Yes, I’ve moved in. I’m grossly, ridiculously in love with my apartment. It doesn’t look like any other I saw, the moving in and unpacking was surprisingly painless, and apparently I’m automatically a Cubs fan based solely on proximity to Wrigley (two blocks.) I feel this location is slightly wasted on the fact I couldn’t give a shit less about baseball, but I suppose I make up for it with my enthusiasm for the other establishments in the area.

Work is, well, work. Kayla imparted some sage wisdom (she’s like 30 now, an acceptable age to start spouting life advice) when she reminded me it’s called work for a reason. It hasn’t come exactly easy which can be very frustrating to us first borns. (Almost as frustrating as typing this on my phone since my apartment doesn’t have Internet yet. My first world problems are so mentally taxing.)

I rea

I spend a lot of my time tired and hungry and rushing towards the Red Line hoping I don’t get on a car full of people ready to assault me for my iPod. It would really show those mutters though when they only get 40 songs, half of which are Spice Girls jams (seriously overhauling my iTunes is like 152 on my list of things to do.)

Oh, to end this post that in retrospect has been very whiny, I HATE having a gas stove. Not only did I set off the smoke alarm the first time I tried to use it, I am just positive that it’s slowly leaking CO2 into the air and one morning I’ll wake up dead. And of course you can wake up dead, haven’t you seen Scary Movie 3?!

May I just point out the irony of waking up at 5:00 am on a day I was supposed to have a 7:30 am final, but said exam was deemed optional by the professor, thus if there was one day I was planning on sleeping in, today would have been that day?

I don’t even care if that’s not actually irony, or the fact that was one of the more run-on-ish sentences you’ve ever seen in your life. I’m delirious with exhaustion, yet can’t sleep. As evidenced by my overuse of commas and the made up word “run-on-ish.”

Making coffee was probably also a poor choice.

I suppose it had to happen sometime. Honestly, I was expecting it long before this, but it still blindsided me nonetheless: the graduation freak out. I completely blame Spring Break for this (and the fact that the shorts I wore often in Vegas in June won’t, um, be packed for this trip) because I finally did some math and realized that when we return from the magical land of neon, In-n-Out, and yard-a margaritas, there will be only eight weeks left until the end of the semester. To be fair, our lease isn’t up until the first of August and the job I have will gladly keep me until then, but still. To prove your grown up-ness, you’re really supposed to have a job waiting to greet you on the other side of the stage. Well, the proverbial stage. I will not be walking across the literal one for a bevy of reasons, only one of those being that we have to be at the ceremony at 8:15 a.m. Oh and that they’ll be reading like 4,000 names. After some speeches. And a lot of picture taking. Yikes.

ANYWAY– back to my life revelations– I was in my room, throwing WAY too many clothes and shoes for a one week trip (no, I won’t tell you how many pairs I’m taking) into a giant suitcase, listening to some Kanye, then Gaga, then slowing it down with some Coldplay and Smashing Pumpkins. All irrelevant, but scene-setting, go with it. I don’t know what sparked this pity party, but all of a sudden I start thinking of good-byes and one of Neil’s roommates going to San Francisco for the summer and wait, I won’t be in ‘Frisco for the summer, which means we’ll be apart, which means none of us will know what to do because if there’s a walking definition of “codependent,” it’s me and them 713ers. Well, some of ‘em. My brain is a terribly anxious place to live. What are NPH and I to do when we both get fabulous job offers in two very different places? Fergus likes me far better, though I’m much less patient with him than Neil. Is there some sort of canine custody agreement we’ll have to enter into since ever living anywhere but Iowa City didn’t seem to cross our minds when making quite a snap puppy decision in Petland?! (Actually, Neil did think of that before we got him. I’m taking the dog. Cat’s, er, puppy’s outta the bag.) Yeah, yeah, I realize everything will be fine and this stuff happens to everyone all the time and that a public blog is probably the last place I need to be airing these very self-centered grievances, but alas, here I am. It’s probably not going to get much better from here and will in fact get much worse. Probably tears will be involved, yikes. Thankfully boot camp will be over so I can resume my Thursday night drinking. And Tuesday and Sunday. That was a joke, Mother.

