Psychotic Thought of the Day

Did you ever stop to think about how miserable the Virgin Mary must have been on the first Christmas? She's ridiculous pregnant and has to be shuttled through the desert on a donkey with probably sand all in everywhere. (Joseph probably gets lost along the way and refuses to ask for directions...that part got left out of the Bible.) She finally gets to Bethlehem and finds out there's no room at the inn (wasn't someone supposed to make a reservation?) and that she gets to experience "the miracle of childbirth" in basically a cave surrounded by livestock...and yet she looks so serene in all the nativity scenes.

Christmas Came EARLY!!

That's right, my friends, I got a letter from prison!

"Hey how are you doing? Im ok, Aunt Jan said she thinks your a lil stressed out from working too much. (Well, Aunt Jan would be right!) I can see that. (Can you? Since you have never worked two consecutive days in your life...somehow I'm skeptical that you know what stress even is. I'm sure running from the police is very stressful though.) you do have ALOT on your plate. Thats what I'm gonna do when I come home so I stay busy so I don't have a idle hand or mind. (why do I not believe her?) I decided i'm gonna go to school for cosmotology. its only 9 months at empire beauty school mon-fri 9-4:30pm then i'll be able ot get a part time job from like 5-9pm. (::sigh::) that only worrys me about how im gonna attend AA meeting (you know what worries me? how terrible your spelling and grammar is...that's what.) I'll only be able to do like 2 a week on my days off!! (I just started laughing because I remembered how one of the Girl Scout leaders I used to work with referred to AA as "the drunk society".) i wanted to go to one everyday! But I may not be able to join school right away so I'll see!

yea its really cold in here...prolly colder then it is outside! I'm glad you had fun ziplining, I'm gonna do that some day in the jungle! (of course you are...and I'm moving to Mars on Monday.) So you like wine...(I feel like there was some sort of judgment in that sentence. Who is she to judge me?) I really don't have a taste for it. It tastes old or something to me! you know they can make hooch in here! (don't worry...I've already followed up on this for more fun details). How tall are you? (5'4"...still the tallest girl in the family. At our last family picture, someone yelled "get in the back, tall girl." at me) I'm 5'1". (Random) Let me know what happens at your school b-day! "EVERYTHING" (I think she's going to be disappointed since there was no police, hard core drugs or stabbings at it). Well I hope you have a fun Christmas and Safe. I guess I might not hear from you for awhile. I have a visit here on Christmas and New Years Day (bahahahaha) there Saturdays if you or Aunt Jan or both you guys wanna come see me!! (bahahahahahaha) you have to be here by 2:30pm with 2 forms of ID just in case (shucks...i left my second form of ID in my other pants.) Well I guess I'm gonna go...Love ya."

Birthday Party #1

As many of you know (or should know), I turn 30 on Dec 30th (not the 28th...AMANDA 1! not the 31st...DANIELLE! But the 30th). I am celebrating pretty much the entire month of December. Last weekend I had my first (and potentially best) party of the semester. By friend Kathleen is the party guru of the 2nd year class (and probably the entire Wake Forest Schools of Business). She throws the best parties and does so on a regular basis. She was of course the obvious choice to host my party. The party was AWESOME. It was awesome for multiple reasons.

1) The food. Kathleen always has a great spread of food. I love the Mexican dip she makes and she also has these little squares of cheese that are just the perfect size and amount of cheese for Ritz crackers. Awesome!

2) She got me a cookie cake. Do you UNDERSTAND how much I LOVE cookie cakes? Plus I like make cookies for school and so it's also rather fitting for someone to give me a cookie.

3) The people. It was sort of a random mix of people that never really hang out together which was kind of fun. There was the normal Kathleen party crowd, and then people that were on my team last year or work with me for marketing summit...it was great
4) The jello shots. My Marketing Summit co-chair, Ryan, makes the BEST jello shots EVER. Two days before the party he send me this.

That's the jello shot prep. He makes cherry jello shots that actually have cherries in them and are topped with Chocolate Hershey Magic Shell. A-MAZING. For my party, he made new ones that were pina colada...yum. They had pineapple jello, coconut rum, and a piece of pineapple in the bottom. I had about 13 jello shots on Friday...std dev of 1

5) The ice luge. Kathleen has an ice luge that you pour a shot down and have your mouth waiting at the bottom. I was an ice luge virgin until Friday night. I think I still need to work on my technique though.

It was just an all around great party!!

Separate Note: Can you believe I've been blogging for 5 years?!?! Oh how far we've come. If anyone has any personal favorite posts from the past 5 years, I'd love to hear what they are.

Mitten Zipping

This story actually begins about a month ago, I think when someone in my class discovered that Groupon was offering Mitten Zipping at over 50% off. So instead of costing $90 to go, it only cost $40. Of course, the first question was "what in the crap is mitten zipping?" ...since any mittens I've ever seen have not had zippers. When I discovered it was zip lining over Christmas light displays, I knew it was just ridiculous enough that I had to do it. I talked Kathleen (who experienced the ridiculousness of the Dixie County Fair with me) into going.

Last Sunday, we cashed in our groupons and went to High Point, NC to go mitten zipping. It was probably the coldest night we've had in North Carolina all year. I thought I got frostbite on my one toe because when I got home and removed my shoes, it was completely white while all my other toes were a healthy pinkish color. But I guess it warmed up because the next morning when I woke up, it hadn't broken off. It was not only cold, but unbelievably windy. Some of the platforms we stood on in between the 10 zip lining lines were actually swaying.

There were 6 other people that went on the tour with Kathleen and I and 3 "flight instructors." One of the people on our trip was Penny. Penny was loud and chatty, and so by the end of the 2 and a half hour excursion everyone in the group knew more about Penny than they wished. Especially that she could really use a cigarette and was scared of heights.

The lights were nice, but honestly when you're zip lining down, you're paying more attention to how far away from the station you are and how fast you're going than looking at all the pretty lights below you. It was nice to watch the light show while I was weighting for my turn though. On some of the towers, rather than having steps, they had "climbing walls" which was just basically random pieces of wood nailed onto a sheet of wood placed at an angle. These were extremely annoying to go up and we found out that they had to put them up because Guilford County told them their stairs were 1/4" too short and wouldn't pass code. Luckily (or unluckily for us) there is no code for a climbing wall and so they just put those pain in the ass climbing walls over the stairs. (And somehow that's safer according to Guilford County?) After our zip lining tour they gave us hot chocolate and marshmallows to roast on a fire. It was fun and is definitely a great story to tell in the future.

Up Next: my school birthday party.

Letter From Prison

I also have to blog about my zip lining experience, but I have a lot of other stuff to get ready, so I'm going to start with something easier...a letter from prison. My comments will be in ().

"Hey, how are you doing? I'm ok...I had a pretty good Thanksgiving...I got 2 trays (oh the joy of having 2 trays for thanksgiving) and they gave us real turkey (as opposed to turkey nuggets?), stuffing, yams, corn, cranberry sauce, a roll w/ butter and a pice of punkin pie (mmm...love me some pices of punkin pie.)...so how did the caramel apple cake come out? (fantastic, thank you, Paula Deen) It sounds really good (and it was). I love food, awe that's sad about China. (um...first of alli don't know why this is separated by a comma. Second, this is about how I was talking about how we saw really poor people living in tent cities and digging through trash and stuff.) Thats prolly why theres alot of brothels and human slavery (what kind of TV has this girl been watching?) I heard ND won, Yaay I'd like to see a game @ Yankee Stadium sometime. (I feel like there's a lot of things she'd like to do sometime.) There was a Jay-Z and Eminem concert there I really wanted to see. I want to go to time squre also sometime (ugh...squre? isn't that like a second grade spelling word?) Whats your fav. drink? and whats your fav bar in NC? what type of bar is it? (uh, well, drunky, I'm not sure, let me think about it.) I'd love to go ziplining. (and that's 600 things you want to do) I thought you do it in jungles usually? So what are you doing for x-mas this year? Its so cold in our cell, its like below 0 degrees. (I think someone exaggerating a little) I think they actually have the AC running. We have to stay under our covers all day and night long. (So basically in jail, you get to do what i've been hoping to do next weekend?) and were on lockdown for some reason today and I was spose to call nan. (too bad for nan)."

