SALT

I've been trying to post more, and the reason there hasn't been a post in the last couple of days is that Blogger was being weird and telling me that I should change my "cookie settings" and I don't know what that means. To me that means this:

And I got really confused. And like I do with most things in my life, I avoided it and pretended it wasn't happening for a while. But then I really wanted to blog. So I figured it out.

I HIT 1000 VIEWS!! YAY Thanks guys! Keep reading and commenting and it'll probably encourage me to write better :)

So I realized why it made me feel so good to listen to my old angsty music lately... because my normal music is way too depressing. It's so much easier to be angry and unapproachable than to actually let myself be sad. And Joshua Radin has definitely just helped me realize this. My college self tends to prefer softer music like The Weepies, Joshua Radin, She & Him... all of those folksy type artists. And those just don't cut it when you're trying to be chipper... well not chipper... if I'm ever actually "chipper" please do me a favor and shoot me.

I'm going to take some time to talk about my friend's blog, A Small Spot of Light Floods the Floor. Jenny's style is quirky, interesting, funny, and very similar to mine. So if I've managed to fall into a dark abyss of non-blogging and you need a fix, you should read her's :)

You know how some people have weird superstitions? That's me. I have never in my life, witnessed a salt shaker tipping over without tossing some over my shoulder. When Matt and Whitney found this out at the Haven Thursday night, they had a little too much fun.

And yes, I did in fact proceed to walk around the room tossing salt over my shoulder at every single table... And yes, Matt then felt it was necessary to knock several more over, and yes, I did throw salt over my shoulder for those ones too. It was a long night.

Finish Lines

I think my brain really enjoys messing with me. Last night I blogged about how I'm no longer an angsty teenager and that I was passed that. But my day has just been shit so far, and I find that I'm dressed in a manner than can only be described as the way I used to dress when I was an angsty teenager. I've also been walking around in public with my headphones in while scowling and ignoring people.

You'd think that I'd try to lighten up after I realized what I was doing, but I actually found that I enjoyed it. Being angsty reminds me of a time when my problems were so small compared to what they are now.


In high school we were all so eager for graduation day, the day when we would finally get our freedom from the dull routine of the public school system. And even now, in college, I find myself racing to the finish line. I think that we have a tendency to race through our whole lives, trying to get to the finish line of so many stages of our lives that we forget to just stop, take a break, and appreciate the scenery of those stages.

I'm not going to get too deep into this topic because then I'll probably be all "What is the purpose of life?" And that's just something I don't like to get into. My brain likes to stop working completely whenever philosophy is concerned.

I do wonder though, what my life will be like when there are no more finish lines to race to. Will it seem even more meaningless than it does now? I don't have the same goals as most other people. I don't think that having children and "starting my own family" is a goal that I care that much about. So that's one finish line you can cross off my list. 

All my life I've seen, heard, and been taught that life is all about those finish lines, or goals. Get good grades in school so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job so you can move into a nice house so you can start a family and retire. If life is all about crossing finish lines, then how are we supposed to enjoy the "here and now"? Of course all of this is easy to talk about now, while I'm feeling all angsty. But I'm sure that when this wears off I'll be rushing to finish college again.

Long Lost Love.



My Chemical Romance, Revenge, ANGST.



In high school, a lot people knew me for my overwhelming love for two bands. The first was Green Day. And through Green Day, I was introduced to the second; My Chemical Romance. I obsessed over My Chemical Romance's first two albums for a few years while in high school. I mean, they do scream "I'm an angsty teenager!!!" Which I totally was.

I saw them in concert twice during their Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge tour. The first time they were the opening act for Green Day (this was how I discovered them in 2004) and the second time they were the headliners.

This music video pretty much summed up my feelings for MCR and also sums up how awesome they were during Revenge.

Pretty damn appealing to an angsty teenager huh?

But when their next album The Black Parade came out, I was a senior in high school. I had pretty much gone through my super angsty stage and was becoming a strange and edgy hippy flower child. I was becoming more interested in bands like The Shins, She and Him, Joshua Radin... more mellow sounds than My Chemical Romance's shattering rock sound. Despite this though, I still bought the CD. I listened to it for a while but I became bored with the same dark messages that targeted the type of teenager I no longer was. 

So I had a sort of break up with My Chemical Romance. For the reasons above but also because they reminded me of someone I hurt... and I wanted to forget that for a while.

The break probably lasted almost four years. Last week I was watching Glee like I do every week when I saw this:



My Chemical Romance, Danger Days, less angst.



