Oh, I forgot about this...

Oh me, oh my, it has been a very, very long time. No, I won't apologize for the lack of posts (it's been more than a year!) or make any half-assed promises to keep up with this. For all I know this may be a one-time thing? Honestly, I got nostalgic, read through a whole bunch of posts, and decided to write another.

Shall I do a recap? Nope... Okay fine, super quick.

left my job at ians to pursue a desk job at tribune did really well and loved the fact that i worked a 9-5 (really a 10-7) desk job and had free weekends but the novelty soon wore off so came back to ians as a manager and now trying to help open second store. moved in with ray but then moved back out and moved up to lakeview instead to a studio right in the heart of boystown. still have no social life and still work a shit ton.

Wah-bam!

So now what do I write about...?

My life consists of the crazy antics of Wrigleyville (I just recently pushed myself into the middle of a big fight with a lot of big, and I mean big, men. No fear), trying to manage a restaurant (lots of late nights, employees getting mad at you for messing things up, and random calls that I have to go take care of), and trying to have a relationship (there's a kid in the mix too that always needs to either go poop outdoors in the cold or wants to be fed). And no social life.

I didn't imagine my life would be here. In fact, and you can read my past posts, I really wanted to be in the Middle East with the Peace Corps right now. My life would have been so much different, but I can't really say better. I'm happy with where I'm at and the path I'm on. If I do this right, I could own my own business concept and that is incredibly exciting! I'm also very much in love with my man! Let me be honest - I am an emotional being. I love drama, fighting, and a whole lot of sass, and well, that makes a relationship difficult. But he puts up with me and loves me regardless.

In fact, I'm kind of tired and have to close tonight anyway, so I'm going to go cuddle up with him and Dakota and go back to sleep. Adios!

Not a cheery, post-college carrer post...

Has it really been this long since my last post? February?!

So, another short and unsatisfying recap? Let's see... February was right in the beginning of my last semester.

Classes - Intro to Film (easy yet fun), Arabic 102 (hard but rewarding), Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (quite possibly my favorite class I have taken), and History of African Americans in film and photography (hard, interesting class). Straight A's. Didn't even take my Egyptian final because I was doing so well! Thesis in history class had to do with transgendered African Americans. Awesome!

Graduation! GPA - 3.51, Cum Laude, Distinction and Honors in History.

Promotion in work?! Marketing director. Lots of work. Lots of time. Lots of headaches.

Ramon came back from Texas.

Death of Social Life.

So, almost four months after graduation, I find myself dually unsatisfied yet very happy. I have a job that is not related to my field of study, requires lots of late nights (which is dissipating as I write this anyway due to many factors) and yet, I am in an incredibly rewarding relationship with a boy whom I have strong feelings for.

What am I supposed to be doing right now? No one ever gave me any guidance for this part of my life. I look at jobs on these websites and they are all in business with strange titles that I know I am not qualified for nor do I want.

What do I want? I want to travel, to relax, to have fun, to learn, to read. I can't do very many of these things right now. I have to pay rent, utilities, food, cell phone, and loans. I barely make enough money as is.

I am at a major cross road in my life. I have a couple of paths before me. More are still hidden. How in the hell am I supposed to know which one to take?

Month in Tweets

Lately, Twitter has become a better platform for me to describe what I am feeling/thinking as well as what I am doing. This is partly the reason for my lack of blogging. Why take a larger amount of time writing a blog entry when I can quickly text anything I want to Twitter? It's a quick blurb of no more than 140 characters, and taken together my tweets may also paint a distinct picture of who I am. Since I haven't blogged in about a month, I will try to recount it through my tweets, though I will exclude retweets (those tweets written by others that I post on my page) and one's with links to other websites.

Right wing nut jobs really bother me down to my core. Go tea bag yourselves Tea Party! 10:08 PM Jan 19th (Following the theme of my last post on the same day)

Way to screw me on my bday CTA 1:02 PM Jan 22nd

Empty bottles everywhere, sticky floor, massive hangover and hazy memory. It was a good night. 2:29 PM Jan 23rd

How random is it that a bird just pooped on me? 1:28 PM Jan 25th

Just saw "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," at the Music Box! Both the venue and the film were fantastic! 7:39 PM Jan 25th

Large influxes of cash are always followed by even larger drains like rent or parking tickets. 1:58 PM Jan 26th