Oh..haven't you missed that?

TV at a New Low

I watch a lot of crap on TV: Operation Repo, Sister Wives, Billy the Exterminator, Hoarders, etc. But this may be an all time low. I swear this is a real show.

Bridalplasty: "Twelve brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win plastic-surgery procedures. In the opener, the ladies move into a mansion, and they each create a plastic surgery wish list with a surgeon before taking part in their first challenge. One person is voted out by the other brides."

Quotes of the Day

Yesterday was filled with some very memorable quotes. (These quotes should not be read by minors or anyone with a prudish disposition). The names have been held back to protect the innocent (or not so innocent).

"Because I like to put out. I find it enjoyable."

"This may end of being one of the worst experiences of business school...and I was roofied in China."

"well, looks like I have to go suck a dick now, so I guess I'll talk to you later."

And They Lived Happily Ever After

This is a continuation of my previous Princess and the Mixer post.

The beautiful/smart/caring/humble princess had waited patiently for her perfect mixer to come, but to no avail. She was forced to be the slave of the evil mixer no matter how much she begged for her mother the queen to purchase her the gallant Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer. But just when she was about to give up hope, Princess Amanda 1 informed the mixerless princess of the land of Amazon. The princess ventured to the land of Amazon on the special festival of sales known as "Black Friday" and found a shining white Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer that she could take back to her kingdom for her very own. Then she was able to make magical cookies for all the subjects of her kingdom without fear of an evil mixer causing her doom. The entire kingdom celebrated, and they all lived happily ever after.

Best Gig EVER

Last April (approximately) I went to this women in business conference where the keynote speaker was the CEO of Spanx. She said that we could sign up to be wear testers. I put my name and e-mail address down ,never expecting to hear from them BUT I was wrong. Friday my first wear testing item came. Nothing like having a FedEx guy come to your house and hand you free stuff. The instructions were to wash and wear it as much as possible and fill out the survey by yesterday. Uh...Spanx...can we get a clue? Like two days? I can only possibly wear it twice and wash it once (which I did cause I want to prove that I'm an awesome wear tester so that they'll send me more stuff!) Oh and of course I get to keep it. Anyone know a shoe company that needs wear testers?

Making My Standard Even Higher

Also if you have "guns" listed as the first item in the "5 things I can't live without" section, I'm not dating you. Change that if you have guns listed anywhere in your 5 things I can't live without I'm not dating you....exceptions may be made if your occupation is listed as Military, Security, or Police. I know you really may just like hunting a lot, but I feel like there are 5 things you should like better than guns.

My Mom

My mom just described how the Notre Dame volleyball team is playing as "sucking out." Someone's been watching too much World Series of Poker on TV.

The Top 10 Signs You're Too Busy

Yes, it's still been crazy around here. Here's how I know it's crazy.

1) You find a half eaten bowl of cereal that you started to eat yesterday and then got distracted before finishing it.
2) The reason you were eating cereal is because you haven't had time to go to the grocery store, so it's the only thing in your cupboard (other than powdered sugar and soy sauce).
3) Cereal is a step up from the day before when you realized at 4pm that you hadn't eaten lunch.
4) You've been sleeping next to a pile of clean clothes that you just haven't put away.
5) You forgot to check the mail...for three days.
6) Your electric bill is less than $30 because you're never home.
7) Your DVR has started deleting things because it's full.
8) When someone asks when you can have lunch or dinner together, you have to look three weeks out.
9) You want to take a bath in your jacuzzi tub but decide it will take too much time.
10) You're doing homework during the Notre Dame game...a cardinal sin.

Alas, it doesn't look like things will be slowing down anytime soon. Luckily I wrote this in 3 minutes!

Good Morning, Orion.

Every morning when I go to the gym the constellation Orion is right outside my front door. I know that it's Orion because this is the ONLY constellation that I can identify. And thus is the only one that does not make me feel inadequate as a Girl Scout. So why do you care? Does anyone remember the "Orion is a Arising" song from 5th grade music or am I just making that up? It gets stuck in my head like EVERY morning. (Apparently I'm not making it up since someone else sang it in 5th grade too.)

Simple Pleasures

It's been a little stressful lately. We still don't have a sponsor for the marketing summit (and I realized that the sponsor announcement was today-Oct. 13th-last year), I'm signed up for a Ph.D. fair next week and still have no idea what schools I'm interested in, and it's the end of the first mini so I have a lot of projects/exams/whatever else due. It's in these stressful times though that I'm especially thankful for the little things. So here's my top 10 simple pleasures from the past week.

10) Fried Reese's, Hypno Dog, and a swimming pig at the Dixie classic fair. I would later regret the fried Reese's as it sat like a lump in my stomach for the rest of the fair.

9) Popsicle in the shower after Dawn with the Dean. I love popsicles in the shower and I don't think it can get much simpler than that.

8) Unexpected care package from Carmen: fuzzy socks, a magnet that says "if the shoe fits, by it in every color" and a box of Swedish fish. It's nice to have friends that know me that well.

7) Unexpected letter from prison. Yes, that's right, folks. After 2 1/2 months in there, she's finally written me.

6) Two and a half hour phone calls with friends

5) Having first years walk to the pizzeria and bring pizza, garlic knots and mozzarella sticks to the bar.

4) Being told by drunk people that I'm their "most favoritest" and that they "love me". It's nice to be drunkenly loved.

3) a really good game of Bejeweled.

2) A Notre Dame win. It's so good to win a football game (even if it's against a crappy team).

1) The fact that not only does the waiter at the sushi place know Andy and my "usual table", but he also knows our order and starts the dumplings as soon as we walk through the door.

::sigh:: I'm so thankful that I can stop and enjoy the simple things even when everything around me is crazy.

Are My Standards Really THAT High?

This post is actually going to be one main post followed by two other random posts. First, the main post. I'm on an online dating site (save your mockery for later, please), and one of the guys says that he enjoys "a intelligent conversation." Really? "A intelligent conversation"? Jeebus. Is it too much to ask for someone that is single, between the age of 26-34, taller than 5'4", no kids, doesn't smoke, has something other than "does odd jobs to pay the bills" listed as occupation, and enjoys AN intelligent conversation? Oh, the irony that you use poor grammar when discussing intelligence....if it had been done purposely, it may have been funny. Sadly, it wasn't.

Random post 1: I got home from the gym today, pulled off my shoe, and noticed a red spot on my sock. I panicked, thinking I had somehow bled through my sock (flashback to my ballet days). Actually, a vitamin had just somehow gotten into my shoe and the red coating had rubbed off.

Random post 2: Does it bother anyone else when people from one commercial are in another commercial? Like I just saw the guy who plays the sun on the Jimmy Dean commercials in a commercial for building websites, and it really, really bothered me. You can be starting a website for your small business, YOU'RE the FREAKIN' SUN. Planets need to revolve around you and stuff. So get off the internet and get back to making Jimmy Dean breakfast foods for everyone.

WTF??

So I'm sure that a lot of you have heard of Kegel exercises. If not, google it. But what I did not know is that there's actual weights for that. The Kegelcisor, really? What?

Psychotic Thought of the Day

Before I start this long overdue psychotic thought of the day, I just want to thank all of you for being great during a drama filled first month of school (special shout outs to Eli for the phenomenal tailgate, Amanda 2 for the great care package and Mere for hitting the trifecta-booze, shopping and sports-in Baltimore). Hopefully all that craziness is behind me and things will start to calm down...signs don't seem so sure lately.

Now onto the psychotic thought of the day. I actually had this over a month ago (I said it was long overdue). I was at a Girl Scout event in PA and made this.

It might look like nothing, but it's actually a cast of a deer hoof print that I found. So dorky! I know. Anyway, after I casted it, one of the first thoughts I had was this would be great to bludgeon someone with because it would make it look like they were trampled by a deer....what kinda sick person thinks things like that? I've been watching too much CSI.

Evil Shoe Update

Evil shoes are still being evil, so they are going to Goodwill (aka shoe exile.)

