new/better/shinier blog

Simple Discoveries of a 20-Something

A different kind of person

I have felt uninspired for several months. I tried to force inspiration the other day and nothing came. It has me slightly worried. Isn't inspiration supposed to be the thing that drives us towards our dreams? I am uninspired. For the first time that I can remember, I am bored at school. This semester is full of classes I don't care about and I really don't even feel like I'm absorbing anything from them. I can't write a poem worth shit. I'm having a hard time even writing a blog. I don't understand it; where is my inspiration?

I went to Nate and Alex's wedding last week. It was the shortest wedding I've ever been to. At most the ceremony was 15 minutes long. but it took an hour and half for them to get pictures done. And I also do not understand why people didn't dance at the reception. I was pumped for some dancing, (it's been over a year since I went out dancing I think) and I thought that all the booze in people would result in a full on dance party experience. Instead it was shannon and I boogying by ourselves with a little help from steph. oh well, I still had fun. Though I probably could've had more.

I'm not a fan of 23. so far it's been a poor age.

I don't understand women. everyday I realize how alienated from them I really am. How even when I think: "wow, les. You're doing pretty good with all these girls as friends. in reality, I'm just on the outskirts of the whole thing. I guess I'm the closest to the middle of the a group of girls I've ever been in my life and that's why it feels like I almost fit in. But most of the time I'm convinced that I don't.

i need to study.

Finding Nemo moment

First day of SCHOOL!!! FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

five more minutes.....


First day of graduate school today. Of course it's 8:00am now and I've been up since 5:30am and when is my first class? 5:45pm.

So sitting through orientation this past week...first off, let me just say that grad school orientation lasted maybe 5 hours total over two days. compared to undergraduate orientation where you have to follow the stupid person in a bright yellow t-shirt around for hours and hours with the same people that you will have to live with the rest of the year, and you realize about 30 seconds into the first stupid name game that you are going to hate all of them as of that moment. Grad school is AWESOME!!

so sitting through orientation this past week, they told me that I would get mym first client in two weeks. I'M SORRY WHAT!?!?! TWO WEEKS!!! Shouldn't I take more classes first? I'm so not qualified to have a client in the field that I will be working in AFTER I graduate. haven't graduated yet. probably shouldn't put someone's ability to communicate in my hands. apparently I have no choice.

I was half an hour late to the first day of orientation. I sit down and they announce that we are all going to take the PRAXIS II exam right then. WHAT?!?! isn't that the exam we take when we graduate? yeah. THEN WHY THE HELL ARE WE TAKING IT NOW?

it actually made taking the exam less scary because I walked into it completely unprepared and wasn't completely lost the entire time. most of the time I was though. The answers were in the back of the book. Wish I had known that before.

I'm listening to the new Imogen Heap album thanks to Aaron. thank you aaron.

So of the 31 people in my cohort, 30 are female. this will be interesting. if you haven't noticed, females 10 times out of 10 1/2...well...hate me. fun fun.

I did a pretty good job avoiding people during orientation. but I figured that when they all showed up for dinner at the restaurant I work at and I was off, I should go sit with them. I survived. had more beer than I usually enjoy though. my stomach is pissed at me today for that. beer and I don't mix very well. too heavy. wine.

I think I'm going to take a nap

The issue I have with Boyfriends

I love my boyfriend. I really appreciate that he has the guts to stand up to me when I'm being a bitch. I think he is a complementary amount of quirky and silly for me. I realize that I'm ridiculous sometimes and he is never embarrassed of me. and he's very pretty. I love him very much. I'm very happy I found him. And I don't think I could ever regret meeting him, even if the relationship turned sour and died. But hopefully it won't.

HOWEVER

I do have issues with boyfriends.

I'm completely unproductive when he is around. I can't focus on school or work when he is in the same town as me. I can't figure out if this is because I am a day dreaming heart-shaped eyed girl at the moment or what, but it is incredibly frustrating. When he's gone, I get so much done! It's incredible! I'll be a week ahead in school when he isn't around. I have to be. I have to distract myself from the fact that he's gone, or I'll get needy and annoying.

He's way too nice to me. He tries to buy my dinner, or brings me flowers, or wants to help me wash my car. It's like "BACK OFF BUSTER! I CAN DO THIS MYSELF! I'M NOT HELPLESS!" And then i feel bad for yelling at him and let him help me anyways. I like being taken care of, I do. But seriously, I need to know that I'm not dependent. I need to know that I'm self-sufficient. And then he has the audacity to tell me that I'm even more confusing than a regular girl because I succeed at pretending to be a boy sometimes. What does that even mean?

I know I have used this blog to whine and complain about being alone. but I haven't been alone for almost five months. I'm over it. wait, no. I take that back. I don't know. GAH! I hate being complicated.

I need more girl friends so that I have people to talk to about this kind of stuff. Blogging is just not cutting it.

Harrisonburg is full of people. haven't found any I connect with yet. Got a new job at a restaurant though. it may help. or I may have just surrounded myself druggies. one of the two.

