Saturday, January 29, 2011

Crankypants

Location: Bed
Listening to: Ain't No Mountain High Enough as performed in "Remember the Titans"
Mood: Cranky


Do you ever have those days where nothing goes wrong? Things are maybe kind of dull, but nothing drastically bad happens. But then you're sitting around later at night and suddenly the day seems like a failure and your mood just plummets?

That's me today.

Today was not a bad day. I slept til 10 a.m., wrote a decent article for the campus paper, read through two interviews for a project I'm helping my mom with, and made an excursion with my roommate to the local Walmart to restock on toothpaste and snacks. Overall, it was not a bad day. Mediocre, maybe. But far from bad.

Within the past hour, though, I've just been sitting around and getting crankier and crankier by the minute. Mostly because really petty thoughts keep popping into my head. I know I have no rational reason to feel like this. But I do have reasons.

I guess it started when my roommate was on Skype with her mom. She was eating some snacks her mom sent her and just chatting. Which made me start thinking about how she's always, always getting packages from her family or talking to them, which is understandable because they live halfway across the country. I started to get a teeny bit jealous, though, because my parents never send me things. Or visit. Or hardly ever call. Which kind of sucks, because I get homesick sometimes. I usually call them, but it's hard to catch them at a time when both my parents are home or my mom isn't rushing off to do something.

Anyway, so I started getting cranky. And I took the opportunity to be the bitchy roommate for a bit. Honestly, I always try to be courteous and understanding, because I know my roommate is used to having a space much, much bigger than our tiny room to herself and I know she's not exactly used to sharing.  But all day, I've had the TV on ABC Family because they play fluffy movies that make good background noise. About half an hour ago, she asked if I was watching the movie that is currently on. Admittedly, I wasn't, but I told her that I was purely because I wanted something to go my way and I was the one who put that channel on, dammit, and it was going to stay that way!

Immature, right? But it was mildly gratifying.*

Other little things keep irking me. One of my friends asked me if I still had my job from my senior year of high school, because a girl who's a senior this year just got hired there. I don't work there anymore, but I recently reapplied for the summmer/weekends/breaks. Obviously I did not get hired, so finding out she did annoyed me. I assumed I'd have some kind of plans for tonight without actually talking to anyone about doing anything or hanging out, so I didn't, so that kind of annoyed me. I'm really hungry, but I already brushed my teeth and don't feel like eating my food, so that's annoying me. I was doing crossword puzzles, none of which I was actually able to finish, so that annoyed me. I keep hearing techno music and rhythmic thumping from what I think is the room above us (someone's having a good time up there...), which is also kind of annoying me.

Sorry for being so un-cheerful tonight. I just kind of needed a medium to rant through. I hope you are all having a better day than I am. More later.

*Being the softie that I am, I felt kind of bad when my roommate was trying to sleep after I refused to change the channel and she had to bury her head under pillows and blankets to block out the lights and the sound of the TV, so I turned off the lights and put the TV volume as low as it can go without being mute. Although the thought of leaving them did cross my mind. But I figure a well-rested roommate is less likely to be a cranky roommate in the morning.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Miracles happen!

Location: Dorm desk
Listening to: Gilmore Girls background music
Mood: ELATED!


I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!! It's for a fairly stupid reason, but I am so freaking excited. You have no idea. Let me explain.

Back in December, I lost my flash drive. This ordinarily wouldn't be a huge deal. I've gone through a few flash drives in the past year or two. Except, this one has everything I've ever written saved on it. All of my creative writing ventures, all of my stories for my high school newspaper, everything I'd written for college thus far. And it just disappeared.

My theory is that I went to the computer lab in my dorm basement or the basement of the dorm next door and left it there after printing something. Either way, my flash drive was gone and I was devastated.

So I made it through my winter break trying to figure out what happened to my flash drive. I have a writing class this semester, so I really wanted to track it down or at least buy a new one so it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass to print things. Yesterday, I went to the front desk of my dorm to see if anyone had maybe returned it to the Lost & Found, but the guy who was working the front desk didn't see it anywhere in there.

