Just Shootin' the Breeze

It’s only Wednesday night and I feel very stressed already. Last night was my weekly RA staff meeting and my boss, Justin, handed out our Intent to Return forms and projects. I am so scared to complete this. I know that I am a great RA, but now I am being asked to recap my year, my strengths, and weaknesses and essentially tell my bosses why I should be rehired. The project itself is not the scary part, but the idea of giving an oral presentation makes me sick to my stomach. Just thinking about it makes me want to heave. It’s like all the blood rushes out of my body and I go cold. I want to pack my bags and head for someplace far away from this presentation. Yes, because that is the easier solution than facing my fears and just doing it.

On the plus side, I will only have to go through this once because after next year, I will be graduating from Albertus. I will start working on it this weekend so I can be well rehearsed when the week of March 17^th comes. For now, I will just focus on spring break and the relief I will feel as I enter my relaxing/working vacation.

Lately, I find myself venturing back into the old Gilmore Girls routine from years ago. When I feel down, I turn on an episode and everything feels okay again. There is so much drama with friends that I feel like the Gilmore Girls are a couple of good friends that will never cause drama that I want to escape. They are purely the entertainment.

Sometimes I find that that show glorifies and simplifies family problems that are not that simple: teen pregnancy, run-aways, and ugly parent/child relationships. I love the show so much that sometimes I forget how best-case-scenario it can be. A 16 year old girl, from a wealthy family, gets pregnant, runs away, builds her life from the ground up (with an infant by her side), starts her own business and her child actually gets to go to an amazing high school on to a prominent Ivy League college? These are the things that novels are made of, but often I forget that is fiction and I catch myself saying, “I want to be just like Rory!”

No, I don’t. Rory, a perfect, fictional character, is someone I truly wish to emulate in her reading and musical tastes; but I could never trade the family I have for the one she lacks.

Even though my family fights (whose family does not) I would not trade them for anyone else’s family. That’s why I am so excited for this break. I miss my family. We tease each other until there is nothing left to tease and someone wants the other person to disappear

Changing My Ways

There is this super awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity staring me in the face. The only problem is...I am broke. No, wait, let me re-phrase that. I am so broke that charities are going to start raising money for me. It's my own fault though. I have the disgusting, spend-thrift gene in me. I buy everything that I see and more often than not I feel guilty for it afterwards. Sometimes I wish I could just return everything I ever bought and get all my money back. 

For $6,000 dollars, I have the opportunity to go to South Africa in another year. I was on the phone with my mom today and she was telling me that I would need to cover at least $1,000 -$ 2,000 of the trip costs. Wow.

It seems fair to me. My parents sent my sister and I to France and Spain a few years ago and that was for the two of us. I think that if I cut myself off today from spending extra money then I can maybe go. It will be very hard for me because my friends want to do stuff. I can't just become a shut in, but at the same time...I don't make enough money to keep up with them. I have big plans for myself, but for those big plans to actually happen, I have to have money.

I want to move to California. According to my cousin, it would not cost me too much.
I have to buy a car to get to California with and use while I live there. 
I want to go to South Africa. I want to buy an apartment. I want to adopt pets.

All of these things require money and until I catch my first big break and write that novel, I need to save all of my pennies. My two compromises for myself; I will not surrender Netflix and I will not give up Spotify. That is not happening. I tried that free version of Spotify for the mobile device, but it was terrible. It was probably one of the worst experiences of my life. Pardon my dramatics, but my music is important. So, you figure $18 a month for my free movie/music access and that's it. I am not renewing my Amazon Prime because it costs a lot of money. I had a one year free trial that ended January 22, 2014. Bummer. My second tattoo will have to wait a while longer. Maybe in the summer? Maybe next Fall. I don't know. We will have to see.

Who knows? Maybe the book I am working on will actually pan out. Maybe I can get something published. That's the dream. It would be nice to come into some money. I am so tired of being poor while other people just get money handed to them everyday. I either need an excellent get-rich-quick scheme or I need to marry rich. maybe a combination of both.

