I've had a birthday, shout hooray

Well kids, today is my 23rd birthday.  Ho ventitre anni.  Last year, I went to Charleston for my birthday, and as I drove back, I listened to and contemplated Tom Waits' song " I Don't Wanna Grow Up", but this year, as I think about my future, I do really want to grow up.  I know that I have a lot of good ahead in the next few years and I look forward to those things.  A year from now, I will be one month away from graduating college.  I will be (close to ) fluent in Italian.  I hope to, in the next year, become more friendly and less weird about developing new relationships  My puppy will be 2 years old.  I think, what have I done in the last 23 years?  And while there is nothing HUGE and CATASTROPHIC that I have done, there are a few things I can think of.  I've seen countless beautiful things and I know countless beautiful people.  I have spent 23 years with the most incredible, talented, creative, intelligent, loving and loyal family, individuals that I feel honored to know and love.  I have learned so many fascinating things about the world I live in, which only makes me want to learn more.  I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has brought me more joy and comfort than I can express.  I took part in the conversion of a young woman who went on to serve a mission, who in turn took part in the conversion of many others.  I have attempted to love those around me and make them smile.  While I recognize that I have done many things in the past 23 years, I still have lots more to do.  CONTINENTS to see.  People to love.  Beauty to admire.  Books to read.  Children to read to.  Someone today said that 23 is not a significant year; I disagree.  Every year is a significant year.  Every year, every day that one lives can be significant and I intend to make 23 memorable.  Significant.  

One year old and wiser, too. 

hating my mac right now

OMG  I JUST PICKED UP MY COMPUTER AND TOOK IT HOME AND I STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM EVEN THOUGH THEY SAID THEY FIXED IT OMG I AM SO MAD.

worst week

This will be brief, as I now have to go back to my apartment to write a paper from what I can gleen from my textbook.

Tuesday. The election of a lifetime. I was anxious all day about who would win. I also was disgusted at the ignorance displayed on facebook, and so I posted the blog "decision 2008" on my facebook page. I stayed up until my man won, and then went to sleep.

Wednesday. I decided to skip my baroque class so I could go to the dmv and get a new license. I had mailed the renewal form, but since I moved and forwarded my mail, I never received it. The dmv does not forward mail. I had to go and renew it in person and i expected it to take all day. I was in and out in 15 minutes. Also, they made my take a new picture. Bleh. Sammy thought he had appendicitis today, as well. That made me upset, that my little brother was in pain and might have to have surgery. All during this, my phone was blowing up with people commenting on the facebook note about the election. People were being super rude to me in their comments (ok, some were not, some were very well thought out and not personal). I started to stress out over it, taking it very personally. I went to my gender and feminism class, ready to take notes and noticed that my computer was completely dead, even though it had been plugged in all night and all day. I ended up taking notes in my planner. I ran home between class and work to charge my computer. I went to work, still stressing about Sam and facebook, and then went home to do some work. My computer would not turn on. At all. I almost cried. I took it to peachmac, where I waited for about 20 minutes for a man with the apple logo tattooed on his arm to help me. I almost cried when they told me they would have to keep it for a few days. Like, it took all my energy to not sob at the counter. I got in my car and cried all the way home. I got very little studying done for my 18th century test tomorrow.

Thursday. I went to the slc before Italian to check on some things. I checked my bank account. My rent check had gone through before I expected, which over drafted my account. There were also 4 other transactions that went through after that, which just continued to over draft my account. Cry cry cry. Five $35 fees. There goes my rent money for December. My test was not that bad, but I still should have studied a lot more. I went to work and attempted to study for my italian test which is tomorrow. After work I had to go to the slc (ugh) to do the audio exercises we had to turn in. I really miss my computer.

Friday. Friday was not actually that bad. My test was kind of embarrassing as I did very poorly on it, I think. I realized that I have a baroque paper due on Monday, and I may not have a computer. I did go to Atlanta and spent the night. I went to bed at 4:30am.

Saturday. Not a bad day. Stayed in Atlanta until around 3 and then came home. Went straight to Dad's to celebrate my birthday and then went home, painted my nails and was in bed by 11.

Sunday. Today, also not bad. Church was good. I was released from my fave calling of relief society teacher and immediately called as a member of the activities committee. I went to Mom's right after church to celebrate with her. I didn't get back to Athens until close to 5:30 and I need to write the baroque paper. Its just a comparison essay, so it should not be difficult. I looked at the slide choices and realized that half of my notes are on my computer. Which is not with me. So now, I have to go home, write a paper based on information from the book ( I pray it is there) and then I guess come back at like 7 am and type it. I am so not happy right now.

My birthday is Tuesday. Things better be looking up by then.

decision 2008

As many of you know, I voted for Barack Obama.  I believe he can direct this country out of the obscurity that it has been driven in to.  

I have been amazed at the amount of HATE toward Obama I have seen on Facebook.  People use words like evil, communist, etc.  I do not understand how people can be so rude and immature.  I publicly announced my support of Obama via my facebook status and immediately got responses containing so much negativity, saying I was dumb, that they were disappointed in me, among other things.  I can understand not agreeing with someone politically; but presenting your opinion in such an immature way is unbelievable to me.  Also, I have many liberal friends on the facebook and I have seen very few super negative things about McCain on their statuses, links, pages, etc.  I know that it is out there, and I have made one or two "zingers" about Sarah Palin myself, but there seems to be a maturity (knowledge?) gap between my liberal friends and my conservative friends.  