By this point, I'd given up. I'd resigned myself to buying a new flash drive and moving on. Most of my favorite things I've written are online, so it wasn't too terrible.

But then, today, a miracle happened. I came back from work and checked my mail box. Inside was a small object wrapped in a purple post-it note. Excitedly, I opened the mail box and took it out.

IT WAS MY FLASH DRIVE!!! Someone found it and somehow got it back to me! I am so so so so happy!!! The timing is insane, since I asked about it yesterday.

I am a very happy girl.

So far, this semester is looking good. I have two radio shows (one of which I'm co-hosting with Brad), a position with the newspaper, more hours for my job, and a Lunch Buddy through Big Brothers, Big Sisters. My classes are going pretty well and so far I don't entirely hate any of them.

How is everything going for you guys? Anything exciting happen recently? I want to hear your stories!! Share them in the comments and have a great weekend!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Happy as a clam

Location: Dorm desk
Listening to: Full House
Mood: Happy
Followers: 25!



Welcome to my newest follower who I'm pretty sure is a spam robot thing. But whatever. The more the merrier!

Oh, I missed college. This week has been super busy. I came back to campus, spent a lot of time with Brad, and started classes. It's been eventful, as I'm also battling an ear infection and my anxiety made an unwelcome reappearance earlier this week.

Things are good, though. I'm so happy to be back and able to see all of my friends and my wonderful boyfriend (who now reads this blog and is probably just going to think I say nice things because I know he's reading. He's not a follower of this, though, so don't bother searching for him.)

I can't really think of anything to write about. Classes are good. I'm taking a radio practicum with my favorite professor from last semester, so I'll have my own show. Brad and I are also doing a show together, so I'll be pretty busy with that. Most of my professors seem like they're going to be pretty awesome. I'm working a lot more this semester, too.

On Wednesday, I started this Lunch Buddy thing with the local Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. I was paired up with a fifth grader at a local elementary school, so every Wednesday I go over there for her lunch and recess and hang out with her. She was super sweet and I think we're going to get along really well.

Besides that, not a whole lot has been going on. Most of my free time is spent hanging out with Brad and not thinking of creative things to write about. So...um....yeah. :)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Productivity is Over-rated.

Location: Couch
Listening to: Psych (I adore this show)
Mood: Industrious




What's this?! Do mine eyes deceive me?! It appears I have uploaded a new video to my YouTube page! What a complete shock!

I bet you guys all thought I'd given up on YouTube. That it and I had a short-but-sweet fling and then moved on to other loves. Well, anyone who thought that was mistaken! I was really, really busy during school this past semester. I mean, I had time to vlog, but my roommate was always, ALWAYS in our room and privacy is kind of nice when you're being ridiculous and recording things for the internet.

I have a ton more excuses. I can tell you if you want. They range from reasonable (I was trying to establish a social life and adjusting to living on campus and away from my family) to ridiculous (my roommate ate my webcam?).

I've been mildly productive today. Not with anything that is going to hugely influence the outcome of my life, which is kind of sad, but with things that I enjoy. I added some new tabs up at the top of the page, here, for anyone who is interested in seeing some more of my creative projects. I discovered that you can view your stats, much like on YouTube, for your blog.

I was so amused! I discovered that my most viewed post is this one, which makes sense because it's kind of hilarious. I also discovered that people from South Korea are among the highest demographic of my readers. They're miles behind my readers from the U.S. as far as numbers go, but they're not terribly far behind Canada and the U.K., and they're way ahead of everyone else. I was totally surprised. I didn't think anyone outside North America read this. It made me happy to know that this blog goes international. :)

I also made a tuna casserole today and managed to not burn the house down, which is pretty impressive because I totally lack cooking skills. I haven't eaten any yet, but I'm pretty confident I won't get food poisoning. Mostly because everything in tuna casserole is precooked or whatever. But still. I think I did a good job.

