how you know great people got your back

Now this is just AWESOME :D

and then he said

"you've got to learn to be selfish"

ha ha ha ha ha. well. I'll give it a try :D

I am sitting at work and I think I may be on the rebound from the stress. Because of boyfriend. Because he is amazing and patient. Ha. I loooooove him LOTS cause honestly, I have been under the worst stress and didn't want to drag anyone into it, ah, but who calls me at my worst hour (11pm)? HIM sooo he got to hear it last night when I couldn't keep it in anymore. wow, it wasn't pretty but now I feel like a weight has been LIFTEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD HOORAY

I have figured things out

Personal statement: it's almost there

Recommendations: pretty much out of my hands. Advisor is done, she's sending it herself, doctor will finish on time, Friday at the latest, so its' all on my former boss. All on you, MATTHEW!

Race: on sunday. At this point, I'm just gonna go with it.


Cookies: I stood in the "baking needs" aisle at the supermarket picking out low-protein flour (it makes the sugar cookies nicer) 4 pound of light brown sugar 1 1/2 pound of chocolate chip, a pound of raisins and thought "why the fuck am I doing this to myself?" I put everything back in its place and walked to the end of of the aisle where the Betty Crocker quick bake "homemade cookies in 20 minutes" bags were located, and for 1.69 a piece I got frickn' peace of mind. Now instead of slaving over an oven, I'm gonna make me some cookies, 4 different kinds, package them up for bookclub and still have time to lounge on the couch for "Lost" To Betty I say "AMEN SISTER!"
"Lost": just a note. I love it. So. much. addicted. the end.


Bookclub: a woman from bookclub called last night to remind me I was in charge of snacks. She is the loveliest woman in book club, I adore her because she is sooooooo nice and the person closest to my age (ahahahh and she's like, 38 or 40 ha) but she said "I'm so excited you'll be there because you always say the most interesting things" She could've been lying, but I don't care. I was like "huh guess i may add something positive after all" who knows. Bookclub is supposed to be fun I'm not supposed to obsess about saying witty things. hahahah besides, when we play the word game (where someone finds an obscure word and everyone tries to guess the definition) I always WIN! i don't always write down the correct definition (though a couple times I have) but I often write the most CONVINCING definition, ahahahha cause I'm good at making things up. PS Smith -------> says "chick lit" is OK. So now I really have no guilt! Suck on that bookclub people who only want to read "award winning works of literature" (oooh not that I am complaining-I got mad love for bookclub, it makes me read qualitay, although I just read "Skeletons on the Zahara" which was in a word, AMAZING, but now I have no guilt for mixing it up with stuff like "The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" (which is a great story!) or "The Bergdorf Blondes" (dumb as all hell but pretty damn entertaining. It got me to start drinking peach bellinis).

I think I must look kinda bad today. Well and yesterday. The kid at the grocery store was soooooo polite and nice (although I do say "please" and "thank you". I mean, I did work in a store once and polite people do make all the difference and when people say "please" and "thank you" I used to try and be as helpful as possible) and then he said "you have a good night now" I thought "huh kinda weirdly nice in a sympathetic way....perhaps he saw how many cookies I have to make and took pity." Then this morning the guy at Starbucks went out of his way to be nice. He didn't yell "NEXT" when it was my turn, but walked down the counter to where I was standing and said "Now what can I get for you today?" in this very kind voice, and then said "Ok Coffee light blend frappucino. And how about something to eat?" and then "Alright Autumn Green Apple Cake comin' right up for you" After I paid he leaned over the counter (now if I hadn't been totally worn out and looking kind of bad and knowing it this would've been creepy) hands me my apple cake and says "Now you have a good day today." I looked at him and said "Oh.... Thank you...." and he nodded sympathetically. Jeez. I thought "How bad do I look?" So when I got to work I looked in the mirror. Wow. My hair looks EXCELLENT-it's the John Frieda line for brunettes. My face, however, is an entirely different story. Because I was crying for like, an hour and a half last night, my eyes were rather swollen. So I wouldn't look like a raging "pot user" as my friend's mom calls it, I used some Visine. Uh. Too much visine, which in turn has taken away the red eyes, but increased eyelid swelling. It's rather unfortunate. There are the dark circles too. But you know, whatev, I am getting shit done today and no bad looking-ness is gonna stop me. Nor is my food obsessed co worker who drives me crazy.....No ONE can TOUCH me TODAY. ARWWRRRRAAAWWRRRR.