I guess what I'm trying to get at is I just wish people could be a little kinder in their giving of opinions, especially about something like this.  I have done my research, I know what I voted for, and I kind of doubt that a lot of the people telling me that I am dumb and/or voting for a communist have done theirs'.  I also kind of think that if they were better informed, they would not behave  the way they do.  

Or they would vote democrat.

Obama 2008

morgan made me do it

8 Favorite TV Shows

1 The Office

2 Bones

3 House

4 Big Bang Theory

5 How I Met Your Mother

6 Old Christine

7 CSI

8 What Not to Wear

8 Things I Did Yesterday

1 Worked Out

2 Washed my hair

3 Had lunch with family

4 Voted

5 Drove to Clemson

6 Watched a mime change a flat tire

7 Wore a beret

8 Got $14 wayfarer knock-offs

8 Things I Look Forward to

1 My birthday

2 A  new president

3 Graduating

4 Christmas

5 Thanksgiving

6 Reading by the fireplace

7 Having a car that will not potentially explode

8 Being able to afford real wayfarers

8 Favorite Restaurants

1 The Grit

2 Clocked

3 Transmet

4 Five Star Day

5 RuSans

6 Last Resort

7 Casa Mia

8 Mexicali

8 Things on My Wishlist

1 Rayban Wayfarers

2 to own a great work of art

3 My grandpa's 1980 Mercedes sitting in his yard

4 A new down comforter

5 A more charitable attitude

6 the ability to speak and understand Italian

7 A J Crew Wedding

8 A man to participate in said J Crew wedding

an evening with Matt Crunk, Esquire

I have decided to try an experiment, where I ask on a date each of the single men at my branch.  While I am not particularly interested in pursuing a relationship with any of them, I feel that the social practice of interacting with someone of the male gender would be really good for me so that when I do meet someone I would like to date I don't end up acting like a complete buffoon in their presence.  

My focus is on pre-med and pre-law.  That really is a joke, but it seems that all of the men I have dated have been one of the two.  Plus, if they are pre-something, it probably means that they are really smart, which I like.  I began by asking out one Michael Davis who is a law student here at UGA.  I actually asked him out a long time ago, before this experiment, but we never actually went out.  I decided that he would be the first of the men I went out with, since we had previously decided that we could go on a date.  

Apparently, asking someone on a date in June and never going on an actual date with them makes them angry.  Michael Davis does not return my phone calls, then does not offer an explanation beyond "Hello" when I see him at church, and does not interact with me even when I am at his apartment watching a movie with his roommate.  That knocks one guy off the list.  It's ok, he blends things in his room.

Next up, Matt Crunk.  Matt is a first year law student at UGA.  I met him in September and decided that I did not want to date him after hearing that he is a staunch conservative.  However, after formulating my experiment, I thought he would make a great candidate.

Last Sunday, I planned to ask him out.  Much like I planned to ask him out the Monday before and choked when he said hello.  Sunday, I managed not to even speak to him, even when he was standing next to me.  Idiot.  I got his phone number from my darling friend Josh (also a staunch conservative but great advocate of me speaking to men) and called him that afternoon. I asked if he would like to have dinner with me on Saturday (today).  He said that he could not, but that he would love to go out sometime this week, would I be at family home evening, could we talk then.  Absolutely.

Wait a minute.  

Did I just make an appointment to make a date?

As I was dolling myself up for my fhe appointment with Matt Crunk, he called to tell me that he would not be a fhe, but he was planning out his schedule for the week and would try to work me one night before Friday.  He would schedule everything and call me tomorrow.  

I am now waiting to be penciled into a man's schedule.  

He did call Tuesday to let me know that Thursday would be great, could we meet at the institute at 7pm.  Sure.  

When I realized I had no idea what we would be doing, I called him back on Wednesday to ask if I needed to plan something.  He told me that we could go get dinner quickly, as I would have just gotten off work and was sure to be hungry, but he had allotted only an hour to an hour and a half for dinner, so it had to be somewhere kind of fast.  

This just keeps getting better.

Thursday came and we went to Willie's, which is a burrito place. I told him that I had never eaten a burrito and that he could not watch me eat as it would end up all over me. He laughed and said that is why he picked it, I guess so he could watch as I awkwardly pulled peppers out of my mouth and licked beans off my hand, which is what happened.  

I may have made this sound like something awful and it totally was not.  I had a great time with Mr. Crunk.  He was very easy to talk to and super nice and wonderfully clever.  As we parted ways so he could study property law, he told me he had a great big project to work on for the rest of the semester.  So I said, "uhhh...guess I'll see you in December."  To which he said, 

"Oh, you'll see me before then."

Experiment One: Success.  

man, I feel like a woman

In my gender and feminism in art history class, we have been discussing the female as spectator and how that is problematic and not theorized etc etc.  We had just watched two soda commercials, one diet coke commercial from the early 90s where an office full of women ogle a construction worker together, and then a more recent diet pepsi commercial where women (and one Carson) follow a guy with a can of diet pepsi.  I had, for an hour, thought about what it means for me, as a woman, to look at men.  

When I left class, I was walking to the bus stop, when a man in some low slung running shorts and ZERO shirt ran by.  That was nice.  THEN, a whole slew of topless men ran by.  I all but stopped and watched them run by with my mouth hanging open.  

I spectated, all right.  With no problem at all.