This week has gone by surprisingly fast after a great long weekend helping Neil move and chillin’ at home. I’m starting to like my job more each week, and it seems I have more to do each day which makes the clock go by faster. Today my co-worker/ work friend (she was hired the same day as me and is the same age) went to the farmer’s market in Daley Plaza over our lunch hour. We both fell in love with it and plan on making the trek there every Thursday. We sampled some amazing garlic cheese, creamed honey, and just ok banana bread, but I managed to make it out with what I went in for– tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. T-Bone hooked me up with some homegrown basil this week, so I made a caprese salad for dinner.

Fergs and I just returned from our longest walk to date around the lake. I messed up my knee something awful on a run the other day so this trek was a bit painful, but the weather has been too nice to stay in and enjoy my newly installed Comcast (someone stop her– she’s talking about the weather again.) In WAY more exciting news, NPH and I are headed to the Britney Spears/ Nicki Minaj concert tomorrow night!! He got me tickets for my birthday, and I think he’s almost as psyched to go as I am. Roomies Lauren & Rachael will also be in town attending the Katy Perry show, so, you know, insert hangover here. And that, my friends, is my most recent life update. Oh, I bought a toilet brush this week after doing the math on whether I could get away with just buying one of those Clorox ones with the disposable heads (nay.)

A bajillion congrats to Kayla for winner that damn Sub-Jammers competition. I wish we could go, but I would smack you in the head if you paid $300 just to register for some sandwich convention. I will instead turn my vacation interests once again to Vegas. Like a mistress in the night, she’s been calling to me (and it doesn’t help that The Mirage keeps sending me emails. Whoever signed me up for that list, that was a cruel joke, and I love you for it.)

Happy birthday to my grandfather and most vocal blog supporter who is celebrating a pretty big number today! (You’d never know it, though. He’s a handsome devil who doesn’t look a day over 65.) I wish I could have joined in what I heard was a fabulous celebration, but it’s unfortunately a pretty long drive and I’ll be heading back to Iowa next weekend. NPH is moving for his job on the first of the month, so I get to repay him for helping me move in by doing the same for him. Thankfully he has far less furniture and shoes to haul than I did.

This weekend, Roomie Lauren paid Fergs, Chi-town & myself a little visit which coincided nicely with the Pride activities happening literally outside my front door. And now, some photos, since the only words to sum up our time together would be food, booze & snarky girl-time chatter.

Oh, and tonight I made brownies from scratch as well as pressed, marinated and grilled some tofu for lunches this week. Ausgezeichnet!

Someone found my blog by searching “stupid blonde German bitch.” Yes.

The day of my commencement was spent not actually attending the (what was later described as) painfully long, dull three hour ceremony, but rather bathing da Fergs, festooning a strapless dress from freshman year into a passable shirt, and hanging out with multiple surrogate families. (I told mine to stay home since I wasn’t actually walking; we’ll celebrate together this coming weekend.) I tagged along with Roomie Lauren’s hilarious, wonderful kin to lunch and lots of celebratory shots. Later, NPH’s family came and we all went to dinner, ate cake, and discussed the housing situation in the greater Chicagoland area for a while. The rest of the night was spent much more tame than you’d imagine for having something so large to celebrate, but it was raining and frankly, after doing this for nearly four years, my body is quite tired. Perhaps why, after a relatively productive Monday, the first of “summer,” the first in the awkward but glorious time between school and starting work in the real world, I got sick. It hurts. I am beyond cranky. It’s some sort of sinus thing that has manifested itself in my lungs. It burns. Did I mention I’m cranky? Knowing that my mother will straight up murder me if I dare be ill during the many graduation festivities she has planned for this weekend, I’ve been taking it easy and laying around, drinking tea, and texting outrageous soup demands to NPH every hour on the hour.

I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants in one sitting on Friday, and Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness in one stretch yesterday. I cannot wait to get my grubby little mitts on Steven Tyler’s autobiography that just came out this month.

See, Roomie Lauren– I didn’t even once mention your hot older brother in this post!

I suppose you’re looking for a Vegas recap, eh? (That question was posed mostly for my grandparents– all of my Facebook friends were subjected to updates and cell phone pics the entire week. Gotta love them smart phones.) In short, it was awesome, obviously. For a bit more depth, I suppose I could go into how I refuse to ever get in a car again if I’ll be traveling more than four hours away. I could tell you how great– kinda awkward at first, but great– it was to see Darin (best friend from my study abroad program who lives in Colorado, remember?) again and how amazing the pizza was at the local place he took us to. If you were wondering, it’s called Home Slice in Durango, CO. I could tell you how fabulous Thunder from Down Under was, but I feel that’s one of those “What happens in Vegas…” things. Having the roomies there was surprisingly fun– I don’t mean that in a bitchy way, I mean there are few people I could go on vacation with and not completely despise afterward, and thankfully they made the list. (So did NPH, but if nothing else, 50+ hours in a car with him only more solidified his awesomeness.) I’m also surprisingly sane for sitting alone in my apartment– sleeping, recently bathed basset sleeping on the couch behind me not included– on the last night of my very last Spring Break ever, catching up on homework, brushing up for an internship interview tomorrow, not all that concerned that there are only eight weeks before BLAM-O real life. Oh, speaking of aforementioned hound, apparently he was an absolute shithead (sorry, but that’s really the only way to describe it) for my parents when they watched him all week. An adorable one, but pretty misbehaved nonetheless. I do have to give them props, he seems to have taken some disciplinary lessons to heart, though he may still just be exhausted from having 12 acres to himself for six days. I shall leave you now with some photos since my brilliant literary descriptions could never be enough.