I know it’s time to blog when my grandmother texts me, “How’s NPH and Fergus?” To answer her question, they’re both fabulous. One is currently all wet and sleeping in a furry ball next to me, the other is at work. I’ll let you determine which is which. In an attempt to put off all homework this week until the very last possible second, I’m watching reruns of “Sex and the City” (the Alexsander/ Paris episodes are so painful) and dreaming of the 75 degree weather and lack of sobriety I’ll be enjoying in Vegas over Spring Break next week. Tired isn’t really a word in my vocabulary any longer, it’s more of a lifestyle. Tomorrow is the second to last day of bootcamp, something I’ve almost started to look forward to save for my alarm set for 6:15 am three times a week. I’ve been applying to jobs (well, more internships) like crazy over the past couple days. NPH isn’t so sure about the grad school route right after graduation, so he’s been joining me in this lovely circus we call the job hunt. He had a phone interview today though, the lucky (deserving) bastard, so he will soooo be picking up the check for a while until some sort of HR manager decides to acknowledge that I do, in fact, have a brain and slightly credible resume. I hate to give random updates and run, but I’ve got two deadlines looming for the same story– different spins– that should have been done hours, if not days, ago. Such is my glamorous life (and yes, I did just recite that damn Fergie song to spell glamorous correctly. I resent that.)

This morning was Day 2 of the four-week Beach Bodies Boot Camp Natalie and I are taking together. The first day was mostly spend on taking weights (sob) and measurements, but we finished with a workout called the Big Ten which was timed and will be timed again on the last day. Holy soreness. Everywhere. We did four circuits of lunges, push-ups, squats, and kettle bell movements sandwiched between five laps of running (not a full track, but this area they have for running which is so far the easiest part for me.) Yesterday I was the most sore I have ever been in my life. I’ve had what I considered to be good workouts before, but every muscle in my body was screaming whenever I moved yesterday. Getting in and out of a car was extremely difficult– I used the towel bar in the bathroom to pull myself up from the toilet. I am not at all exaggerating, and after speaking with the others in the class this morning, they were all in the same boat. I certainly wasn’t over my incredible soreness this morning, but I still got up at 6:15 (I went to bed at 6:45 pm yesterday. Seriously.) and we made our way to the gym where we had two new circuit workouts to power through. The class was split into two and we would do each for ten minutes and then switch. In total, we did about 40 minutes of lunges, squats with kettle bells, squats with medicine balls, arm workouts, ab workouts on stability balls, and cardio from running and jumping rope. Intense stuff. We were hurting afterward, to put it very mildly. On Friday apparently we’ll also get a talking to about nutrition, which I suppose I know but choose to ignore, and will probably also touch on not drinking ones weight in Miller Lite every weekend. Wish me luck.

For those of you expecting a recap of my best-ever Valentine’s Day, patience is a virtue. I need to collect my thoughts to write a TNGG article about it, then I’ll post pics and such.

You’ll be pleased to know I actually was able to move about today and wasn’t nearly as sore as I thought I’d be… until like an idiot I decided to do Lauren’s new Biggest Loser cardio DVD plus the same Jillian yoga set. Um, no. I’m sorry quadriceps, I’ll never put you through such hell again. Imagine a million lunges plus fire plus death plus more lunges, that’s how my legs feel when I go from sitting to standing. If there is one motivator to get me to the kitchen, however, it would be the “low fat, low cal!” brownies aforementioned roomie just made that smell di-viiiiine. I haven’t given class starting on Tuesday much thought; my general attitude toward this last semester is YEEEESSS!!! Go for it. Carpe diem. Let’s get it over with. You get the gist. Oh, in other big girl news, I applied for an internship in Boston today that I would be over the moon, peeing my pants with excitement, sobbing in thanks if I got called for an interview. It’s with an amazing company with some pretty cool people, so I’ll keep you posted. While I’m on the talking-up-myself train, not only was there a buy one get one free Blizzard coupon from Dairy Queen waiting in my Gmail inbox when I got off work, but so was a congratulations from the career center that I’ve been nominated for a leadership award! How about them apples? I won’t find out if I got it for a while and have to submit some answers and letters of recommendation, but you know what they say– it’s nice to be nominated. (But seriously, Lauren, you’ve let those brownies cool long enough. Fork, napkin, my face– now!)

OH! Because I’m an idiot, I never cancelled my Deutsche Bahn card (train pass thing that never actually gave me a discount because as far as I’m concerned, the German rail system was invented by Lucifer himself) before leaving Germany, and on the 19th they’re set to charge me 57 Euro to automatically renew it. Awe. Some. If I had my PIN I could log in to my account and cancel it, but of course I never received a PIN because they apparently can’t figure out how mail works (or maybe me. But no, this part is definitely their fault.) So now I’m one passcode away from logging into my account and getting the whole fee taken care, but alas, they’re “sending” me a new PIN to my “German” address (which no longer exists and would never get there in time.) Thus, I’ve resolved to writing an email. That will probably start with something like, “Es tut mir leid, aber mein Deutsch ist schlecht” and then just laying the whole thing out in English. I see about 20% chance of this plan working, but that’s really all I’ve got right now. Unless I email my old program director who I guarantee will say, “We told you like 80 times before you left the country to cancel that damn thing,” and I will say, “I KNOW, but I’ve been waiting for my PIN!!!” But to a German, that is no excuse. Le sigh.

