy being informed, and honestly, what else is there to do at work?) and I've been very interested to watch the development of opinions about Elena Kagan, who Obama has nominated to fill Justice John Paul Stevens' Supreme Court seat.

I tend to agree on most of the points made by Eric Alterman in this article on The Daily Beast- one of my favorite news sources, and one of the few I read every day. Obama has picked someone who he knows will most likely be confirmed, who he knows he can trust (since they've known each other for quite a long time), and who he knows will bring very little scandal to the process. The fact that the biggest story concerning her is speculation on her sexual orientation is something that Obama was banking on. Personally, I feel that her behavior regarding military recruiters on Harvard's campus, as well as her previous criticism of the Supreme Court confirmation process, is something that should be given far more media attention than her sexuality. Another recent issue to come to light was that she urged President Clinton in 1997 to support a ban on late-term abortions. But while many extreme leftist liberals are seeing this as a telling sign of her stance on abortion, the memo she sent to Clinton was more about the politics of the decision than the ethics.

Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece on Salon.com a few days ago, completely bashing Kagan in every way he could imagine (I don't often read Salon; I find it to be, comparatively, poorly written and badly sourced). Greenwald states that he "will keep an open mind", but he very obviously has made a definite decision about Kagan already.

As someone who would define herself as a moderate liberal (not a liberal moderate, and there is definitely a difference) I think Kagan is a good choice. I wish she had served as a judge before, since I feel that prior judicial experience is important for someone being considered for the highest court in the land. But from what I've read of her opinions and the way in which she sticks to the letter of the law, I think Kagan is a solid appointee.

Moving

Wow. I feel like I haven't slowed down for almost a week.

Last weekend was crazy busy- my mom and Ms. Jenson came down to help me move most of my stuff to the new apartment. I'm really thankful that they did (because I never would have been able to do it myself, and also because we had a lot of fun)!

They arrived around 7:00 on Friday night, and we unloaded the bed that they had brought. Then we decided to go back to Manhattan (a trip that should have taken half an hour, but ended up taking two hours- the GPS really lied to us). We found a place to park, dropped their bags off at my dorm, and went to dinner at Spice. After that, we took the subway to the Empire State Building, where Ms. Jenson had never been, and I hadn't been since I was much younger. It was absolutely gorgeous to see all of the city spread out like that, at night, with the bright lights shining. We then went back to my dorm and went to sleep, preparing for the long day to come.

After a leisurely brunch on Saturday morning, we loaded up the car with a lot of my stuff and drove it over to Brooklyn. I had hoped that we would be able to fit everything in one trip, but unfortunately it just didn't work out (our new car is smaller than the Jeep was). After a lot of heaving, carrying, and sweating, we got everything unloaded and headed back to Manhattan for another trip. This was, thankfully, the last one. Once absolutely everything was unloaded and moved into the new place, we set to assembling the bed.

Now, I really, really, really hate assembling furniture when I don't have directions. I think my aversion to it began when I was in sixth or seventh grade and I got a new desk. I was bound and determined to put it together all by myself, with no help from anyone. Three hours, two pinched fingers, and a lot of scratches later, I had a desk. And I've never taken it apart and put it back together, mostly because while it's not exactly picture-perfect, I did it myself.

I can put together a chair, or a table, if I have clear directions (in English!) and all of the proper pieces and hardware lined up in a neat little row by when I will use them. But this bed...None of the hardware that came with it actually worked in assembly, and it was necessary to make two separate trips to two separate hardware stores to put it together.

But finally, it was done. And my room felt like a room, since I had a bed with sheets on it.

Mom then took me grocery shopping, and we came back and unpacked some more stuff. She and Ms. Jenson left, and I headed back to Manhattan, where I was still sleeping.

Sunday consisted of going back to Brooklyn and doing a lot more unpacking. I hung up my clothes, set up my desk, and Emma showed me how to use my keys (I'm absolutely horrible with keys). I was so busy that I forgot to eat until I got back to Manhattan at about 5:30, and then I was starving. So I went to Chipotle for dinner. But I was still hungry. So I, in my brilliance, decided to order S'mac (macaroni and cheese).