And I found out that My Chemical Romance had released a new album. I immediately did some research and started listening to the new album. To my surprise I found that I was absolutely in love with it. My Chemical Romance had reinvented their sound and it almost seemed to me that they had reinvented to exactly the sound I would love. They lightened up a bit, but kept their amazing quirkiness, unique style, and chilling lyrics. Gerard even stopped wearing eyeliner. The concept of this album is smart, interesting, and new. The songs are all incredibly catchy with clever lyrics and the same edge I know and love about My Chemical Romance. After listening to Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, I definitely can remember why I love My Chemical Romance and I'm so happy that I'm able to start listening to them again and revist my old love :)

 So I'll leave you with this: a great new song and the introduction to the Mad Max-esque concept that the album adopts.



My promise to post more often was an epic fail.

Update on the Microbiology test: I did 3 points worse on the test I studied non-stop for, than the one I didn't know about. Shows how awesome I am.

I'm listening to the new(ish) Joshua Radin album right now. He's a genius.

Lately I've been watching "Heroes" the TV show on Netflix. And I think we can all guess pretty easily who my favorite characters are... Sylar and Peter... because they're both tall, scruffy, and broody... obviously. Creature of habit here, but what are you going to do?



Sylar-- Awesome Villan



Peter-- Awesome Hero






















Sorry for the awkward non-flow of this blog so far. I'll try to make it better.

I had a kind of adventure on my way back from Worcester today. I was really proud of myself because I used to think that I had absolutely no sense of direction what-so-ever, but I've been noticing lately that that has been changing. I got out of class and went to leave the Worcester Campus and head back to the Leicester campus but Sever Street was completely blocked by this dufis who couldn't get his car out of a spot and a bunch of idiots who thought it was a great idea to park their cars in the middle of the street and get out and help him shovel (when all he really had to do was learn how to drive in New England snow).

So I had to use some of the side streets to get around these people. I found out that the side streets in Worcester are barely plowed and very dangerous. As I was weaving my way through these streets like a master, I came upon the same bimbo in a mini-van twice and both times she didn't look before coming right into an intersection and almost hit me. You know how they say people from Massachusetts can't drive? It's true. And if you're a Mass driver reading this right now and saying "That's not true, I'm a great driver!" You're either lying to yourself or you're one of the worst ones and should just give your license back right now.

Anyway, I managed to find my way to Elm Street and was stuck at the light there for ten minutes before I gave up and turned right because it was clear the light wasn't working properly... I figured that the sensor was broken or something.

So I continued on in the wrong direction, looking for a place to turn around, and figured; "hey, I've been the back way with other people driving before.... sure I've never driven that way myself... but why not give it a try?" So I did.

Apparently this was a HUGE mistake. The traffic was abysmal. And I really had no idea where I was going. I kept heading in the direction of the Worcester Airport signs... I figured they must head towards Paxton... But once I passed the airport I was on my own. Luckily I basically smashed into a sign pointing me towards Leicester and I found my way back alright :)

And then as a bonus, when I finally got back to Leicester, the parking spot that I had completely shoveled out last night was still available!

Why hello old friend. It's been a while. Let's reminisce.

I feel pretty pathetic. It's been so long since I posted that my stats now look like this:

There was a time when I'd have over 25 views a day. Now I'm down to 2...

But I promise there's an excuse for my lack of posting. Well a couple actually. The first being that I just moved so I was really busy. I have photos to prove it.

I had to stop on the way over to the new house to photograph Coach Lace Pond. Very beautiful.

The U-Haul we rented with the wicked scary ramp that I avoided using. I pulled myself up by the handles instead

My mom being a goofball in the U-Haul when we first started loading stuff in.

First meal in the new house! Grilled sammiches.

The temporary seating area we made for ourselves while moving so we could eat our sammiches.

Crack-head and Stares-a-lot being afraid of the vacuum together in the old house.

My new room! You can see the iced coffee on the dresser in the bottom left corner :)

Okay so that was the first reason I haven't posted in a while. The second is school work. Remember that time I didn't know about the Microbiology test and showed up for class and had to take it without having studied? Well there was another test in that class today and I wanted to make sure that I rocked it. I studied non-stop all week. I slept, ate, and breathed microbiology for four days. I did nothing but study. We'll see how that pans out.