Ahhhhhh the holidays. This year, perhaps a bit different from the last, my feelings of excitedness (not a word) and trepidation for Germany have been replaced with depression (actual word) and trepidation for the impending five months of desperate job searching. As I sit alone in my room, a glass of German beer in hand, one resume and cover letter down (25 million to go) I am in a holiday funk, dear friends. I will not blame Lauren’s recent early graduation and move to DC (seriously, congratulations) for bringing my own life into pathetic perspective. Realizing that finals week is actually over and I have a month of zero commitments lying ahead had to happen at some point. The emo-ish, wallowing parts of me would like to point out that the A I got my my EU final will not matter in the real world, but since that’s all I’ve got going for me right now, I’m going to hold on to it. The grumpy, uninspired parts of me would like to point out that I’m a body-loathing blob of beer weight and cheese fries, but that won’t do anything for my already alarmingly low amount of holiday spirit. Thus, I’ll get up (or maybe, go to sleep and try this all tomorrow) look for jobs, talk to Neil, wrap some presents, and continue with the day-to-day because that’s my only option. This one whiny post aside, nobody wants to hear it because everyone else I know is also going through it.

…HARK! BUT WAIT! Thank goodness for Jezebel, for what did I just stumble upon in those self-doubting moments between “Preview” and “Publish”? This, an article on tonight’s lunar eclipse. And hallelujah, perhaps an explanation:
“You may be feeling more emotional than usual under an eclipse, especially if the eclipse is lunar (full moon).”
Well at least I know have an extraterrestrial body on which to blame everything. I’m sure it had nothing to do with this picture which made me want to cry and puke at the same time, or more like cry so hard I puked. I’ll spare you the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking emotions I feel over not being in Germany– I’m sure I have some spare paper I could fashion into a makeshift diary around here somewhere. Happy Holidays, everyone (and yes, Mom, I said “holidays.” Because not everyone saying “holidays” wants to take Christ outta Christmas, they just realize that New Years or Jewish people deserve to be acknowledged, also.)

So I’m watching an episode of Oprah while painting my nails, basking in the glory of finishing my scholarship application a mere hour and a half before it’s deadline. Now I don’t consider myself an emotional person, and yet I’m near tears watching this particular episode where she’s gone back to Williamson, West Virginia where she filmed a show 23 years ago. An AIDs patient, Mike Sisco, went to the pool back in 1987 and caused a town-wide and then national freak-out because he got in the water. The pool was evacuated and closed, and Oprah hosted a town hall type meeting that turned into a group of angry, ignorant people shouting about their repulsion towards homosexuals. Now I realize that little was known about HIV or AIDs back in that day, and I pray that those who stood up on national TV to denounce his lifestyle and said that God had cursed him with this disease now realize the error of their ways. Unfortunately though, this kind of hate is still very much alive in all of our communities. My head cannot wrap around the fact that there are still some people who believe that those who are different than them, specifically if they have different sexual preferences, do not deserve the same rights as them or are somehow less human. I know and love gays, staights, those who are abstinent, quite promiscuous– WHY and HOW does that define them as people?! It makes me so angry that this ignorant, hate-filled man on Oprah, and people still today, are citing God as the reason they think they’re better than LGBT people. Someone’s sexual preference is between them, their partners, and God– not our government, not their neighbors, and not the clergymen who pass judgment on who and who’s not worthy of God or society’s love and compassion. People are people are people. If a handicapped person went to the pool to cool off and it was then shut down because their “disease” could have spread, there would have been an enormous outcry from advocacy groups and those who realize that a person can’t help a mental or physical handicap anymore than they can choose the color of eyes they were born with. Homosexuality is not a handicap or a disease. I didn’t choose to be straight, how could someone think being gay is a choice– especially when they face still face such devastating discrimination even in “liberal” states? I don’t believe that the Bible says being gay is wrong (that’s going back hundreds of years into translation, the Bible wasn’t written in English, I’ve taken a class on on this, I can get my notes for your sometime if you’re interested) and God makes everyone as he makes them. I believe gay marriage should be legal, the fact that it’s such a huge legal issue is senseless discrimination based on fear and hypocritical ideology on many people’s parts. Sorry if this didn’t make much sense; just a lot of anger typed out while Oprah’s still chattin’ away.

*Steps off soap box.

I’ve been home on Thanksgiving Break for about 24 hours: last night I attended my aunt’s bridal shower/ bachelorette party, and today I saw the new Harry Potters movie with a handful of family members. My belly is full of sub-par pizza, and I’ve retreated to my room to really buckle down on the job search. Some sites and companies have proved slightly promising, though many are dead ends of gimmicky postings that serve as a constant, nagging reminder that any job I do get will likely be from the effort of networking and relationships instead of search engines and whispered prayers. I’ve got a few tabs open to jobs I’ll be applying for– actual cover letters instead of filling in the blanks of electronic applications.