I have a Frankenstein-like computer sitting ominously on my desk. It creeps me out each time I go into my room. 1:09 PM Jan 31st

Dharmageddon! 4:08 PM Feb 2nd

Whenever I enter a library, my mind reminds me that I should sleep in it. 1:57 PM Feb 3rd

"Hello sir! Do you like animals?" "Hate them." 12:14 PM Feb 4th

This bus driver is weaving through cars so fast that I fear for my life! 5:05 PM Feb 7th

Ah! Snow tornadoes at UH! Awesome and dangerous! 7:51 AM Feb 9th

After cramming Old Kingdom Egyptology in your head the entire night with no sleep, you start to think in pyramids. 8:44 AM Feb 9th

When I walk into a bookstore I must restrain myself from buying more than one book. 12:40 PM Feb 12th

I have a car in the city for two hours and I already get a parking ticket? *sigh* 4:50 PM Feb 12th

Hipster dance party - the best way to kick off Valentine's Day! 1:37 PM Feb 14th

Dear UIC, please salt your sidewalks before I break my neck. Thanks. 9:33 PM Feb 15th

These two 9s on my quiz have to be wrong, right? about 24 hours ago

Fat Tuesday and I just gorged down a ton of Mac 'n Cheese. Fitting. about 19 hours ago

iTunes Poems

In order to change up the sometimes dull pace of this blog, I thought I would try something different. Technology has been integrated into almost every aspect of modern human life, including my own. I thought that I would let two completely different forms of technology speak for me instead of painting an extremely biased view of myself.

For the first one, I wanted to let my music speak for me since 2005 and onwards. Since I don't have my macbook anymore and I never really used LastFM all that much, I will be going through my iPod in a very unscientific manner and choose ten songs from each year that were important to me or that I listened to a lot. I broke this down into periods of my life, and there is going to be some overlap/errors in this. But taken together they may paint an interesting picture of my life at that specific point.

2005 and before
1. Everybody's Fool - Evanescence
2. Meant To Live - Switchfoot
3. Into the West - Annie Lennox
4. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five
5. Let's Get Retarded - Black Eyed Peas
6. Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
7. I Don't Want to Be - Gavin DeGraw
8. Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet
9. All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
10. Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue
11. All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
12. Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5
13. Pop - *N'SYNC
14. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
15. Through Heaven's Eyes - Prince of Egypt Soundtrack
(Since this covers many years, I allowed myself 15)

2006
1. Exit Music (For A Film) - Radiohead
2. I Bet You Look Good at on the Dance Floor - Artic Monkeys
3. Rockin' the Suburbs - Ben Folds
4. Everytime We Touch - Cascada
5. Hung Up - Madonna
6. I Write Sins Not Tradedies - Panic! At the Disco
7. Sugar We're Going Down - Fall Out Boy
8. Across the Universe - The Beatles
9. What You Waiting For? - Gwen Stefani
10. Only - Nine Inch Nails

2007
1. Move Along - All American Rejects
2. The Way We Get By - Spoon
3. Fidelity - Regina Spektor
4. Painted by Numbers - The Sounds
5. Bruised - Jack's Mannequin
6. Maneater - Nelly Furtado
7. Grace Kelly - MIKA
8. Le Disko - Shiny Toy Guns
9. Take A Bow - Muse
10. Time is Running Out - Muse

2008
1. Let It Be - Across the Universe
2. In My Arms - Kylie Minogue
3. Ironic - Alanis Morrisette
4. Devil Wouldn't Recognize You - Madonna
5. Heard the World - O.A.R.
6. Sick and Tired - Anastacia
7. Damaged - Danity Kane
8. Dead End - The Format
9. Going On - Gnarls Barkley
10. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap

2009
1. Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
2. You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds
3. I Don't Wanna Be in Love - Good Charlotte
4. You and I Both - Jason Mraz
5. Amazing - Kanye West
6. Just Dance - Lady Gaga
7. Lost Ones - Lauryn Hill
8. Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
9. Electric Feel - MGMT
10. Live Your Life - T.I.

2010 thus far
1. Wake Up - Arcade Fire
2. La Roux - Bulletproof
3. Alejandro - Lady Gaga
4. X-Static Process - Madonna
5. L.E.S. Artistes - Santogold
6. Shove It - Santogold
7. Imagine - Glee Cast and John Lennon
(It's still early in the year)

I wonder what that says about me? Some of those songs are embarrassing and I had to exclude a lot in order to make a top ten for each year. Next post will be a Twitter poem.