PS I realized that while slightly Lynette, I am also slightly "Desperate Housewife" Bree, except not as psychotic with a crazy Susan edge (the klutziness) PS Marcia Cross, who plays Bree, just got her Masters in Clinical Pyschology...no wonder she's such a damn good actress.................yeah. ahhahaha

stress and why I'm that....now do you get it?

Just a list. I am under a lot of pressure this week. This is why:

On September 22nd I found out that the graduate biology department at the school to which I am applying has its own special admissions deadline, which is October 1st. The entire school, except one other program, has a November 1st or later deadline. And every program that has a different deadline than the general November 1st deadline is listed in first pages of the application. Except. biology. And when I emailed the head of the department, he was very much like "um make the deadline on time, or don't apply." He probably thinks I'm a flake, even though I was mostly emailing him to point out the fact that there are some major discrepancies between the bio department website and application. Anyways. The problem is that now I have 8 days instead of 38 to get 3 recommendation letters and a minimum 1200 word statement done. I had 2 recommendations lined up. At least one (bless you, my former advisor) told me that she could get it done by the due date, which is a lot to ask since the poor woman moved to Ithaca two weeks ago and is now teaching at Cornell and is probably STRESSING. So one down. Next I approach another person I had thought of but not confirmed and they say "no. the grad school doesn't want a letter from me, they want a big name from the hospital to write one. Ask the doctor in charge of your study" Oh the woman who barely knows me? ok. I asked her, and she also said "yes" if I emailed her my personal statement. Which means I had to write it. I spent Thursday brainstorming it, went home Thursday, 1 hour and 45 minutes late since the bus broke down and there was a shooting/electrocution on the train tracks which delayed me. I went to my sister's best friend's father's wake, depressing, then settled down at 9:30 pm to come up with something to say. I was too tired. My brain refused. I spent most of the work day Friday writing my statement in between frantic emails to the the recommender I hadn't yet heard from (former boss).... I got a decent enough draft done, but it was far from perfect. I then took a 45 minute bus ride to drop of the necessary forms at my former office, left a message for my former boss offering everything except my first born child should he finish my recommendation before October 1st, took the bus back, then took the train for another hour. It took me 3 1/2 hours to do all of this. And once again, it was personal statement time. I could only do so much. I quit around 12:15 I think, slept til 8, woke up and packed the car for a camping trip.

Saturday morning I drove myself and two friends 200 or so miles to go camping, where we met 3 other friends, all girls I lived with in college. We spent the night camping and it was truly fabulous, did some great sight seeing in the area, but then it was another 200 miles back home. It was fine, but the drive is tiring. I got in in time to watch the end of the football game, yay, grabbed some dinner and then worked til 11:15pm on my personal statement. It was still unfinished but taking shape. I forwarded it out to my recommenders saying "it's not done, excuse it if it's horrible, but at least you'll get an idea of why I'm applying to school (and putting myself and you through hell to do so)" I still haven't heard from anyone regarding when they may finish. But fuck it, that application will be there complete or incomplete on October 1st. It's a little irritating that a university department can set it's own standards. I mean it's fine, but I can guarantee you that half the people who apply to this program do not check the individual website. It's hidden away and very tricky to find. FUrthermore it has all these special rules "send two copies of transcripts directly to school" Yeah? Well maybe if I had fucking 38 days to do that, I would, but sadly for you, I have 8 days, and you are getting the single copy of my two transcripts in the envelope of other application materials I am sending. Too fucking bad, I am at the point where if I tried to follow all of these stupid rules I will have a breakdown. It's ridiculous. Bad enough I am a perfectionist and am tweaking my personal statement on a daily basis because I'm so worried that the admissions board will read it and say "she did this the week before it was due." ARGH!