Another reason why I haven't posted in a while is that I've been watching a shit ton of The X-Files on netflix. For serious, who wants to blog when you can watch a possessed doctor liposuction a guy to death? No one, that's who.

I'm going to try to make an effort and post more often. Which is easy to promise when I have nothing really important to do right away.... also, maybe you can bribe me to post more often by commenting more often?

Wonderings.

I wonder how long it's going to take for my cynicism to make me explode.
I wonder how long I can "stick it out" before I break down.
I wonder how long I can stay quiet.
I wonder how long I can pretend to care.
I wonder how long it would take me to forget how I feel.
I wonder how long I can deny that I'm headed in the wrong direction.
I wonder how I let my self become an outcast?

Insert clever title here.

Post started on Wednesday. I never got around to finishing it... also, sorry about the random photos... I don't know what I was thinking.
 

Since my mom and I are moving to the new house really soon, my mom said that I should pack up all the stuff in my room today in boxes. There's not much stuff in there so I knew it wouldn't be a difficult job, but nonetheless, I wanted to start early and get it done in a timely, organized fashion.

I woke up this morning around 10:00am and made myself a couple of eggo waffles. Those things have crack in them (just like odwalla). I sat in my bed eating my waffles and watching Veronica Mars on netflix. I glanced at the clock and promised myself that I would start packing after this episode and after I finished eating.

But after I finished watching the episode, I kind of just clicked the "next" button. One more, I told myself. At 11:30 I started thinking about what I would make myself for lunch. I went through the freezer and found some particularly appetizing leftovers and popped them in the microwave. I'll start packing at 1:00, I told myself.

Around 2:30, and about 5 Veronica Mars episodes later, I finally started packing. But I kind of cheated. I set up blankets and pillows on my floor, propped my laptop up on a file box and queued another V. Mars episode while I worked. I also made myself an iced coffee.

So I guess you can look at me in one of two ways. One, you can say that I'm incredibly lazy and sloth-like, or two, I'm incredibly inventive and efficient at getting large tasks done in small amounts of time while still enjoying a few creature-comforts. Go with option two. It'll make both of us feel better.

My mom keeps telling me that I have to write about procrastination. And I guess this is probably as good an opportunity as any. I'm probably the worst procrastinator you'll ever meet. People always say they procrastinate worse than everyone else but it's really true for me. I mean, how many people do you know, that would wait until their car is basically nonfunctional (as in on the edge of exploding and killing them in a transmission related hellfire of doom) before they even began planning to get it fixed?

There ya go mom. Procrastination mentioned.

Although I guess you can't really call me a procrastinator since I finished my Ethics midterm tonight when it's not due until Friday afternoon! Burn. I don't know who I'm burning....but they're burned.


So now it's Thursday. I started this post last night. I have to stop doing this. Starting a post and then finishing it the next day. It makes it kind of difficult to finish when all of the time references are off.

I just got out of class and I'm laying in my bed right now shivering because I'm too lazy to shut off my fan and shut my window. I'm all bundled up instead. Playing around with my window is really annoying because the shade is broken. I have to stand on a chair and roll it up by hand to get it up. And when I pull it down it just falls all the way down to the floor. obnoxious shade.

 So now it's Friday. I think I feel guilty posting short blogs so I tell myself I'll finish it later and then never get around to it for days... 

Tonight I'm enjoying a nice night to myself. Just laying in bed, drinking way too much coffee, watching Veronica Mars, sketching, and pretending that my life is interesting like Veronica's, and that people would be interested if they watched a TV show based on my life. Which is false. But hey, a girl can pretend to make herself feel better right?


Well here are some interesting tidbits. Jordan and I were in Walmart today (I like how spell check doesn't recognize the name of a multibillion dollar corporation... it also recognized "multimillion" but not "multibillion"...) and this little kid was being pushed past the lingerie section in a carriage by his mother. The little boy kept shouting "MOM. I see double D's!!" While the mother kept shushing him. The toddler, of course, refused to stop informing his mother of the fact that he saw double D's in what can only be described as his "outside voice". Needless to say, Jordan and I had a lot of fun laughing at the expense of the embarrassed, large chested mother.

Another semi-interesting thing that I heard today: Jordan said that she once heard someone describe Dunkin Donuts' apple cider as "like making out with an apple pie"

Also, Julie just gave me this little golden nugget: " I found out I'm allergic to shrimp juice."

I'm so eloquent...kinda

I haven't posted in a while. I've been so unbelievably busy... I still have a mountain of homework to do but most of it isn't due any time soon so I can pretend it doesn't exist for a bit.