Quotes from this Weekend

This is going to be a fairly short post. I want to blog more, but I have been crazy busy...as in, not sure when I'll have time to eat dinner crazy busy. The only reason I have time to blog this is because the time I had set aside for reading my homework for tomorrow is vacant since my professor hasn't posted the reading yet. AHHHH. So here are two of my favorite quotes from this weekend when I was in South Bend for the ND/Purdue game.

1) This was in response to my facebook post about Wake Forest playing the Blue Hose. Apparently Presbyterian's mascot is the Blue Hose as in pantyhose. Not kidding. WORST MASCOT EVER! (I like that their website is www.gobluehose.com Sounds kinda like a website about cross dressing to me.) "Every time I hear Blue Hose I think of Smurf prostitutes." Get it. Blue Hoes...ha This was followed by an impression of Smurfette smoking a cigarette and just generally whoring around.

2) "I would turn gay for Sean Connery. He is 180% man. The most interesting man in the world WISHES he was Sean Connery." This was followed by more in depth conversation of the other people he would turn gay for and a discussion regarding how much/why Nicholas Cage sucks.

FANTABULOUS.

The Hierarchy of Swear Words

I'm watching Center Stage on TV right now...yes, I know it's a ridiculous movie, but I love it....and yes, I realize it's 7:53am.. Well, since it's on cable they've changed some of the swear words for TV. Like "bitch" has suddenly become "buster." Fab. But they also switched "shit" to "hell"...really? When did "shit" jump "hell" in the hierarchy of swear words.

You should all realize what I mean when I'm talking about the swear word hierarchy. There are some words that while you shouldn't say them if you're 5, really aren't that bad (at least in my opinion...maybe if you're a fundamentalist Christian, but I'm not): ass, shit, crap, damn, etc. Then there's the words that you may use around your friends, but not around your parents: bitch, hell, dick, douche bag, etc. (Though this might not really be an appropriate measure since my family still regularly uses the phrase "bucket of hell.") Then there's the REALLY bad words that can only usually (unless you're Danielle) be referred to by their first letter: the f-word, the c-word, etc. So when did shit and hell switch categories? or is my hierarchy all f***ed up? They also censored "damn", but still left "hell."

Lack of Inspiration

It's so funny how sometimes I have everything in the world to blog about, and then sometimes I have nothing. It's been one of those nothing times lately. I had a psychotic thought of the day when I was driving to PA on Wednesday, but by time I got here it was gone. I was going to blog about the congratulatory letter that Danielle got from her OB/GYN for her excellent test results (no, she's not pregnant...that OTHER test that the OB/GYN does), but I feel weird blogging about that, so alas, nothing. No letters from prison. No crazy phone calls with my father. Just some random truckers in West Virginia honking and then waving at me, but that's kinda normal. And on Extreme Makeover Home Edition the other day, the builder's last name was Schwinghammer...are you kidding me? A carpenter named Schwinghammer! ::sigh:: I'm just bored in PA, so please SOMEONE do something/say something/e-mail me something witty and hysterical, and it WILL be blogged about.

Kinda Awesome

I'm back in Winston-Salem, but I'm still doing some work for AirTran which means every morning I get "clips". "Clips" are basically any news article that has something to do with the airline industry. This morning I got this. It's so awesome that I'm going to summarize so that you don't even have to click on the link (you should though). This flight attendant (not AirTran) got into an argument with a passenger who accidentally hit him in the head with his luggage. The flight attendant went nuts and started shouting obscenities over the PA system, then grabbed two beers and went down the inflatable slide. While I'm not condoning what he did, haven't we all wanted to do something similar in a previous job?

Evil Sleeper Shoes

Does anyone else have shoes that are pure evil? Shoes that are perfectly great for months, maybe even years and then at the least inopportune time when you least expect it and when you most need them to be sensible, they strike, wreaking havoc on your feet. They were just lying in wait that whole time, building your trust so that they could turn on you.

I had a pair of evil sleeper shoes strike on me yesterday, turning both of my little toes into full blisters and putting me on the yoga injured reserve list.

Though I could also just be losing my mind because when I got home, I pulled off the evil shoes, yelled "bad shoes," and threw them into the suitcase (aka the shoe dungeon) where they will remain until I return to Winston (and where they will have time to think about why they were put there in the first place). Only then, if they truly show remorse may they possibly be able to work their way into a regular rotation.

My New Traffic Rule

If I let you merge in front of me and you don't give me the friendly "thank you" wave, I get to ram the back of your car. That should be a law, don't you think? Bringing back common courtesy one car at a time.

Two Weeks Left

Currently sitting in Palm Beach International Airport, praying to get on this flight to Atlanta. The ticketing agent said that there's three seats, and I'm third on standby, but sometimes they don't know what they're talking about (ask me about my flight to get to West Palm sometime). Signs point to yes.

I'm reflecting on my crazy summer which started with a trip to China and will end with a weekend at camp in the end of August and for once I can't really find words to describe it...maybe ridiculous. (PS I just totally had a Doogie Howser moment where I stopped typing, thought a moment, deleted something and then retyped.) Yes, I think I'm definitly going with ridiculous. Ridiculous internship (it took me until last week to get a letter approved to go into circulation that I had been assigned the first day), ridiculous apartment (I swear that there are police staking the place out...not kidding), ridiculous travel (best summed up by the Bahamas trip that we pieced together at the last minute), ridiculous travel strategizing (taking a two hour nap in my car after a red eye back from San Fran is not even the half of it), and all that put together equals a ridiculously tired JSto.

They mentioned possibly extending my free flights through the end of August, so that I can go to San Juan, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. I was kinda looking forward to that week and a half where I can just lay on my purple couch in Winston and get my life back in some sort of order/routine. Though on the other hand some time in San Juan would be nice. It's been an awesome summer....though tiring.

Laughed My Freakin' Ass Off

Earlier this evening, I was on the phone with Danielle. She was looking online for one of those stupid Nittany Lion Tails that hangs off of your trunk. Suddenly she told me a website to go to and a picture to click on. When I did, I came to this.

I laughed so hard I started crying, and in between hysterical fits of laughter, the only words that I could get out were "I'm blogging that...I don't know what I'm blogging about that, but I'm blogging that."

More Random Vacation Pictures

I have a couple more random pictures that I want to talk about, so since I have a load of laundry in the washer and am drinking wine straight from the bottle, I thought this might be a good time to post them. Coincidentally (or not), they're both of food.

That is the "gift box" that the guys in Plano, TX that work for Frito/Pepsi put together for me so that they could be the "Best Hosts Ever." It was stuffed with random FritoLay snacks some of which came in unbranded black and white bags. I LOVE the Carolina Barbecue Chips. They are like barbecue and salt and vinegar chips rolled into one.

That is my Crunchy French Toast that I had for breakfast at my hotel in San Fran. It was on the "Healthy Options" portion of the menu. I'm not sure how healthy it is when you eat four slices of it. (I didn't, btw).

Stop the Clock

She's back in jail. Joy wins. Though I'm not actually sure what she wins since we didn't really make a wager.

The Story of Elizabeth Brown

I'm on a roll, so I thought I'd continue my blogging. Whenever the flight I have my eye on starts getting a little dicey, I start doing some investigating on the reservation system. I see how many people are getting connections, who has checked in already, who is on stand-by and if they happen to be actually booked on a different flight, stuff like that. I was at the airport waiting for this flight when Joy called...here is a somewhat modified (because I'm tired and can't actually remember) version of our conversation.

Joy: How's the flight look?
Me: eh...ok...there's like 5 open seats and 7 people on standby, but at least one person isn't making the flight cause she never checked in to her first flight. Unless Elizabeth Brown drove from D.C. to make this flight.
Joy: She may have died yesterday.

Flash forward, they're calling people to make sure their not in the gate area before giving away their seat. They call Elizabeth Brown, and I sadly think to myself "poor Elizabeth Brown, she might be dead." So Elizabeth Brown if you happen to be reading my blog, leave a comment so I know that you're ok.