So I have that. As if that wasn't bad enough, I am running a half marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. THIS SUNDAY. Can you believe it? ugh. SO yeah, I am exhausted from staying up and cranky as all hell, and I have to run 13.1 miles on Sunday. I am supposed to be resting and instead I'm running around crazy and the hike I took while camping (which I knew would be bad, but went on anyways) aggravated my ankle and illiotibial band. Great. Hopefully it won't bug me on Sunday.

ALSO this week is bookclub. ANd cause I apparently can't plan for sh*t, I volunteered to bring the snack. I could of course buy something, but that is definitely not my style, so instead, after work today, I will be buying the ingredients to make 4 different types of cookies (the batch size is pretty small). I feel like I have to go all out with this because I don't add much to book club. i usually don't like the books that much, find them slightly boring, and therefore say things such as "the descriptions in this b0ok are lovely and vivid" Who am I? Jesus. I want to make up for it with my delicious cookies.

What is this obsession with being "able to do it all?" God. Ugh. I feel like I am going to turn into Felicity Huffman's character on "Desperate Housewives" (though God help me if I have 4 children) and I'm only 23!!!! Imagine me being all psychotic PLUS kids. IT's terrifying! And it makes me so stressed out (ok the deadline thing is an extenuating circumstance) and then I get cranky and no one wants to talk to me and then people think that I am mad at them (boyfriend probably thinks I am mad at him, though it's not particularly fun to try and carry on a conversation and be interrupted every five minutes with a description of what's going on on the LL Cool J tribute on MTV. Jesus Christ, don't call me if you don't want to talk to me) and yeah. Ugly ugly cycle. I guess what I have to look forward to is the fact that on Sunday, October 2nd around 12 noon, everything will be OVER. It will be wonderful. Then I may sleep the rest of the day. Then I'm getting a pedicure and manicure. Everyone KNOWS I am a nail polish whore and i haven't touched nailpolish since, uh, at least August, maybe earlier. I the last time I did anything to my nails except break them was the weekend of a wedding I went to with boyfreiend, August 6th.

Also-I feel guilty for being stressed. My sister's best friend lost his dad last week. There were 2 hurricanes in a month that destroyed people's houses. I mean, what the fuck is my problem? :(

free yourself from the boss oppression

SO. A bunch of people I know have horrible horrible bosses. Horrible ones. Ones that are demeaning, demoralizing, play mind games, are verbally abusive, have psychoses and are not medicated for them and use their employees as personal therapists, etc. They are mostly women (well all women, but I hate to place the blame solely on women because I have heard some horror stories about male bosses and had a boss when I was 16 or so who I worked for for about 2 weeks and he could have won the asshole of the decade award. But then again, combined with his wife, they could've one the assholes of the century award). Anyways, these women are powerhungry bitches. Seriously! They probably had to work really hard to rise through the ranks and break the glass ceiling or skylight or whatever the crap they call it and resist the hegemonic patriarchal binary, but honestly, what good is that when you rise to the top and everybody hates your f*cking guts? Are you really that happy you've were such a big twat and got promoted to the top and now you have no friends? I don't know. I will say that I am extraordinarily lucky because my boss is NOTHING like this at all (instead I have the coworkers from the seventh layer of HELL). So I know hope exists. But for my dear friends, they still sit at their desks with the hunched backs of oppression. To ease the pain, I have drawn them pictures. This latest one comes in the wake of a tirade sent via email to a friend (as well as the entire department) when said friend decided to take a second sick day (to which she was more than entitled, she is quite sick) and OH NO! GOD FORBID! Left a message, a MESSAGE at the office instead of TALKING TO A REAL PERSON!!! She should have been flogged in front of the entire company at dusk. Instead she received this:

"Somewh&re along the line !t seems to have been f0rg0tten that when you call !n sick, y0u @re supp0se (aha GRAMMAR MISTAKE...dumb b0ss) t0 call int0 the 0ffice when there @re l!ve human be!ngs here t0 speak t0 -- in 0ther w0rds, d0n't leave a message 0n some0ne's v0icemail pri0r t0 the start 0f the w0rk day (something that is accepted as the standard here!!). N0 0NE WILL EVER QUESTI0N WHEN S0MEONE CALLS IN SICK (then why is it so f*cking imp0rtant t0 talk t0 a live pers0n?). AND EVERY0NE IS ENTITLED T0 S!CK DAYS. But it is necessary t0 speak with your supervis0r to tell them y0u are n0t coming in rather than saying, this is my cell and y0u can reach me here later (you're starting to ramble here, sister). We d0n't want t0 b0ther y0u when y0u are sick (bullshit), but we d0 want t0 kn0w if there is anything we sh0uld be f0ll0wing up 0n in your absence (translation: we want to be able to log on to your computer, read all your email and see what work you're not doing), especially if it turns 0ut that you might be 0ut more than just 0ne day (though if you are, it might be time to start looking for a new j0b).
Let's remember this for the future (translation: listen up, you f*cking dumb minions). And, remember my b0ss expects me t0 speak t0 her when I am 0ut sick (I live under a veil of boss induced 0ppressi0n als0, but mask it my lording power over my sub0rdinates), so I expect the same courtesy from you all (cause I want to take over this company and it's the only way I can do it, by being mean to people, that is). "

Seriously, what flew up this woman's ass and died? Jesus. Powermongering bosses, it's a disgrace. As you can imagine my friend was quite upset and had to reply with a very long explanation about how she DID talk to someone in person that morning who said that she would pass the message to the boss, etc etc etc. IT's sad. Anyways, to console her, I drew a likeness of her boss. It's in its preliminary stages, but I will post it here anyways:

That's her. The evil one. She's green.

This is a picture of my boss in comparison:

This is no way resembles my boss, cept the blue eyes and hair color, but I think her general personality is captured here.

I'll do my coworkers later. Cause right now I have to take a crap. And my bathroom now has a doorlock with a code, so you need to leave your office a few minutes before you actually need to go. For planning.....you know....

zebra

Boyfriend came for the weekend, leaving my stomach relaxed and happy (as well as ME!) Of course now I am at work in the newly designated "quiet zone" and the stabbing pain is creeping back in. NO! RESIST! Tomorrow I am bringing in headphones and I think this will be very very HELPFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok. today I give you "boyfriend (who is kept anonymous for his own protection) at work"

This picture is filled with some inside jokes (Tims for confidence), but you can basically see he is an IT person who knows lots of stuff nobody else knows about computers. When he starts talking all this technical stuff I don't understand, it turns me on, hahahahahhaha GET IT? It does though.... :D

GERD

This is my stomach. and me. that pretty much sums up the last two weeks. My stomach acid is trying to eat me alive. I have to figure out how to stop the madness but I don't know how! Meanwhile I have a constant burning sensation along my breastbone and under my rib cage with extra stabbing pains on the left when I do things like, I dunno, bend over, eat, breathe.....ugh. At least boyfriend is coming to spend the weekend. Yay something to look forward too :D

visiting the two poles

My friend is a victim of workplace oppression and terrorization. It's really rather disgusting (in the despicable sense) and while she has done everything she can to address the situation, it's gotten out of hand entirely cause her boss just doesn't get it. It's really bad bad bad news. To make my friend laugh today, I drew a picture of her boss (who I've actually never even seen, but whatev) and her dual personalities. The bitch. I hope this is as unflattering as possible. heh heh heh....