That was a bad idea.

I woke up on Monday morning feeling like I was going to die. I felt so horrible that I ended up calling in sick to work, something I had never done before- in all the time I've been working, at any job I've ever had, I've never called in sick. Ever. I didn't even get out of bed until about 1:30, when Richie came over. We went to the Student Health Center, and then back to his place for lunch. I had a salad, which was a good plan.

The rest of my day pretty much consisted of going over to Brooklyn to pick up some clothes, studying, and making dinner.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a really busy day as well. I worked/studied until about 3:00, and then headed back to the dorm to...continue studying. I went to Richie's and hung out with him and Jordan for a while, and then went to 194 Mercer to take my Statistics final.

I had been convinced that it was going to be pretty difficult, but our professor told us that of the 23 questions on the exam, we could omit any six of our choosing.

So the exam that I had been studying and preparing for all day ended up taking me less than half an hour. Crazy!

I then met up with Richie, and we headed over to The Noho Star to have dinner with Ella and her mom, who was visiting from Israel. The food was delicious, and it was so nice to meet Mrs. Metuki! She was extremely sweet, and seemed really interested in getting to know us. I love parents. :-)

We left the restaurant at about 10:45, and headed back to Richie's to hang out with Dan, Constance, Jordan, and Sydney. It was nice to spend some time with people before summer officially started, and we were there until well past 1 AM.

I woke up this morning preparing to do most of my packing, and then check out of UHall after work. But as I was eating my cereal and watching Glee at about 10:45 (still in my pajamas, mind you), my doorbell rang. The conversation that followed went pretty much like this:

I open the door to see a short guy with a clipboard standing there.

Him: "Hi, I just wanted to let you know that you need to be out of here by noon."

Me: "I thought I had until noon tomorrow, since I'm graduating and participating in commencement."

Him: "Well, commencement is going on right now, so obviously you're not." (This is true, actually. I hadn't done my research, and commencement apparently started at 9:00 this morning. So that one's on me.)

Me: "I thought I at least had until 24 hours after my last final." (This is a rule! NYU's own policy!) "My last final was last night at 7:30 PM."

Him: "Yeah, that was the rule. But not anymore. If you don't check out by noon, we're going to charge you for staying here."

Me: "But that's not right!"

Him: "Hey, this is the way it is."

Me: "Fine."

And I shut the door in his face.

I swear, I am so glad I'm never going to have to deal with NYU Housing again. The people are just all kinds of rude, and they care more about getting me out of there six hours earlier than about my personal situation. They had no reason to force me to pack up all of my things in 45 minutes (which I did, since I didn't want to be late for work) and kick me out. I was very rude to the girl that checked me out, and I know it wasn't her fault, but honestly. How ridiculous.

I'm just glad that Richie's staying in summer housing, therefore they're not kicking him out yet. All of my stuff that needs to go to Brooklyn is currently at his place, waiting until I get out of work. If he wasn't staying, I would have had to bring my entire suitcase to work with me, or be forced to pay NYU more money to leave my things in my room for an extra few hours.

Did I leave the suite in mint condition? No. I didn't have time to clean as well as I would have liked (something I had planned on doing before I checked out tonight) and I was forced to throw some things away that otherwise would have gone to Goodwill. But I think the fact that I was forced out of my room with an hour and fifteen minutes' notice is absurd.

But now I'm at work, finally taking a breather for once. I'm going to bring everything to the new place once I'm done here, and then do nothing for the rest of the day. Seriously. I'm going to lie in my new bed and watch TV online and sleep. I deserve it.

The End Is Here!

I know it's been almost a week since my last post, but I've just been so busy! I'm completely done with classes as of yesterday, and with only one final left (which isn't until a week from now), my second year of college is pretty much over.