World Cup in the Wild

I'm currently on a plane to San Francisco. I'm really tired, but I'm also cold and in a middle seat, and the guy in 21D refuses to cuddle with me. Jerk! So I'm back on my computer at least until the battery dies in approximately 1 hour and 23 minutes. Since Amanda 1 requested a blog update, I thought I'd give in.

Last weekend I was in Dallas visiting some Wake people that are interning at Pepsi/Frito. We had been debating where exactly to watch the World Cup, so when we ran into a recently graduated Wake second year at a bar Saturday night, and he invited us to his mom's house for the game, we gladly accepted.

Little did we know that we were entering probably the biggest supporter of the taxidermy industry in Dallas. His mom is a big game hunter, so in the living room was 6 deer heads, a chandelier made of antlers, a antelope head, a gazelle head, a lion head, a full lion rug, an alligator skull, two giant elephant tusks and a basket of ostrich eggs. It was creepy. And to make it just a little more uncomfortable intermixed with all the dead animals was religious art including a statue of Gabriel. I honestly had trouble focusing on the game because I felt like deer and/or Jesus was watching me. I was sooo glad to get out of there! (Wish I could've seen what was in the bedroom or could've secretly taken pictures to blog.)

Diversification Strategy

I'm in Dallas this weekend. There's a store here called Merry's Christmas and Clowns. Weird....They have a website. I'm not making this up.

Our New Game

Danielle and I came up with a new fun game in the Bahamas. It's called "Dad or Sugar Daddy." The rules are simple. Identify a couple: older man, beautiful young woman. Observe. Decide whether she is a daughter or a girlfriend/wife. Observe more to either prove or disprove your hypothesis. Everyone wins!

Adaptability

When I started my internship, they had me read this book and do a Strengths Finder test to see what my top five strengths were. One of them came up as adaptability, and I think that has been validated in the last week.

Last week I was looking at flights and saw that the ones to Nassau, the Bahamas, looked fairly open...Surprisingly (hmm...bahamas, wichita, bahamas, wichita...I think Bahamas wins.) I texted Danielle and was like "hey, do you have to work July 4th? wanna go to the Bahamas?" Surprisingly, she was like "ok." So between last Thursday and today, we booked a hotel and listed ourselves on the standby list.

The original plan was for me to fly out of Atlanta and her to fly out of BWI and meet up in the Bahamas today. Well, Friday morning (aka yesterday) I logged into the AirTran reservation system and all hell had broken loose on the Atlanta-Nassau flight. Everyone and their brother started listing for it. I made a key strategical move and decided to try to fly to BWI and meet up with Danielle Friday night opting for feasibility of getting on the flight versus number of options should I not make the flight. Danielle had already gotten a hotel room to spend the night in Baltimore,so that was good. Now, I made this decision at 7am Friday morning and usually leave for work at 7:30. I had not packed or done laundry or gotten cash from the ATM or any travel prep as I fully expected to do that Friday night. I managed to rally (with the aid of an early dismissal from work) and am happy to say I am currently on a flight to the Bahamas.

Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand

Really? Body Paint? This may be false advertising.

Pictures of Maine

So here are the two pictures that I wanted to share with you from Maine. First is the lobster shaped pager that they gave me so that I would know when my order was ready.

AND...the awesomest sign EVER from Soakology.
Yes, it's a moose sipping tea and soaking his feet...errr...hooves.

Sidenote: Plan for State domination has been derailed do for some unforeseen circumstances. 1) Black raspberries are in season in PA and so my mom and grandma will be baking pies together in PA this weekend...it's like the stars have aligned. 2) There are still plenty of seats available to good places like the Bahamas and San Juan and stuff for July 4th weekend. Who are these people that are staying home? AirTran is offering really cheap flights...go somewhere.

Maine Points

Wow...look how my bloggage has gone up due to AirTran's inflight Wifi. It does promote productivity afterall! (PS In business class again...WOO). So here are some thoughts from Maine.

1) I really don't like lobster that much. It's not even the whole lookin' like an animal thing. I just don't like it so much. I'd much rather have scallops or crab or something.
2) Foot sanctuary = awesome. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. I have a picture of the sign that I'm going to post when I get home (it's going to be almost like a picture book blog post so that I can just post all the pictures that I couldn't post when I was on the road).
3) Portland is kinda a weird city. Kinda weird in that it has that New Englandy charm about it, but is also kinda trashy and citylike. There's graffiti and trash all over the place and super aggressive street people. I saw a beggar heckling a woman with a baby stroller. That's like hardcore.
4) New Hampshire had a sign about the size of a county line sign when you crossed the border that just said "New Hampshire." Really? That's the best you could do. Why doesn't Vermont just swallow you up and put you out of your misery?

My plan for state domination might be derailed as I'm contemplating going back to PA next weekend cause my mom will be there. Also the 6:15 flight to Memphis isn't looking so great, so I'd have to leave at like 11:30 pm and get in WAY past my bedtime. If I do go to Memphis, is it obligatory to visit Graceland?

Lobster Update

I went for it (and I'd post a picture of the lobster shaped pager if I had brought the cable for my camera). Ordered a full boiled lobster dinner at the Portland Lobster Company (and actually the picture on the top of their website is pretty much where I sat and that's what my lobster looked like-- without the mussels though). Grossed me out to a point that I can not even describe. I ate it though, but NEVER AGAIN. And now I smell like lobster. Ew ew ew ew.

The First Blog from 30,000 Feet

I'm on the plane to Portland, Maine (AirTran has WiFi on all of it's airplanes...yes, that was a gratuitous AirTran plug.) I got upgraded to business class. WHICH IS AWESOME. Flying for free in business class? Are you kidding me? The thing I love most about business class is that instead of getting handed the bag of pretzels or peanuts or biscuit cookie thing, they show you a basket of goodies that you get to pick from, so I had a granola bar and some Pepperidge Farm Milanos. Oh yeah, the free booze is pretty nice too.

Psychotic Thought of The Day

This isn't so much a psychotic thought of the day as it is a psychotic realization/confession of the day. Whenever I type/write the word bananas, I sing "Hollaback Girl" (aka the "This Shit is Bananas" song) in my head to make sure I spelled it correctly. Thank you, Gwen Stefani.

My Plan For State Domination

On my bucket list (which you will know all about if you read my blog posts from China...ahem) is to visit all 50 states. I currently sit at 25, but expect that number to drastically shoot up as I plan a conquest of 8 states in 3 weekends.

Here is an outline of my plan. The lynch pin of everything is flying into a city that is relatively close to a bordering state.

This weekend Portland, Maine and catch New Hampshire along the way. (Side note: I'm having a lobster dilemma. One of my classmates recommendations while in Maine was to just eat as many variations of lobster dishes as possible. Duly noted, but...and I can't believe I haven't blogged about this before...food that resembles the animal it came from grosses me out. Meat with bones in it, crab claws, etc. I'd rather someone process the shit out of it and then give it to me. Shrimp with tails are the only ones that I'm pretty ok with and I'm not sure why that is. Standard preparation of lobster tail is boiled and served in the tail part. I'm scared I'm going to order it, and it's going to creep me out too much to actually eat it....I'll keep you posted..ha, posted, cause it's a blog).

Next weekend: Memphis, TN The power city because I can also rock out Mississippi (how fun is that word to type!) and Arkansas.

The following Monday, I'm supposedly going on a business trip to Milwaukee. I say supposedly because I was told to put it on my calendar, but haven't really heard much more about it. If not, I'll just pick up Wisconsin at another point this summer.

Fourth of July weekend, I was originally thinking of going back to PA, but I just found out that the majority of my fam is not going to be there...plus I have to continue to roll through states...so that might not happen (also flights into MDT aren't looking very promising). I have two other plans for the holiday weekend, so that I have flexibility in case the flights turn into a bucket of hell when everyone realizes they have a four day weekend. Option 1) Kansas City, MO and pick up Kansas or 2) Wichita, KS and pick up Oklahoma. I know. Neither of these are real thrilling, but really...isn't that why they're still on my list to begin with (and also why there's like 50 seats available on their flights on a holiday weekend)?