There was a LOT of this.

Glorious. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire time.

You can take the girl outta Germany...

Yes, after that much time spent together, we're still speaking to each other.

And finally, perhaps the most important part of the whole trip! DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET PICKLES ON YOUR IN-N-OUT BURGER?! I've died.

Having survived the 27 hour drive to Vegas, I’ve now had the chance to enjoy my Spring Break destination for three nights (because in Sin City no one’s awake during the day anyway, right?) and learn a few things about myself along the way.

-I am a morning person. Ok, so this realization has been brewing for several weeks & the two hour time difference probably helps, but I have been up with the sun every day since leaving home. This also means staying up until even midnight is a challenge, much to the chagrin of my travel companions.

-I’m not a sit by the pool and relax type of vacationer. I prefer to be doing something, even when I am sitting poolside. I may have brought my laptop outside with me to search for wireless to send something to my editor. Yes, I felt like a tool and was being far too self important, but even on Spring Break there’s deadlines and jobs to search for (anxiety much? Perhaps.)

-You can get pickles on In-n-Out burgers, upping the already insane delicious factor. Also, their fries really aren’t that great and should be skipped so as to not detract from the cheeseburger-y awesomeness.

-Vegas is different when you’re the one paying
for it. Shout out to my father, he’s always taken great care of all of us on vacation. Traveling as a group of college students facing the brink of unemployment is a whole different ballgame, however, making me more thankful for the nicer vacations I’ve had and weary about my financial future when paired with my wanderlust.

-Flats are better than heels when you gotta do anything besides sit around and look pretty. Or perhaps this post could be titled “Brittney Goes to Vegas and Realizes She’s Become an Old Person.” I promise my next bullet point will not be how I’ve discovered the joys of eating dinner before 5 pm.

That’s actually gonna be it due to fear of hand cancer from holding my Droid for so long. If this post is rife with spelling errors or errant punctuation, blame it on big thumbs typing on a tiny touchscreen.

(For those of you stopping by just to check in on the state of NPH’s health, he is in fact still alive and doing well. Now he just has a really, really annoying cough that makes me want to throw the dog at him whenever he starts a-hackin’.)

The first week of classes went by pretty unremarkably (Wordpress is still me that’s spelled wrong, but Dictionary.com says it’s an acceptable adverb. Huh.) though I did get to do the add/drop slip dance on Thursday because one of my classes was already unbearable and not looking to get much better. I realize I could have just sucked it up, but it’s my last semester here, people; my lack of interest in the subject combined with the workload was setting me up for quite the uphill battle I had no intention of attempting. TURNS OUT the boyfriend and I have two classes together, one is a really fun elective that nearly everyone I know is taking, the other is a political science class from a professor I enjoyed last semester. At first I think we (ok, probably just he) were like ehhhh that’s weird, but it’s really not that bad. It’s not like we can sit there and gab like besties– we’re in a class like any other, it just turns out I might get walked home by the person sitting next to me afterward. I feel this will also work hugely to my advantage around test time because he’s a diligent student who does the readings, whereas I spend my time “studying” harassing him for pretzel M&Ms and checking out job opportunities in Boston.

Speaking of moving far away places, Roomie Lauren has some amazing opportunity to move to Dublin because she rocks socks at well, everything, and last night I was all omgI’llcomewithyou and we’ll make a fabulous life in Ireland together! Because ok, we may have been at a bar. We shook on and it were dreaming of Irishmen and lush hills of Guinness all evening, so this morning I decided to Google “moving to Dublin.” Turns out Dublin’s one of the most expensive cities in the world, and it’s not all that easy to just up and move to another country. She’s still sleeping so I won’t interrupt her clover-filled dreams, but I’m probably going to stay Stateside, at least for a while until I can afford more than a shack and a half-passable work visa.

Oh and shout-out to my family already in Hawaii and those will be soon arriving for a wedding!!