Fingers crossed.

The Job of an Editor

On Friday, I was able to really put my editor and publisher skills to the test. I am the Co-Editor of Breakwater, the literary magazine here at school. We have been accepting submissions of artwork, poetry and prose since September and on Wednesday February 19th we finished the collection process and moved on to the very difficult selection process.

Getting published is not an easy task. 

Selecting which pieces to publish is a job even more difficult than writing. 

The fate of someone's personal thoughts and hard-work is clutched in your fist and is subject the marks of your pen. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just form yes piles and no piles, grab some coffee and call it a day? It would, but then again...that would be too real world for a college magazine. 

At 11:30 on a rainy, foggy Friday morning, the Breakwater Committee convened. We sat at a long table, with sort of comfy chairs, with water and our pens ready to go. We started with the prose. I am so impressed with the creative minds that this school is unknowingly fostering. Next, we looked at the art submissions: photographs, sketches, and paintings. There are so many beautiful shots of flowers, and there is this one of a lighthouse as it reflects on the water that we may consider as a cover. It is gorgeous. I was in love. Photography is something I love and sometimes I wish I had one of those fancy cameras because I would definitely take more photos with it. I have one of those Kodak touch screen things. I won it a few years ago. It is a good camera, but it could never capture some of natures' most beautiful moments the way that other cameras do.

We took a break and ordered lunch. It was very much like a buffet with all the different places we ordered from: Chinese, Indian and your traditional pizza. 

We resumed our afternoon with the big kahuna of Breakwater submissions: poetry. Annemarie, my Co-Editor, made packets of all the submissions for us to use to go through. There were 40 pages of poetry submissions. I wish we could have published it all, but unfortunately cuts had to be made. All the submissions were completely anonymous to the committee. 

We did one read through of everything, and in our second read through we looked for grammatical errors in only the pieces we intended to publish. It was an extremely long and tiring process, but now I feel like I have an inside look at the publishing business. 

I am so excited to be published in Breakwater this year! I mean, I won't be the Co-Editor forever and being published is such an honor...especially as an editor. 

Weekend Update

Thursday, we had a snow day at school. It was the best! I woke up early, even though I did not have to. I took an amazing warm shower and my hair feels awesome now! I made the long journey down from McAuliffe Hall to the dining hall so I could have some breakfast. After brunch, I took a nap. I had been dying for a nap all week. You would think that after the age of 5 that naps would not be so important to your daily functions, but in college it of the utmost importance that you fit a nap into the schedule. The rest of Thursday was spent with the Gilmore Girls as I held a marathon for myself. I also read a little bit. Thursday night was an impromptu duty night. I was not on the schedule, but going with the flow and spontaneous schedule changes are all a part of the job; plus, I got to watch more Gilmore Girls.

Friday was Valentine’s Day…the most dreaded day of the year for me. I have never had a Valentine on that day and I know it is not mandatory that you have a significant other to celebrate the day, but it might help improve its reputation in my eyes. I was on duty on Friday and Saturday night so I continued my Gilmore Girls marathon.

Last night, Sunday night, was the best night of the whole week! All my friends were hanging out in my dorm room all night. You never realize how small a room is until you have all your friends laying around and sitting in every corner of it. As an RA, I have a huge room and it has never seen that many people before. It was crazy…nice, but crazy. Thank goodness I have a double bed so people could lie up there and save some floor space for the rest of us. We all ordered Chinese food because we were starving, and then we watched Silent Hill. Whoever tries to tell you that movie is not scary is right…it’s not scary, but it does mess with your head. After everyone left, I had to check in the closets and under the bed.

Today was and still is President’s Day! School was closed and I did nothing but lie around in bed until about 4pm. This is most definitely the life to live. It is unfortunate there is so much snow out because I would have gone to do something if there wasn’t. I might have gone for a run or gone downtown, but not with all this snow. Can you spell dangerous?!

Now, there is talk of snow tomorrow into Wednesday and I cannot think of anything worse than another snow day! This is crazy!