So that's the plan. That will bring me up to 33 states hopefully with trips to some part of Texas, Seattle, and Minneapolis looming in July.

The Rest of the Concert

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport right now hoping to get to Orlando tonight. It's funny because I'm simultaneously hoping people made their flights and missed their flights. (Made their flights earlier, missed the flights I'm trying to get on (or their connectors to get to Atlanta.) I thought I'd tell you about the rest of the Styx/Foreigner concert.

The concert venue was BIZARRE. It was an amphitheater in a park. The weird part was that it was "table" seating, which meant that there were plastic tables in between the rows of seats and people brought full picnic lunches some complete with centerpieces. I'm really going to have to step up my picnicking game next time). The other weird part was that no one seemed to really care that there was a concert going on. Everyone was just chatting away (or dancing ridiculously). When I picked up our tickets at Will Call normally, if there's backstage passes included (which there were), there's a little slip of paper telling us where to go. This time...nada. So I did a little investigation and found out that as I had thought even though our passes said "After Concert" it actually meant after Foreigner's set. So we listened to Kansas who was first...ehhh...the Foreigner, but mostly we talked to Ralph, the gay guy that was sitting next to us.

We headed backstage, and it was also a different meet and greet than I had ever been too. First of all, there was only like ten total people there to meet the band. No one really gave us instructions (unlike REO Speedwagon where there are practically orders). There was food set up for the band. Some of the band members just kinda wandered in and got some food and sat at a table. Joy and I played it cool and while everyone else raided the fridge for drinks (Not ok) we sat there and waited patiently. One of the random people who had come backstage, took the one random weird watermelon soda that was in the fridge. You know that was in some one's contract and shit was going to hit the fan later. All the caterers gave each other a sideways look every time someone reached into the fridge. Eventually Jason Sutter the drummer came over (it's funny because when I requested tickets, I actually thought Jason Bonham was the drummer, but he's apparently now one of the 28 former members of Foreigner...not kidding, 28...check wikipedia), and we chatted and took pictures. He was very nice. On the way out, Styx was actually already on stage. That was kinda cool because we could see the band from the side of the stage. We didn't really stay for Styx (even though I still have a mega crush on Tommy Shaw.) It was past my bedtime and I was in some random part of Atlanta, so I decided to head home instead.

Foreigner Concert

I have more to post about this concert, but for the moment I'll share with you possibly the single most entertaining moment of the evening. Sorry, it's sideways. I'll work on fixing that.

Night Out in the ATL

After a semi-rough week at the new internship, it was good to have a night out on the town. Originally it just started off with dinner plans with Lauren, a friend from Wake who is also interning in Atlanta. After hanging out on her screened in porch for a while eating veggies, drinking beer and having her dog lick my toes, we decided to go find something for dinner. We ended up at this place called Neighbor's because they had a great patio, and it was a beautiful night in Atlanta. I discovered my new favorite beer, Stillwater Blue, which is a blueberry flavored beer...really? blueberries and beer all in one bottle? Genius!

After finishing dinner and a few beers, the interesting part of the night really kicked in. There was a summer fest down the block and so we went to check that out, but it was already over. Onto plan 2, buy beer at a nearby convenience store and walk back to Lauren's. It was apparently, unbeknownst to us, 12:01am, and they would not sell us beer because it was officially Sunday. Grrr. Plan 3: Lauren says she has "some beer" back at her apartment which I decide is probably more than enough since I eventually am going to need to drive home. On the walk back to Lauren's, we are flagged down by random guys in the street who invite us to a party at a house. We go to the party, and it is an all out party. There's a professional DJ and two disco balls hung on plywood over the patio with spotlights strategically shown on them and a whole slew of kegs. We got more beer, and I spent the next hour or so talking to a guy who's an environmental consultant which was both entertaining and educational (I know, right? me talking about the environment? crazy!) Got home about 1:45 am. Great night.

It Smells Like Boy

Well, I'm in Atlanta. And pretty much moved in. For those of you that don't know, I'm living in a really cheap house that's set up basically like a dorm. Individual rooms, communal kitchen. Like I said it's really cheap, in a great location, includes internet, utilities, etc. and he's letting me pay only for the time I'm here. So I'm here like 2 months and 1 week, and I don't have to pay for an entire extra month.

The only issue is...it's like a boys dorm. There's about 15-20 people living here and only one other girl (who I've yet to see...I'm wondering if she's a made up girl that they just tell other girls about so that they'll move in). The hallways smell like boy (and not in the good cologney boy way). I've been making myself like a walking air freshener: spritzing with body spray or lathering up with lotion every time I go out of my room. The majority of the guys are tech/engineer/science geeks from Georgia Tech. I met some of them yesterday and they're nice but extremely shy. The communal areas are pretty much an absolute mess. I'm not exactly a neat freak, but.... Let's just say I'm not planning on doing a lot of cooking in the kitchen. And I joined a gym, so I'll be showering there in the mornings before going to work.

My room on the other hand is super cute in an kitschy, eclectic sort of way. It has an exposed brick wall on one side and apparently one of the tenants left a huge three foot wide, framed, floor to ceiling mirror here, so there's that. My landlord tried to tell me that "most residents don't even use their air conditioner and just open a window with the fan on." First of all, there's no screens in the window and a huge tree outside. I wouldn't be able to sleep because I'd be fearful a squirrel or stray cat would jump in. Second, this is ATLANTA. If you think i'm not going to use an air conditioner that you've provided me with. You're wrong.

Mmmmm, Tastes Like Chicken

Yesterday, Danielle and I had a very disturbing conversation (well, disturbing to me) about how she would eat me, and that I would most likely be processed into a chicken nugget type format.

Why chicken nuggets? 1) Because there's no way I'd be delicious enough to be dark meat and 2) There's not enough good parts of me to be strips, so I'd have to be nuggets.

During the same conversation she also told me that my face was crooked and that I have a hump. I may need some new friends.

I've Been Brainwashed

Here's just another example of how Notre Dame brainwashes its students. I'm reading a book from the Notre Dame mystery series. In it one of the characters says what dorm she is from, and I found myself immediately judging her. Really? I'm judging a fictious character based on what dorm she fictiously says she's from. (I'm not going to tell you what dorm either, so that all you ND people can mull that over yourself for a while).

Epcot Center on Crack

Today, we got to go to the World Expo in Shanghai, which can best be described as Epcot Center on crack (or on steroids which is the PG version that I used for the school's blog). There is a lot more to blog about, but it's kinda late and I'm sleepy, so I'm just going to blog about one thing. The stores at the Expo sold passports that you could get stamped at each country. However, this sign was outside of the Ireland pavilion.

Joy and I decided that they got drunk and lost the stamp and can't figure out where it is. Those Irish!

Sorry

I know. I know. I haven't posted in like forever. We've been having REALLY long days and I've been saving my creative juices for the school's official China blog, so check that out through the link on my facebook page.

Traveling with Joy

That's the person not the emotion. PS That picture is the non-steep part of the Great Wall, not the super hero part that I did. (Please reference the "official" China blog. The link is on my facebook page. And for extra bonus points you can try to guess the words that Andy gave me to work into those blog posts....most of them are fairly obvious.)

China has been interesting and traveling with Joy to China has been even more interesting. So first off Joy took a medicine to help with her flight anxiety....with a glass of wine. (hey, free booze on the flight to Beijing, can't pass that up. tranquilizer or no tranquilizer). Anyway, she pretty much lost 14 hours of her life. However, I did not realize this. She was completely functional for about 5 hours of that...though slightly angry. She does not remember ANY of this. There was about a half hour conversation that we had, dinner, and some excellent chocolates that she does recall. But she doesn't remember getting stuff out of the overhead bin, eating the carrots out of my inflight meal, complaing loudly about the rude people standing in front of us, stretching her legs in a swimming scissor kick type motion or the entire drive from the airport to the hotel. The other extremely funny part was when she was reading something and fell asleep for about 1 second. Long enough to drop the paper. She then immediately woke up and said "what just happened?" HILARIOUS.