It's so strange to think that I'm more than halfway done with my undergrad work (technically, I've been a junior for the whole of spring semester, because I came to NYU with so many credits already completed). I've learned so much these past two years, and I've grown up so much, this year especially. All of the things I'm doing now- being so independent, managing my money well, working while going to school, getting my own apartment, for heavens sake- I never would have been able to do them at this time a year ago. I've learned so much about myself, about people, I've let down a lot of my guards, and I've put up some that were probably necessary all along.

I think the best feeling for me came last Saturday. Classes were basically over, and it was the boys' last concert of the year. The day itself was beautiful, and I spent all of it with people that I really love. As I walked home, the night coming to a close (well, okay, the morning- it was 4:30 AM), I realized how very lucky I am to be surrounded by so many incredible people, who I love so much, and who love me as well! At this time last year, or even six months ago, I was constantly in tears, depressed and confused about what was going on. But so much has happened- I've dealt with some major setbacks, but I've learned to handle them and overcome them. I've had some issues with friends, but I've realized I can only do so much, and when someone is hell-bent on self-destruction, there's nothing I'll be able to do to stop them. I've made some major mistakes, but I've picked myself up and managed to fix them. I've learned to recognize that I am the most important person in my life, to treat myself with respect, and to stand up for myself and my feelings instead of letting people walk all over me. I've learned that it really doesn't matter what most people think of me, because the people that really matter and love me will tell me the truth about myself, and will stick by me while I figure it all out, since I have done/will do the same for them.

It's so strange to think back to senior year of high school. I thought I was all grown up, ready to go out into the world and take it on full force. I thought I was ready for anything. I thought I could handle whatever came my way.

If there's anything college has taught me so far (besides lots of random facts about World War II, how to deal with a hangover, and that street fairs are not something to get excited about), it's that I'm not invincible. I've been so humbled by everything that I've experienced during my time here, and I can't wait to see what the next two years (and then grad school) bring me.

But for now, it's summertime. I'm working. And that's it. It's almost like being on vacation! I have a feeling that the summer of 2010 is going to be one for the record books, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Paper Gangsta Chicken

Every once in a while, Richie gets really hungry, and decides we need to get back to some semblance of living in a civilized society and eat a full meal for dinner instead of sitting on his bedroom floor eating leftover soup (which we did on Monday). Yesterday was one of those days.

Over time, these "full meals" have come to include these basic components:

• Spinach- Hot olive oil and garlic in a pan, add lots and lots of spinach, allow to wilt. Deliciously simple. An alternative here is stuffed mushrooms or asparagus, but spinach is easier and doesn't take up room in my tiny oven. Richie makes this part.
• Stove Top stuffing- Chicken flavor. No exceptions.
• Biscuits- Typically the Grands layers, but it varies.
• Mozzarella cheese- A perfect appetizer. Just slice pieces off the ball of cheese and consume.
• Some sort of chicken.

The chicken is almost always my responsibility, and it's always a pain. Since I don't eat almost any other kind of meat (and fish is wicked expensive!) chicken is my go-to protein. I usually just end up breading, pan-frying, and baking it with sauce and/or cheese. Simple, and always good. But I'm getting sick of the same old thing, and I guess Richie was too. So he came up with a brilliant idea: "Do you have shredded cheese? What if you mixed the shredded cheese with the breadcrumbs?"

Glorious. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. Fried cheese is one of the best things in the world. I'd tried it with parmesan with good results, but I had just never thought of the shredded cheese.

So, long story short, it was delicious. And all delicious new meals deserve their own name. So it was decided (for reasons that still elude me somewhat- I think it has something to do with the fact that it's really simple and there aren't any ingredients that wouldn't already be in your fridge) that it shall be known as "Paper Gangsta Chicken", after the song by the magical Lady Gaga.