Crazy Right Wing

There are few things that anger me in this world. Waking me up from a wonderful sleep, bros and their bitches and right-wing nut jobs. Unfortunately, with my background in the church, I know too many of the latter group of people. With the win of Robert Brown in the Massachusetts election, a certain facebook status popped into my news feed that filled me with rage. For anonymity, I have removed the name of this individual.

This person is more than excited about the MA Senate election!! When Obama talked about change, I don't think he ever thought Ted Kennedy's seat would be held by a Republican!! Peace out health care, I can't say it's been real :)

Response to that status "Amen, sister. Turns out, God is in control."

There are many things wrong with this.
A) Goodbye universal health care? It makes you happy that thousands of people are without the basics necessities to live and they cannot afford even the most basic check-up? Way to be evil.
B) Since when has God given two fucks about what happens in the MA election? Wasn't Jesus' message one of love, understanding and compassion not defeating the evil Democrats? To me, this statement is only a stone's throw from saying God punished Haiti with the earthquake that killed over 200,000 because they are heathens. Christianity is about a personal relationship with God, at least that is how I grew up to understand it. Plus, whoever claims to know the will of God is an idiot. An idiot and a jackass.

This person's political view on facebook is labeled "I will support Obama, just as much as Democrats supported Bush the last few years." Wow, get over yourself.

All of this angered me so much that I went out and got a massive burrito to eat my anger away. Emotional eating is a slippery slope!

The moral of this short blurb is that people need to relax and not let ideologies rule their political beliefs. More importantly, they should be open to other beliefs and pragmatically approach politics. I think it's a good thing this particular person is not entering politics otherwise we would all be fucked.

Side note - Fuck the Tea Party, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh.

Photo Op

I laugh every time I see this picture.

"The hills are alive with the sound of music!"

"It's the final countdown!"

The spaces at UIC are very unique from the newly created "smart" room with its array of confusing buttons to the classroom that looks and feels like a prison with white floors, large, gray brick walls and no windows. The latter is the exact room where I started my orientation as a freshman four years ago as well as a current room for my history class. It's strange how I seem to go in circles.

First week of classes are over and I am very excited and confident about this semester. Here are my classes for those of you who enjoy voyeuristic views into my odd life.

-Arabic 102: Pretty much the same as it was last semester. Only this time, I have to give a 10 minute presentation in Arabic about any topic I would like. Any one have any suggestions?

-Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt: The name says it all - which is "awesome!" This is made even better by my very learned and passionate professor, Dr. Tobin. She is such a nice person!

-African American History in Documentary Film and Photography: I was hesitant about this three-hour long class, but the professor is a very intelligent woman and it seems that we are going to cover some really cool topics. I also get to create a film or photo collection for my final. I may recruit some friends who have more experience than I do in these fields for assistance!

-Intro to Film: Probably my least favorite class which says a lot since it is really not that bad. The work load is a little rough but this is set off by the amount of films we are watching. And I do love films!

Oh UIC, you have surprised me once again with this amazing array of classes! Now I must hope (and pray) that the school gets more of the money the State promised! If not, UIC will close and I will not be able to graduate! The professors and administration are already forced to take a certain amount of "furlough" days where they will not be paid. I think it's time to ditch Illinois in favor of a better state. Or country.

Photo by Eelus

NYE - 2010

Another year gone by. Holy hell.

As I look back on 2009, I realize that I accomplished many of the goals I set out to do for the year. I started weight training and have seen measurable results, cut my laziness quotient in half, worked on my own personal happiness, remained single most of the year, and done a lot of work for my future with volunteering and the marketing I am involved with at work. I made new friends and managed to keep old ones too. Overall, I call this year a success!

Now, I want to accomplish more this year.

1. Financial responsibility. Time for a budget!
2. Get out of debt. Goes with #1, but this is more specific.
3. Graduate with honors in my college (LAS) and with distinction in the History Dept.
4. Have a baby... maybe not.
5. Last but not least, enter the Peace Corps.

The last goal seems daunting. Before this year is over I may be shipped abroad for the next two years of my life with only the internet to connect me back home. I may not see many of my friends and family for those entire two years. It is a scary thought, but after much deliberation, I know this is what I want to do. But I have a lot I need to accomplish before then and it isn't going to be easy.