So then today, we went to the Great Wall, and Joy was like a celebrity. There were little Chinese people pointing and taking pictures of/with her. (I even got in a picture with her and a Chinese person too...I could be in some person's scrapbook someday). Apparently, in the touristy places there are more people from rural China who haven't seen an African American before. And only if I had red hair, it would've been a dynamic duo. Luckily Joy took it all in stride. We've also created our own theme for the trip complete with hand gestures: One world. One dream. (It was on a big sign by the Great Wall and we liked it/liked to make fun of it, so we stole it. I'm not really sure what the one dream is yet, though.)

OMG China

Yes, I'm leaving for China tomorrow. It's crazy. I feel like I'm forgetting something and am also getting dangerously close to the 44 pound weight limit for luggage within China. I am taking my laptop, but am also an "official" blogger for the school (check out my facebook page to get the link to that), so I'm not sure how much time I'll have for extra blogging on here...I'll try though. I feel like I'm walking a fine line with the school's blog...trying to be myself (aka dripping with sarcasm) and simultaneously be school appropriate. We'll see how this goes.

Atlanta, Part 2

So I'm actually sitting in the MBA lounge right now writing this and waiting for my final class of first year to begin. Yes, I could've stayed in my apartment on my comfortable purple couch and written this, but there are clothes strewn around a suitcase sitting on my living room floor right now and that was cramping my creativity.

So Atlanta, Part 2. I slept in in the morning (well, slept in for me) and then went to go find my new apartment. I was a little scared about this because the rent is super cheap and one of the Airtran guys made a comment about not going out alone at night. Yes, the outside is sketchtacular (you can feel free to use that word as needed) and kinda looks like a crack house, but inside it's really nice (and again really cheap), so I think I'll be ok. Plus with all the traveling I'm planning to do this summer, who needs a place to live.

From there I decided to do some shopping, though I didn't buy anything. I had lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen (which I love). I wasn't really feeling the shopping vibe. I was super super tired, so I went back to the hotel and was inspired to have a massage. Yummy. Except apparently the masseuse had scratchy nails or something because when I was showering off I realized I had red scratches all over. Kinky.

For dinner, the Airtran people took me to FAB a super swanky French bistro. I had assumed that they had been there before, but obviously not as my French skillz were called into play to translate some of the menu items. In between our appetizers and soup/salad course, they brought finger bowls for us to rinse our fingers in. None of the Airtran people knew what they were, but I did and looked like a high class genius. I swear our party of 5 must've had a bill close to $1000. We had pre-dinner cocktails, a couple of bottles of wine, several appetizers (including a mixing bowl sized container full of the best mussels I have ever eaten), soup/salad, and pretty pricey entrees. I was so full by time I got home. But it was absolutely delicious.

The next morning I was going to go work out in the hotel's fitness facility in the morning, until I realized I had no socks (I always forget socks for some reason), so instead I walked to a Caribou coffee to get a bagel and coffee. I then drove to the airport, returned my rental car, flew back to Raleigh and drove back to Winston. All in all a very good trip.

Atlanta, Part 1

I'm splitting my awesome trip to Atlanta into two more readable (and more write-able parts). AirTran told me that I had to come to Atlanta to be background checked and drug tested and if I wanted to spend some time to get to know the area, then I could do that too. I had decided that this would be like a mini-vacation for me, which I desperately needed.

I had to drive to Raleigh because AirTran doesn't fly from Greensboro, so that was like an hour and a half drive, but not bad. I was waiting in the gate area when they called me up to the desk and handed me a boarding pass for first class. Wow...my first trip as an A+ platinum rewards member, and I already get a free upgrade. I think the best part of first class for me was the little snack basket that you get to pick from, so instead of just getting pretzels, there were bags of milano cookies or trail mix or about a dozen other snack items better than pretzels. (Disclaimer: Snack basket was the best part because I didn't partake in any of the free booze.)

Arriving in Atlanta, picked up my rental car that they had provided for me and then got lost on my way to the office. They had e-mailed me google maps directions that told me to get on 279, but no one knew where 279 was. I had a GPS in my rental car, but it wouldn't let me put in the exact address (address was 3200, GPS only let me put in 31 something.) I eventually found it. We went to lunch at the Marriott where they had a pasta stir fry bar very similar to the one in the ND dining halls (how I miss you North Dining hall). Back at the office, I filled out some paperwork, got fingerprinted and saw my very own cubicle (which already had my name on it and everything).

From there, I had to get drug tested. I'd never had been drug tested before, and had no idea how hard core it is. Making you lock up your stuff and washing your hands while the woman watches. Crazy. After all that was taken care of, I went and checked into my AWESOME hotel. My room had it's own doorbell.

Isn't that insane? When housekeeping came the next day to bring me more towels, not only did they ring the doorbell, but when I answered they asked for permission to come in. What hotel does that?

For dinner we went for sushi at Zuma which was pretty good except that it wasn't with rice or in roll form or anything. It was just raw fish which is my least favorite preparation of sushi. It's a texture issue, so that was a little disappointing. At dinner, the AirTran people informed me that their goal was to make sure I "have the coolest internship at Wake Forest" which I fully support. They asked me all sorts of questions about what I like, what bands I like, what sports I like, do I smoke cigars, and would I be opposed to going to the Bahamas (uh...no!) so that they will be able to cater to my every whim. oh yeah, I also found out that my free flight privileges transfer to a friend, so Joy and I will be traveling EVERYWHERE. After dinner, we went to this improv comedy show at Dad's Garage which was hysterical.

The Word of the Day

I'm taking a ridiculous entrepreneurship class called Creativity and Feasibility as an elective this mini (a mini = basically a quarter of the year). The syllabus basically went out the window on Day 1, the professor has told everyone that they would get either an A or an A- and everyone (including the professor) usually shows up about 15 minutes late. Usually I spend this class period e-mailing Andy who is not in this ridiculous class, but rather is next door in a probably non-ridiculous class on Six Sigma.

Last week as part of our regular e-mailing back and forth Andy told me that he would give me bonus points if I could work the word "unicorn" into class discussion. Not one to back down from a challenge, I, of course, did. I found this to be an exciting little challenge for me and actually helped me pay attention to class more because I had to try to figure out when to work in my special word. I decided that this should be continued.

Today's word he gave me was "anemone" and sadly, I failed. I even had a perfect place to fit it in. They were talking about partnerships and I was going to work in a comment about symbiosis and a clown fish and an anemone. Perfect, right? I unfortunately have difficulty saying the word anemone and by time I had correctly formulated it in my brain, the discussion had shifted and my moment had passed. So now, I'm 1 and 1 which doesn't make me very happy. Can't wait to see what word I get on Thursday!

Our Prayers Have Been Answered

My mom recently informed me that my delinquent cousin has been transferred out of jail....booo..., but I arrived home today to find a letter from prison in my mailbox. While it's nowhere near her funniest, I feel the need to blog about it anyway because it's the last one. In related news, Joy and I have a bet on how many months before she gets thrown back in jail. I got 2-6 months. Joy has 8-12....anyone else wanna get in on this action?

"I love the paper and envelope its so cute... (I have no idea what crappy stationary I sent her this time. probably something I got at a birthday party in like 5th grade.) Im lucky that I got it (herpes?) well I'll be leaving on the 26th (wow, that's today. How apropos) for sure so you don't need to write me back i'll call you like a week or so after the 26th (oh, I'm sorry, I'll be in China. such a shame) and give you the address then you can send me pictures there (pictures? what?) also let aunt jan know that i'll call her like a week or so after the 26th and give her the address too! (She will be soooo thrilled). I can't wait. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time. I just can't wait to see what its like in there and what exactly I can and can't do! (I hate to disappoint you, but I'm thinking pot is still a no no.) I'd like to go golfing on an 18 hole course sometime (oh, I bet you would) I think it would be fun plus i want to see how far i can hit it! i played that tiger woods game before. (not the same.) so where will you be staying in ATL (like I would tell you)? will you get a apt. or something for the summer? (no, I'm living on the street in a cardboard box). I know this is short but i wanted to let you know what's up...."

Oh...so short...but yet so deep.

Is This Even a Legal Document?