I'm not gonna lie, guys, every once in a while (like today) I'm kind of short on ideas of things to write about. Is there anything you guys want to hear about me or from me? Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll answer! Or feel free to suggest some topics for me to blog about! I'd love to hear what you guys want to hear from me. :)

Thursday, January 6, 2011

New Years Resolutions

Location: Couch
Listening to: Judge Mathis (I have a weakness for TV judge shows)
Mood: Decent


Thanks everyone for sharing your resolutions with me! TS - I loved your resolution to not make resolutions. I feel like that's probably a hard one to keep since, by making that resolution, you're immediately breaking it. HMWeasley - I think your resolution to write more is great. It's definitely one I could get behind. Good luck!

I figure it's been 2011 for almost a week, so I should probably get to coming up with some resolutions. And who better to share them with than you guys? So here goes!

Abbie's 2011 New Years Resolutions:
  • Confront people when they do something that needs confronting about. I'm not going to take crap from people this year. I have a history of being kind of a doormat. If I find out all of my friends intentionally don't invite me to something or someone is talking crap about me behind my back, I pretend it didn't happen and continue on with my life. But it always bothers me. So I'm going to start doing something about it. Take a stand.
  • Try to do something good for someone else at least once a week. I figure, other people are having just as hard a time with life as I am. Doing something to help someone or make them happy will just brighten up the world, and probably make me feel better, too.
  • Study. I have a habit of not doing anything to prepare for classes or tests. I get good grades, but one of the things on my bucket list is to get a 4.0 GPA. I was close this semester (3.734), but I want to get there. So I'm actually going to study and...erm...do my homework.
  • Spend less time online. I spend a ridiculous amount of my free time online in someway. Blogging, Facebook, Stumbling, whatever. I want to spend less time in the virtual world and more time in the real world.
  • Prepare for my future. I want to take classes that are going to help me graduate, hopefully do an internship this summer, and work to prepare myself for life after college.
  • Befriend at least one person in each class. Expanding my college social circle will just make me a happier person. You can never have too many friends.
I think those are the majority. I usually eat pretty well and I lost a lot of weight this year, so that doesn't concern me. I don't drink or party, so I don't need to cut back on that. Life is just good.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Meet The Parents

Location: Bedroom floor
Listening to: "Hey" by Backseat Goodbye
Mood: Content


The past 24 hours have been wonderful. I took a 3 and a half hour road trip to visit Brad, my boyfriend, in his home town. It was the first time I saw him since I left school for break and since he had his surgery, and it was also my first time meeting his family.

I was really nervous, because I've never dated anyone who's parents didn't already kind of know me or my family. I was terrified that I was going to have driven all that way only for them to hate me. This was especially worrisome because they were letting me spend the night in their guest room so I didn't have to drive back that same night.

Thankfully, his family is wonderful. His mom and step-dad were so nice to me and made me feel really comfortable. His little sister was pretty entertaining. She's 10 and totally kicked my ass at Mario Kart on the Wii. She also made me a Mii (a personal character for the Wii). His older brother and his wife seemed nice, and his grandparents were really nice, too.

We hung out and watched some football, then went to The Black Swan. It's this thriller movie with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. They're ballerinas and in a production of Swan Lake. It was so completely confusing and insane. I still can't quite figure out what happened or whether or not I liked it. The dancing and costumes were gorgeous, but there were some other parts that were kind of disturbing. I'll spare you the details, both because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who's planning on seeing it and also because it was just creepy.

Then we hung out with his friend Justin and his wife, Lauren. They were super cool. Lauren is a year older than me and definitely someone I think I would have been friends with if we'd gone to the same high school. We sat around and chatted and played Cranium and Pictionary and got some food.

Mostly, it was the best day of my break so far. Hopefully he'll be able to come up here and meet my family in a week or two. We shall see!

TS - I ADORE Mumford and Sons. They are one of my absolute favorite bands. Folk rock is pretty much the greatest, as far as I'm concerned.

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to 2011. I'm still trying to come up with some new years resolutions. Have you made any? If so, what are they? Leave them in the comments!