Who needs a decorator?

Okay! You caught me red handed! Yes, I did have class today and instead of going I re-arranged my dorm room. How can I be expected to sit still in a classroom and listen to a lecture about Daisy Miller when I have had snow days every other day? You can't! I read some of the story and I participated in the online discussion. That was my educational contribution for today.

I took it upon myself to move my entire room all around today: beds, dresser and desk. They are not even remotely anywhere near where they used to be. I am excited for this change because I get extremely bored with the same set-up for too long. I wish my room at home were this easy to move around. I am really proud that I moved all of this heavy furniture by myself. It tells me that I am not as weak as I thought and that I do have some muscles left from my old box lifting days...but that is another story for another time. Not to sound like I am quoting Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Stepbrothers...but I am! "There is so much more room for activities!" Now, I can set up my yoga mat a good distance from the television and I can actually practice Yoga like I have been planning since August. I wish I had a personal trainer here at Albertus that I could utilize.

Anyway...

So, I moved the desk to the wall where my beds used to be and I love this location. Before, my desk was hanging off of this awkward half wall in the window area and it was incredibly un-inspiring. Now, I have an entire wall to post my to-do lists on and I will actually see them! It's perfect! I am a little nervous about where my bed is only because of the dog house shape to the window area. I have two beds and the one I sleep on is right where the wall slopes back down. I am scared that one night I will jump up and hit my head because I will forget it is there. Let's hope for the best.

Right next to my desk, I have my rolling set of drawers fully stocked with art supplies and notebooks and with my lamp on top I can do homework no problem! I am going back home this weekend, so I will not be able to test out the new layout fully until Sunday night when I return. Now...even though it is almost 4 AM, I am determined to read this chapter of my Criminal Procedures textbook before I have to get up and go home.

Arts & Crafts

Being an RA is by no means an easy position. There are not crazy, wild parties every night, but it is a demanding job and you have many responsibilities. My favorite part of the job is holding floor functions in the residence halls. Sometimes you have a function that really draws in a huge crowd; sometimes it is a smaller, simpler function and you have a few people.

On January 29th, I held a "Make a Dreamboard" function. It was very female oriented, but I had a few of my male residents in attendance. It was just a great way for us to bond more, explore one another's interests, and I was able to look through magazines that I have had sitting in my room for months. Thank goodness those are taken care of. In all seriousness though, the dream boards are meant to inspire and get the creative juices flowing. I think that mine speaks to what I want in life. I want to be healthier; both in body and in hair. I want to lead a greener, more environmentally friendly life.

Snow Bound...No, literally

This has been an interesting week as we segued from January into February. We had a snow day on Monday. I could not have been happier! Monday is my longest day of classes and work so I was happy to be able to stay in bed. I was able to play Uncharted 2: Drake's Deception on my PS3 for the first time since getting back from winter break. I have almost beaten the game, but sadly I am stuck on this one level. Sigh...I will just have to ask someone to help me. Wednesday, we had another snow day. I went to brunch, enjoyed a delicious cheese omelette, shopped til' I dropped in the mall and finished my night with RA duty in McAuliffe. 

The snow is very pretty, but there is just too much of it. This is not even the good kind of snow. It has completely iced over itself so it actually hurts to step into it. You can feel the ice surrounding your fresh footprints as you fall through the cracked snow bank. It scraped against the side of my snow boot and I thought it would carve it open. Some of the pathways are not clear, so navigating the campus can be dangerous. Thankfully, it will be sunny skies for the next two days which should help melt some of the snow. I hope I can get in a couple of pictures before then.

My mall trip was really and truly the highlight of my week. I spent money that I really do not have and I now have no idea how I will make up for the money spent. There were some really good deals going on, but one purchase was un-necessary and I should probably return the item. I bought this really cute dress in Torrid. It has a striped top, with a rose patterned bottom half and it is cotton. I love the dress! Unfortunately, it cost me nearly $60. I guess now I will have to make an adult decision. Keep it, or be $60 poorer?