Wow, I have so much to blog about that I've started putting ideas for blog posts on my task list in outlook. Crazy. Good thing I'm still getting up early so I have time to blog all this great stuff. And can you believe that in two weeks I'll be in China. Guess what else! I've been named an official blogger for the school for the China trip. Obviously those official blog posts will not be nearly as snide as these are (and so by default less hysterically funny), but still it should be fun, and I promise to put my own JSto twist on them.

This summer I'm interning in Atlanta and found a place to live that basically sounds like a dorm for grad students/interns except in the middle of the a really cool part of town instead of on campus. I just got my lease from the random guy I've been e-mailing with, and it is one of the funniest things I have ever read. Can a lease be funny? I'm pulling out some of my favorite direct quotes. I'm leaving the best paragraph for last so if you happen to be reading this at work and the boss comes, make sure you go back at some point and at least read that one (not that I would ever condone reading my blog at work...who am I kidding? of course I condone that! I used to blog at work!)

"to the extent that downloading large files slows DSL for everyone, JSto agrees, if necessary, to limit her use of DSL to ordinary internet browsing, e-mail, text files, ordinary text documents, etc...this paragraph is in the lease in an abundance of caution to insure that everyone has access to functioning DSL service in that, about three years ago, a couple of Georgia Tech students were downloading extraordinarily large files and programs for a business application and causing DSL problems." --- the love the words "abundance of caution" and also that he gives the whole background story

"JSto acknowledges that she will be the only occupant of the room though she may have visitors."---I'm really surprised he doesn't go into more detail to specify when a "visitor" becomes and occupant.

"If notified by management to clean up something she soiled, JSto agrees to clean up the area immediately, completely and cheerfully." ---yes, mom

And my absolute favorite part, which will need no further commentary from me: "JSto also agrees not to have a pet without written approval of the lessor. JSto agrees not to go to the Humane Society (which is three buildings down the street), find a pet, and have the Humane Society call for the landlord's permission for JSto to have the pet without first consulting the lessor, and understands that if she does indeed go to the Humane Society, finds a pet, and has the Humane Society call for the landlord's permission for the pet, JSto understands that the landlord/lessor will deny such permission. This paragraph does not mean that JSto cannot ever have a pet -- it just means that JSto needs to obtain prior approval before going to the Humane Society, meeting a cute companion and falling in love--and putting the lessor in teh position of possibly denying JSto the companionship of her new love."

Seriously, that is taken verbatim from my new lease.

A Schedule Update

Well, still going strong with the new schedule. It's been working out awesome. I've been getting so much done (if you haven't noticed from my blog posts ramping up). My "team" loves it because they went to bed with a messed up paper and woke up to find a completely edited version in their e-mail inboxes. It seems to be completely sustainable as my actual issue has been waking up TOO early. Last night I was at Joy's for our weekly TV/wine night and didn't get to bed till 10:30, but I woke up at 4:30 AM (even though my alarm was set for 5). That's obviously not enough sleep, but I'm not sure how to make that better.

There are some other things I've been struggling with:
1) My routine is all screwed up. I used to wake up and had a specific order of things and knew how long it took and had my steps all planned out until I left for school. Now because I'm doing my homework in the morning and that varies so much in how long it takes to do, sometimes I'm like oh...I have another half hour before I have to leave what else can I do and other times I'm like oh shit! I need to get going.

2) Taking shit from people. Joy keeps telling me I'm an old woman, and that I'll start eating dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon. Also, normally the first thing I do when I get up is check my e-mail. When I decide to reply to someone at that time I undoubtedly get a "wow, you're up early" response. Additionally, Andy is giving me crap for not getting up early enough. Ugh.

3)My stomach doesn't get it. I'm still pretty much hungry from around 5am-11am. Lunch time and dinner are still ok, it's just breakfast that's a problem.

4) This is going to sound stupid, but for some reason I'm not used to turning on the lights in the morning. And even though it's now darker when I get up, I still don't turn on the light. I don't know if I think that my eyes will adjust or what, but I usually end up running into stuff.

I'll give you another update in another few days after I'll have been doing this for about a week.

Happy Earth Day

It's time for my annual How to Save the Earth in 25 easy steps blog. I will also mention that while I am typing this at 8:00 AM, I have been up for three hours and so my little schedule experiment is still in effect (more on that in a future blog). As said in years past, these are all things that I in fact do myself, or would not be recommending them otherwise.

1) Remove your lids before you recycle. All of you should realize that you are supposed to remove the lids from your bottles before you recycle...but how many of you know how important this is? At many recycling plants, if they find bottles with lids on them they throw the bottle in the trash rather than remove the lid. Great recycling!!
2) And while you're at it, take your plastic lids to any AVEDA salon and have them recycle the lids! Aveda will recycle any hard plastic lid (soda bottles, shampoo bottles, toothpaste, laundry detergent) for no charge. Click on the link above for more details.
3) Educate yourself and others. I regularly read books, websites, etc. on "green" topics. There are some "green" things that are slightly controversial, and I think it's important for you to weigh the pros and cons of each. A lot of these hints are coming from one of my most recent reads: The Big Green Purse by Diane MacEachern.
4)Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaning: There are several different types of "green" dry cleaning. I recently started taking my dry cleaning to the Dry Cleaning Station which is committed to using environmentally friendly methods. My clothes feel and smell nicer than with traditional dry cleaning too!
5) Use all in one cleansers. Cut down on the amount of packaging you are using by just using one cleanser for everything. While you think you need that one specifically for counter tops or whatever, I'll break the news to you, that's actually all just a marketing ploy.
6) Stop buying CDs. EVERYONE has a MP3 player, right? What do you need a CD for when you probably don't like half the songs anyway? Just buy the MP3's. If you're worried about listening in your car, once you find the songs you actually like THEN burn a cd.
7) Buy concentrated. Whether it's juice or laundry detergent, buy concentrated to use less packaging.
8) Cut down on your personal chemicals. Do you really need a separate lotion for your feet? All those different chemicals aren't good for you or the environment, so try to cut out one product. Or cut out a day of the week by taking a makeup free day when you're not going out of the house.
9) Educate others. I think this was in one of my previous lists, but it's super important. First think about how what you're doing is helping the environment. Now think about how great it would be if all your friends were doing that too! Earth Day is a great opportunity. Post an earth friendly reminder on your facebook!
10) Ask people what they want for a present and then give it! The next time a birthday or holiday comes up and you have no idea what to get someone, ASK! It will reduce the number of unwanted presents being regifted, donated or (gasp) thrown away.
11) Compost! Don't give me the "I live in an apartment" excuse. There are plenty of ways to compost for everyone. I'm lucky enough to have a neighborhood compost pile and my mom gave me a counter top compost container that has a filter so I just keep everything in there until I'm driving by the compost pile.
12) Buy local...like wine. It seems like vineyards are almost everywhere now. And while there are some pretty terrible local vineyards, there are some pretty good ones too. Do your research!
13) Read the labels. Less ingredients is more. Look for the seals of approval such as certified organic, shade grown, fair trade, etc.
14) Take your shoes off. When you enter your house, take your shoes off. This lengthens the life of your carpet and reduces the need for carpet cleaners.
15) Watch TV with a friend -- save energy and have fun!
16) Students, rent your text books. I use Chegg.com and LOVE IT!
17) Avoid anti-bacterials...ok, germophobes, I'm ready for you to jump all over me, but hear me out. A 2005 US FDA panel concluded there is no benefit to using antibacterials over just soap and water. In addition, the chemicals are bad for the environment (and the general health overall because of increasing immunities to antibiotics).
18) Dryer balls. This is one of those controversial topics, but I'll give you my point of view and then you can decide. I use dryer balls instead of fabric softener. Yes, dryer balls are made of PVC's that aren't recyclable. But (until recently) I wasn't recycling the lids of fabric softener containers either. Plus reusable dryer balls save the energy used to produce multiple containers of fabric softener...it's up to you.
19) Make your own cleaners. A lot of places tell you to make your own cleansers using vinegar, I do not for the fear that my house will smell like vinegar all the time. I do however use baking soda instead of buying soft scrub and it works excellently.
20) Read online rather than print. Whether it's newspapers or your marketing case, read the online version and save paper.
21) Water plants in the morning or early evening. You'll lose less water from evaporation.
22) Recycle your batteries. If you are not using rechargeable batteries (which you should be), take them to places like Best Buy that have recycling programs and while you're at it drop off your ink cartridges there as well.
23) Wash your laundry in cold water. It does just as good of a job.
24) Get rid of clutter before you move (and don't just throw it out either!) Not only will unpacking be a lot easier, you'll save gas from not transporting all that extra crap.
25) "Sleep" your computer. If you're going to be away from your computer for more than 20 minutes, put your computer to bed and save energy.