So here, for the very first time, is the extremely simple and extremely delicious recipe for the extremely unhealthy Paper Gangsta Chicken:

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• breadcrumbs and assorted breadcrumb seasonings- this time I used Italian seasoning, garlic salt, and a little bit of cinnamon
• a spoonful of mayo
• a handful of shredded cheese
• olive oil

Prep:

• Make sure your hands are clean (I know, this is obvious, but I still feel like I should put it, just in case someone doesn't know the basic laws of cooking).
• Put the mayo in a bowl. Throw the chicken in the bowl. Mush it all together until the chicken breasts are relatively evenly coated with mayo.

Side note: I know that mayo is not

absolutely necessary, but I think it's

really helpful, especially when working

with a heavier coating like the cheese.

And you're already eating fried chicken

with cheese. You're not being healthy.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that

excluding the mayo is going to save

your diet.

• In another bowl, you should have mixed your breadcrumbs, seasoning, and cheese. Put your chicken in this bowl and coat them with the mixture.
• Pan-fry in hot olive oil.
• Place in glass dish and bake at 350 for a while (typically this is just until the biscuits are done baking). Throw some cheese on the top, too, if you're feeling especially deprived of clogs in your arteries. Serves 2.

The best thing about this chicken is that when you're pan-frying it, the cheese doesn't have time to get gooey (make sure that oil is hot before you put the chicken in), so it just gets crunchy and delicious.

When I Grow Up...

I read a post this morning on the lovely Ms. Jenson's blog, Daydream Believer about what her top career dreams were when she was a kid, and it got me thinking about everything that I've wanted to be through the years. I know I'm still pretty young, and my goals may change again within the next few years, but it's funny to think about some of the ideas that I had. My dream careers through the years have been:

-Baker. This was the first job I ever remember wanting; I think it was because I liked helping my mom in the kitchen, and at five I realized that if I was a baker, I could have cookies and cake whenever I wanted! What a life! I've since realized that me having a bakery would be the worst idea ever, since I hate waking up early and I don't want to weigh 300 pounds.

-Teacher. This is a pretty common one, and it's come back to me a few times. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to teach elementary school. When I was in high school, I thought for a while I would be a high school English teacher. Now that I'm in college, I've considered the idea of being a professor. But I always realize that I would be a horrible teacher, because little kids would drive me insane and I really don't like teenagers that much (I didn't even like high school kids, really, when I was in high school). Undoubtedly, once I'm out of college for a few years, I'll realize that being a professor would be bad as well.

-Journalist/Author. This has been one that I've varied on throughout the years. I'm a strong writer, and I always thought I would do something with that, but I'm not good enough to make a career out of being a journalist, and I'm not creative or diligent enough to be an author. For a while I also talked about being an international correspondent (and this was at the time at which I was first picking a major, which was extra stressful), but I think that was mainly because I was so anxious to get out of Deposit and travel the world.

-Actress. For quite a while in late elementary and middle school, I was determined to make it in the bright lights of Hollywood. I did a lot of stage acting during this time, and I'm a good actress and I really enjoy it. But the logical side of my brain always took over, and realized that I would never make it as an actress, and that there's no job security in it. It's funny, because now a lot of my friends are theatre majors, and I admire them so much for being so dedicated. I'm also really glad I'm not majoring in it, because some of the things they do in studio are ridiculous, and the majority of the people would drive me absolutely insane.

-Singer. Similarly to being an actress, when I realized that I was a decently good singer, I thought, "I'm going to be a STAR!" Yeah...it's not likely.

-Cashier. Like Ms. Jenson, I always wanted to be the person running the cash register at the grocery store. The laser scanner was the coolest thing ever, and I always whined at my mom to let me use the self-checkout, once those came around. I got the opportunity to be a cashier girl when I worked at the Big M last summer. And you know what? When it was busy, it was just as much fun as I always thought it would be. I loved the pressure of a line, I got to talk to people, and check things out fast, and there's something so satisfying about bagging groceries properly. I'm weird, I know, but I honestly loved cashiering.

Right now my plan is to be a clinical psychologist. I think I'll be good at it, but who knows? My plans might change and I may end up doing something completely different. I guess we'll see...