So I'm going to start with some good news. My amazing brother, Brandon, agreed to put some transmission fluid in my car on Saturday and my car is behaving wonderfully! I'm pretty sure this means that it's not going to explode and kill me in a rampaging spontaneous combustion episode :) All I have to do now is figure out if there's a transmission fluid leak, how bad it is, and where it's coming from and hopefully my car will be ship shape again.

I was just thinking about the car and the name Ursula popped into my head.... I feel like that may be my car's name...

Ursula's bad ass tramp stamp

This weekend has been kind of crazy. I'm really glad that I have today to relax. We got the new house painted and I'm really pumped about the color of my room. It's a sage green and it's so pretty!

I'm sitting at home right now, waiting for my mom to get back from work so I can be like "SURPRISE I'M HOME!"  My class got canceled tomorrow which means I'll be enjoying at 5 day weekend :)

I decided to come back to Clinton today to look for some pieces for my homemade weird girl from The Breakfast Club Halloween costume. I didn't find anything but I did see this while walking down High Street in the center of Clinton. I couldn't help myself it was just gorgeous. And there I go with the "morbidly beautiful" again.

My mom just got home and apparently seeing my car in the driveway gave her a heart attack instead of a pleasant surprise. She thought I was home because something was wrong. Epic fail on my part.

So after I calmed my mom down we gave Beau a bath because he had a "poop skirt". It's like a hoop skirt except poop. Basically when he has a belly ache his fur on his bum gets.... well kind of gross. We cleaned him up this afternoon. So while he was in the bath my mom asked if I could give him a hair cut to get rid of the offending fur... you're probably thinking "Well she's trained in grooming, that should be easy" But you're wrong.

If you've ever groomed a dog, you know that, even under the best possible circumstances, it can be a disaster. And believe me, I've had some disastrous grooming experiences.

Once in my intermediate grooming class, my group had just finished bathing a particularly monstrous sized lab. Getting him out of the tub took three people because he was so enormous and unwilling to cooperate. When we went to put him in a cage with a blow dryer, he freaked out and refused to go in. He trashed about, shoving his body backwards and away from the crate, all the while getting more and more stressed. We asked the professor if it was absolutely necessary for us to put him in the crate. She told us that we had to keep trying despite the fact that the dog was clearly stressed beyond belief, purple tongue and everything. His sheer massive size had created problems handling him before, but add that to the fact that he was now soaking wet and pissed off and you have a dog who is not going into that fucking cage.

The final straw came when the dog, stressed out to the max, finally lost control of his bowels. And being me, with the worst luck and coordination ever, I slipped and knelt in it. I was so angry that I started berating the professor, who finally gave in and told us to stop trying to shove the oversize dog into a crate. I left the class early that day without even saying anything I was so angry/mortified/overwhelmed.

Today with Beau wasn't quite that bad. But it was comical. I don't have a pair of clippers at my house so I wasn't able to do anything close to a professional job on him. But I tried. I basically just took a pair of scissors and started hacking away at the fur on Beau's butt. And now he has a clean bum and he's happy :)

Beau after I gave him a butt trim

A random digression.

Sometimes I wonder whether the animal science major is the right path for me.

I was sitting in my microbiology class, listening to my professor speak about DNA and genes. He broke  DNA down so far that it was hardly recognizable anymore. A gene that signifies a trait such as eye color became a sequence of random letters. In my opinion, science takes the poetry out of life.

I'm a firm believer in scientific research (in all aspects) but I'm beginning to feel, and not for the first time, that my heart really isn't in it.

I think that part of the reason I was feeling this way is that I have an aversion to looking too deeply into things. I know knowledge is power, but how far can you go, breaking your world down, before you ruin the sum of the parts, which are so beautiful when appreciated the way they are intended to be.

In English classes, they give you an enchanting poem to read. But instead of appreciating it the way it was meant to be, by noticing it's phonetic beauty, the teacher would have you chop it into pieces, looking for stanzas and rhyme schemes, and themes and hidden meanings that the artist may or may not have even intended you to see. I always rebelled against dissecting poetry. It would ruin it for me. It turns a magnetic work of art into a bunch of incomplete and meaningless pieces.

Education these days is so focused on the non-artful and routine.Thank goodness I have the Theatre Club at Becker because if I didn't I'd be going insane for lack of creative outlets.

 Okay, now that I've gotten the serious rant out of my system...