Yet I’m finding I can’t do it. I don’t know what’s stopping me. Could it be the heartburn from that way too salty veggie pizza? (Sorry Dad, but Godfather’s really isn’t doing it for me anymore.) Could it be that I’ve been constantly reminded for the past two years that the job market is shit, and I’ll be lucky to be offered a position during the third shift on some fast food restaurant’s janitorial staff? It could very likely be that I don’t have much confidence in my cover letter-writing skills, or that I have no idea where geographically I want to work, and I still can’t articulate a real answer when my parents’ friends ask, “So what is it exactly you want to do?” I could try and BS myself into thinking that I’m just scared it’s actually going work, that I’m going to get a job and THEN what? That would be an ideal situation, and I’d hope my pansy self would be able to be first and foremost over the moon, and then address the Holy Majackas I’m Officially an Adult panic moment at the appropriate time.

Mostly I realize that I’m scared because this is the big leagues. I’m scared that being a graduating college senior came far too quickly, and I’m scared of what happens next because I don’t know what happens next. I’m scared I’ll move somewhere where I don’t know anyone, scared that NPH and I will be forced back into friendship because of long distance and that my visitation with Fergus will be relegated to the occasional photo or Skype session. I’m scared I won’t get to live with my awesome roommates anymore, and that I might have to shack up with a stranger who will stink and not do their dishes and rob me. I’m actually really quite frightened I’ll get a job I won’t know how to do, that I’ll be in there the first week and my boss will realize my hiring was a terrible mistake. There’s a litany of other things I have anxiety over– the Hawkeyes’ loss today, how fat I look in photos taken last weekend, if Fergus is going to pee on everything when he gets here later this week– but I’ll stop burdening you with my insecurities.

It’s time to write some cover letters.

So I have this sweater.

I bought it at Target exactly two weeks ago. While NPH was taking the GRE, his entire post-graduate life in his hands, I went to Coral Ridge to blow money I don’t have on cute clothes for the coldest season. When we reconvened, he tried to explain what his score meant, what questions he may have messed up on, what schools he sent his score to. Meanwhile, I was waiting for him to notice my new boots!! that I had gotten during an impromptu trip to Kohl’s which also happened to be during their 50% off boots sale. Needless to say, it was more of me pointing out my new faux-suede fold-down knee/thigh-length black boots than him noticing them on his own. Then again, just last night I found out he doesn’t know what color my eyes are so… yeah. We’ll just leave it at that.

Anyway– back to my sweater. I’d had my eye on this sweater for a couple of weeks, though when I’d gone to Target to buy professional clothes for my trip to DC a month ago, I somehow talked myself out of superfluous purchases not related to securing a job in the greater Boston/DC area by Christmas 2010 (yeah, that’s goin’ REAL well…) Thus, my cozy knit sweater stayed on the rack. Long story short, however, two Wednesdays ago it became mine. A very purple sweater, one that I’m having much difficulty finding on Target.com, otherwise I’d just show you said sweater. (Posting a self-taken pic would be so passe.)

I purchased it– along with a lot of other things we don’t need to dicuss– and changed into it to take the boyfriend out to his post-GRE lunch & drinks at Short’s Burger & Shine. Haven’t been? Get there now, especially if you love a really black- beany black bean burger. Per the routine we’ve fallen into, we let Fergus out before leaving him for many hours. During my requisite time of fawning over his adorable puppy ass, one of his nails SNAGGED a thread in my sweater. RIP, two-hour-old beautiful eggplant top. Thankfully I’m not that into myself or my possessions, so merely said a few choice curse words and let NPH deal with him until kennel time. The small thread hanging from my sleeve didn’t exactly solicit outrage from many passersby that afternoon, so I put it out of my mind until I again donned my newly favorite sweater- that strongly reminds me of my great-grandmother- today.

Life was going well, until… I went to flip on a light in NPH’s room this afternoon. I’m sure you’re quick to judge that all my sweater’s dilemmas have happened at 713, but let’s put that out of our minds for a second, or at least until the lawsuit gets served. Some FREAK sliver of wood on his door jamb grabbed hold of my other sleeve and snagged out a noticeable thread. Sonuvabitch. (Interesting note– Wordpress recognizes “sonuvabitch” as a real word, and doesn’t put that jagged red line underneath like it’s misspelled. Curious.) So now I’m rocking this lovely deep purple sweater with TWO freak, errant threads hanging out of the forearms, almost as if to say LOOK– she can’t take care of her dog, her boyfriend, and certainly not herself. But really, I should be saying LOOK– even though I love Target like no one has ever loved a retail sore before, there’s a reason my beloved sweater was only $14.