After a fever of 104, two hours at a walk-in clinic, and a chest x-ray at the hospital, Neil has been diagnosed with pneumonia. I am (perhaps foolishly) not too concerned about contracting a similar illness and have instead played the role of his and Fergus’ exclusive caretakers. When he gets better, I’ve already vowed to never take out the damn dog again. Don’t even get me started on the coughing– suffice it to say, my compassion has run out for this patient.
Well, my last semester of college starts tomorrow, and I am nothing but pumped. After a delicious reunion date with Natalie at the Vine yesterday, I am even more pumped about what comes after graduation because of my delirious optimism for all things job search related. Afterward, the roomies and I bunkered down on our respective couches with our respective Hy-Vee snacks (I just typed ’snakes’) and dissected every delicious minute of the Golden Globes. My fashion favorites included Claire Danes, Anne Hathaway, and Emma Stone, even though her skin looked straight up orange. You can Google them if you don’t know what they looked like, I’m far too lazy and concerned about copyright laws to slap up some pics for you. Ignoring Helen Bonham Carter’s desperate attempt at attention, I will say my worst dressed pick is Julianne Moore for that hideous one-sleeved Lanvin creation. And Natalie Portman for that FUCKING FLOWER on the front of her dress. WHAT THE FUCK. Yes, it deserves that many F-bombs. So hideous. Also, I’m tired of her. Your movie apparently wasn’t that great compared to The Social Network (still haven’t seen it), and by the way completely other tangent happening, why did Inception win nothing? I was so, so happy that Melissa Leo won for her role as the mother in The Fighter, and they could have just mailed Christian Bale is award months in advance because he had the Best Supporting Actor category in the bag three minutes into the movie.
I hate Glee, thus it winning Best TV Show or whatever it did was s-toooo-pid, but I was thrilled to see Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch win because well, they’re awesome. (By the way, did you notice how they panned to Lynch after Annette Bening won for playing a lesbian in The Kids Are Alright?) Speaking of, that movie was just alright– she was great, and don’t even get me started on the sexiness factor going through the roof with the casting of Mark Ruffalo, but alas, the movie was kinda flat.
And now I’m hungry, thus will leave to go make a sandwich with coleslaw on it. DON’T ASK– it’s my food phase of the moment. An odd one, yes, but also oddly delicious.

Yesterday was my 200th post, whaddya know.

I am far more sore today than I was yesterday, holy butt muscles it hurts to move. My poor NPH has the flu– fever, body aches, sleeping all day. Thankfully a slightly pushy doctor back in November talked me into getting the flu shot so hopefully I won’t get this, but you never know. I am playing the part of diligent girlfriend and catering to his tomato soup and grilled cheese requests; I will demand monetary reward later. This evening a friend from work and I are going to show around some of the newly arrived foreign exchange students, I’m pretty excited about that since they seem to be as well. The girl coordinating all of it is from The Netherlands and keeps asking about “the pubs” which I think is delightfully European of her and might just start referring to them as such myself. I’m currently watching the Sex and the City movie for really no other reason than background noise while doing some work online, oh well that and Roomie Lauren hates when I go into her room, thus I try to do it at least thrice daily. This just reminds me that I need far more impossibly chic outfits for my random daytime errands. And that Kim Cattrall is just the worst actress.

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.

Ouch. That is all that can describe how I feel right now, and it’s only perhaps twenty minutes post-workout. Let me back up here a bit…
Yesterday while surfing around on the university’s CRWC site, I saw that at 5:30 tonight there would be a Zumba class which I immediately decided I need to be a part of. Roomie Lauren had to work, but Rachael and I arrived at the rec today at about 5:20, super eager to get our Zumba on (or basically get our heart rates up in any fashion besides the damn Dreadmill.) The facility was PACKED– unless you have no other time to go in the day, avoid the rec center like the plague anytime after 5 pm. Every machine was full… and so was our Zumba class. And Winter Break isn’t even over yet! Feeling quite pissed, but not defeated, we went up to the fitness track to pound out a mile before deciding there was probably something streaming on Netflix that could give us a nice workout in the comfort of our own apartment. By this time, Lauren was home and graciously offered up her new Jillian Michaels’ Yoga Meltdown DVD.

Sweet. I’ve never done yoga before but have always wanted to try, so we fired up that beast.
I HAVE NO STRENGTH ANYWHERE, AT ALL, IN MY BODY. This DVD was asking muscles to be moved and stretched in ways I could never have imagined while Jillian’s telling me to “melt your heart to the sky” and “focus on your breathing.” I’m sorry, I can’t really focus on much besides my severe lower back pain due to my inability to do any of these moves correctly. Needless to say, it was intense. It felt really good afterward, of course, but we are all already walking pretty slowly, and I’m not at all looking forward to what waking up tomorrow morning will feel like. Caitlin tells me a beer helps soreness, but that would require getting off the couch, something that’s not in the cards for a while. So what have we learned today? The rec center is insane and will only get more so in the weeks leading up to spring break; sign up for classes early; people who can do yoga are amazing. I will persevere and one day be one of them (or break my back trying.)