aries/leo

I should never be left alone at a computer for any extended period of time. While doing GRE practice tests I got distracted by AOL's new flashy and colorful browser and the temptation of "The Love Meter: Find Out If You're Compatible"
so hells yeah, obviously I did it, cause even though I know we're compatible, hahahahha, "my Leo partner" embodies the ESSENCE of a Leo (you're probably reading this. Go ahead, throw your head back and cackle, but you know it's true....like my neighbor, a Leo said to me last weekend "My personality simply reflects that I'm a Leo, that's all, don't get offended that it's all about me, it's just how I am" (ok he said this jokingly, but only half, and he was being funny as hell, but we all know that's a slight Leo undercurrent, and that people who are Aries, like me are hard headed and stubborn as hell. hahhah so true)) ANYWAYS. Hells yeah I took the love meter. Here is what we're dealing with:

Aries and Leo
Fire signs tend to work well with other fire signs, so this can be a good and lasting pair as long as there is plenty of excitement, romance, and play (check check and check again, especially the play part ahahahah). Both of you love a good time and will put sports, adventure, and parties on top of your priority list(again, yes). You are impulsively active by nature, and may be inspired by your creative, expressive, and fun-loving Leo partner(this is particularly true, and yes, my Leo partner inspires my creativity, heh heh hehhh. ok I"m stopping). You are more likely to follow a whim, and it will take a very secure Leo to trust you enough to give you the freedom you’ll want(this is true). Meanwhile, your Lion is loyal and faithful(he is too), as long as he or she feels loved or even adored (he is too). You both love to be the center of attention and would never turn your backs on an opportunity to be admired(commence cackling). There is no shortage of physical passion here(yes) , especially as a way to burn off excess anger(uh, ok). If, however, the Moon in your chart is in Taurus (what is my moon doing in my sister's car?), Scorpio or Aquarius, compatibility may be more difficult to achieve. (Click here to find out where the Moon is in your chart.)(don't do it cause you'll get pop-ups and have to pay just to find out where the moon is in your chart and then you'll just end up walking around going "shit I was hoping my moon wasn't there but it was and NOW what am I gonna do?") It would be a good idea for you two limelight lovers to admire each other, express your love actively and avoid excessive competition (I think we enjoy HEALTHY competition). Long-term potentials include an active and joyous life of laughter, entertainment and love (awwwwwwwwwwww). Hey. It kept me entertained for a good 5 minutes, people....

I already knew all this though. you can tell just by looking at us:

what do you want from me cruel graduate school?

I AM APPLYING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL
TO DO THIS I MUST TAKE THE GRE'S?
WHY?
WHY?
I HAVE NO F-ING CLUE
I want to be some sort of biologist person. Will I ever need to know that the square root of 8 plus 1 times the square root of 8 minus one is 7? That germane is the opposite of irrelevant and that sully is the opposite of cleanse? Let me answer for you: NO NO NO NO aaand NO!!!!

as my sister would say: le sigh

oh well. Tuesday and it will all be over.

Now I must run 10 miles for my half marathon training.
I have a new sportsbra and I new sneakers.
This could mean either disaster or glory:
glory-my sneakers feel as though my feet were shod not in shoes but in two little puffy clouds that bounce of the pavement and make me glide through the air. Sportsbra no longer eats away the skin under my boobs, but soothes it with its balm-like red absorbent cotton lycra.
disaster-I get blisters which break open and bleed and ooze juices all over my non absorbent socks. sportsbra takes advantage of already injured under-boob skin and continues the damage.

I am anticipating a combination of glory and disaster. we shall have to see how it goes....

Picture book, pictures of your mama, taken by your papa a long time ago

Hey guess what? My friend (abouttheliltinghouse.com hee hee) told me how to start a blog. I know it's just like, going to a website and clicking a link and signing up and crap, but I needed HEEELLLP. She told me I should start a blog, well I think cause she has one and it's pretty fun to read and also because I have recently discovered my mad MS Paint SKILLZ. They're not really skills at all, the drawings I do, I think, are pretty substandard, but the thing is that they make people laugh, so I like that. Therefore, I have started this blog so I can put up the pictures. Or maybe write a funny but true story, about how my bus hit a car this morning (the one I ride, not drive) but for now, in 2XE's honor, I give you my piece entitled "THE FIRES OF HELL"
En-JOY!!!!!!!!!!