Get out there Planeteers!

My New Schedule

This all started this morning. And before I tell you exactly what happened, I need to give you a little background on my normal sleep schedule. Normally I go to bed at 11pm and set my alarm for 7am. This is the same no matter whether I start classes at 8am or 9:45am, I still get up at the same time. The only deviation from this is Saturday and Sunday when I don't set my alarm and just wake up whenever (usually around 8am). Even though my alarm is set for 7, I normally wake up around 6:50 and just lay there for 10 minutes till my alarm goes off and then get up.

That brings me to this morning. This morning, I woke up, laid there and my alarm never went off. I thought to myself "gee, i must've gotten up earlier today for some reason, I wonder what time it actually is." I rolled over and saw that my clock said 4:18. Other than being really thirsty, I'm not really sure why I became completely awake and alert at 4:18. I tried for about a half hour to fall back asleep, then got up and wrote some e-mails, then tried for another half hour to go back to sleep and finally at around 5:30-ish, gave up on sleeping. The weird thing is that I was ultra-productive. No one was around to e-mail me (or warrant me checking my e-mail), no one was on facebook, and there was nothing that was on TV...so I went to the gym, did a bunch of marketing summit stuff, e-mailed a bunch of people about apartments for the summer, read my homework for ICP and cleaned my bathroom...it was really great.

My friend Andy is on a sleep 8pm-4am schedule which I have previously ridiculed when he has tried to convince me of the merits of such a schedule, but now this has me thinking. It was really really great. As long as I could actually make myself be fully awake, this might work. This could also be the perfect time to switch to such a schedule because I only slept 5 hours last night, it's almost 2pm and I'm still going strong so theoretically around 8-9 pm, I should be ready to go to bed. i'm thinking of a 9pm-5am schedule, because 4am just sounds ridiculous. The only thing I have to really work out is food because I was ready for lunch at around 9am.

This is going to end one of 3 ways. 1) I love the new schedule become super productive and live a happy and fulfilling life as an early bird. 2) It's ok. I go back to my unproductive life only shift it earlier and then decide whether to switch my schedule back or not or 3) (probably the most entertaining option) I force myself to get up early for a week which backfires horribly. I end up being in a coma-like state thus losing a week of my life and eventually give up and go back to going to bed at 11. I'll keep you posted.

Another Great Father/Daughter Moment

Me: I had a dream about you last night. You got kicked out of Disney world for making inappropriate comments to the costume characters at a character breakfast.
My Dad: That wasn't a dream. It was a repressed memory from your childhood.

The Quickest Way To Make My Blog

Send me an awesome care package. That is exactly what Amanda 2 and Danielle did, so now I get to tell you about the awesome stuff that I got.

Amanda 2's was a complete surprise which made it all the more awesome. First in her package:
I had posted Amanda's scrap paper art that she used to leave on my desk at Girl Scout's before, and so this is a throw back to that. Yes, it's a unicorn eating skittles and pooping rainbows. Ironically about 30 minutes before I got this package in the mail, I got yelled at by my learning team for drawing a rainbow on the white board and was told "are you going to draw a unicorn next?" Creepy.

Also in Amanda 2's package were:

My new favorite paperclips. Take that Airtran airplane paperclips. I also got a very nice letter, some cool black and white tacks which are already on my corkboard, the pen she stole from Jumbo Buffet, and the "Major Impact" marker which we keep sending back and forth. (There's a inside joke that goes along with major impact, but it's too dirty to post on my blog.)

Now onto Danielle's care package. I'm not sure how the idea of her sending me a care package first came about, but she's been telling me for months that she's going to send me one. She kept calling me and telling me she was buying stuff for it, so it was much hyped and anticipated.

I'm going to tell you EVERYTHING that is in it because I think everything deserves mentioning.

• an envelope stuffed with random coupons (inspired by my mom's care packages of course) so if anyone needs Pampers or Fixodent, let me know and I'll hook you up.
• Random newspaper articles. When I used to send Danielle her box of crap or random letters in college, I included newspaper articles that were mostly things about Notre Dame teams beating Penn State teams. (one of the articles she sent me was Police: Recruit Drunk. Unfortunately I read this without the colon and with "recruit" as a verb. I expected some hilarity, but instead the story was about the Notre Dame football recruit that fell off a balcony and died. Sad.)
• A turtle watering can, which I have already used.


• A stuffed monkey, which was only added to stabilize the other items in the box.
• an ashtray with a middle finger sticking up that I had previously gifted to her in one of her birthday boxes.
• A West Side Story DVD (oh high school music class. What great memories!
• Hungrey Hungry Hippos Play-Doh playset, which I think Danielle is more excited about than I am


• Reese's peanut butter (of course)
• Ritz pretzel crisps which look yummy.
• Princess markers
• Princess color roll posters
• A 24 pack of crayons (to color my princess posters)
• a princess icepack


• Fairy lunchbags
• a fairy pez dispenser
• Sour patch candies
• Sluggles gummies
• Sleepytime tea
• an Alice in Wonderland pin (which she bought a few years ago at the Rose Bowl)
• AND High School Musical scented highlighters

Ahh...such great friends.

My Ridiculous Saturday

I've decided to blog in order to take my mind off of the raging class/job/marketing summit ulcer that is currently forming in my stomach. Saturday was a charity golf outing. I had received an e-mail from a girl in my class saying she wanted to form an "all-female foursome" and that you didn't have to be good, the goal was just to have fun. Perfect! I signed up. Little did i know, I would be the only one on the team to ever have golfed 18 holes. It was...interesting...I gave some lessons on golf etiquette and even though we came in last (and won free golf balls), had lots of fun (and may or may not have purposely tried to hit the drunk foursome in front of us). Though not as fun as some. Apparently there were people that went swimming in the lake, tucked and rolled out of a cart at full speed, and teed off naked. Did I mention there was free beer? Also for our enjoyment there was a wedding at the golf club where the colors were camo. Nice.

After a long day of golf, I forced myself to be social and go to my friend Kathleen's party. Boy am I glad I did. I guess the real excitement started when someone showed up with fireworks. No one was really paying attention until someone warned us that he was lighting something on the balcony. Yep, he set off one of those big "black cat" canister things (I don't really know firework lingo) off basically in a tree. Luckily it was only one shot because the recoil caused it to spin around and would've shot a second shot through the window into her living room. We all rushed into the apartment ,and Kathleen sprayed Burberry perfume all over to cover up the firework smell. It didn't really work. We hid the rest of his fireworks. Somehow about an hour later he got them back. He decided to launch a bottle rocket out in the parking lot. We tried to convince him to go to the tennis courts, but that was to far away. At one point, we thought a police car was coming, but luckily it turned out to be a taxi. Everyone watched safely from the stairwell as the first rocket went up. Then he got the idea to try to send a beanie cow into orbit by strapping three rockets to its back.

Upon seeing this, someone said "I have a bad feeling about this" and then helped him to connect all the fuses together in the hopes that the rockets would go off together. But they didn't. We watched even further up on the stairwell this time; hopefully out of rocket range. The first one went up, and the other two went out to the side. The cow stayed put, but had pretty bad third degree burns and then we all ran back into Kathleen's apartment.

Upon telling this story to Danielle, she responded by saying "I forget that these people are our age and not just stupid college kids." So how much longer can I get away with doing ridiculous things like this? Also at Kathleen's was drunken singing, a short lived ice luge, and a first year vs second year cups tournament, but after the fireworks nothing was really that exciting.