Memories with Michael Jackson

So I don't feel bad about writing about Michael Jackson today for several reasons:
1) everyone else wrote about him yesterday, so I'm not just doing it because everyone else is.
2) I'm not a crazy MJ fan, just an admirer of his dancing
3) There's another reason

Hearing that Michael Jackson had died got me thinking. I think about Michael Jackson a lot actually. I was a dancer. and also I took a class my last semester at william and mary call black expressive cultures and two girls in the class got in a huge fight over whether MJ or Prince was better. It stuck with me. Made me listen to both of them more to decide for myself.

I have a lot of random memories with Michael Jackson's music and I was sitting in bed this morning and they just kept coming to me. I decided to write them down.

When I was a kid, like a little kid, my cousin was crazy about michael jackson. she had her cassette tapes of his music. heh cassette tapes. Anyway, she is a year or two younger than me and she used to put turtle neck over her head and then flip them back and call it her hair (she really wanted long hair). ANd I have this picture of her in my mind wearing nothing but panties and this turtleneck hair dancing around to what I think was the "Bad" album.

Weird Al. need I say more?

When the studio that I danced with had lock ins (or prom happened, or we were bored) we would have dance offs. Zoolander had just come out. Hansel was so hott right then. Dance offs always started with "beat it". I don't remember a single dance off that did not begin with "beat it". We learned the dance and would just dance to it sometimes.

This past semester William and Mary broke the record the most people doing the thriller dance at one time. 247 I think. Led by my good friend Kevin Dua, who came up to me probably 9 months ago and is was like "Leslie! We're going to try and break the record! You gotta do this!" See Kevin Dua and I have a strange connection through Michael jackson. We first met in January 2007. There was an auction to raise money for the international service trips. My then boyfriend was going to Kenya and my best friend Tony was going to mexico, I think. So we're sitting there and in between every couple of items there was entertainment. Kevin Dua comes out and does a Michael Jackson style dance to "Billie Jean". He did a FANTASIC job. I was so impressed. I went up to him afterward (he had no idea who I was) and was like "Oh my gosh, you are a homewrecker! I was this close to breaking up with my bf for you." he got really uncomfortable and laughed nervously. and then we were great friends. :)

well My favorite Michael Jackson song is "the way you make me feel". I have to work on studying for midterms now.

25 reasons why roommates are a bad idea

Let's talk about what a bad idea having roommates is! I have had 14 real roommates in my lifetime. This number does not include the 7 frat brothers that I lived with when I was homeless. It is important to note that the number of roommates I have had is no fault of theirs or mine. I guess. The funny thing is that I started with 11 roommates and then went remembered Amanda and had to go to 12. then remembered Megan and had to make it 13. ANd THEN remembered Amy (who ruined my semester of WM) and had to make it 14. Dear Lord save us all!

Almost all of my roommates I moved in with without knowing them beforehand. I did/do this because a) I usually move to places where I don't know anyone, b) I have very few girl friends that I could live with, c) most of my friends lived on campus while I was at school. I have experienced roommates that I instantly click with, roommates that I warm up to, and roommates I could wish many many bad things upon.

I want to take a minute and make a list, a really long list of things that equal bad roomies.

1) If you leave town, forget to take out the trash, and maggots start growing in there, you might be a bad roomie.
2) If you set off the fire alarm at 3:30AM because you are cooking drunk (again), if you might be a bad roomie.
3) If you party with your underage friends on a sunday night until 8AM, you might be a bad roomie.
4) If you leave the burner and the oven on ALL NIGHT LONG, you might be a bad roomie.
5) If you take my things and then yell at me for taking them back, you might be a bad roomie.
6) If you have never lived on your own and don't understand why you have to take the recyclables and trash to the road, you might be a bad roomie.
7) If you used my nice knives and then leave them to rust in the sink, you might be a bad roomie.
8) If you smoke pot in my room, you might be a bad roomie. (though there are those that disagree)
9) If you can't talk to me face-to-face and leave little messages of annoyance and hate on the dry erase board, you might be a bad roomie.
10) If you break more than half of glasses in a week, you might be a bad roomie.
11) If you use so much toilet paper that you go through a roll every two days by yourself, you might be a bad roomie.
12) If you make out with the guy I like who I had over for dinner, you might be a bad roomie.
13) If you think it's a good idea to melt jolly ranchers into big candy slabs and the drip it all over the carpet in the living room which is a ways away from the kitchen, you might be a bad roomie.
14) If you do #13 AGAIN after I spend an hour scrubbing the candy out of the carpet, you might be a bad roomie.
15) IF YOU THEN DUMP ONE OF THE CANDY SLABS ONTO THE DRIVEWAY RIGHT BY WHERE I PARK MY CAR SO THAT I STEP IN IT WHEN I DON'T SEE IT AND RUIN MY FAVORITE SHOES, you might be a bad roomie.
16) If you sleep with a guy IN MY BED, you might be a bad roomie.
17) If you don't know how to clean the dishes when there isn't a dish washer, you might be a bad roomie.
18) If you still don't know how to wash the dishes when there IS a dish washer, you might be a bad roomie.
19) If you put my tv on your side of the room, in a position so that I can't see it, you might be a bad roomie.
20) If you yell at your fiancee on the telephone in our room at 2AM while I'm sleeping, you might be a bad roomie.
21) If I have two guy friends stay in our dorm room over night while you're not there and you freak out because you think they might steal your things, you might be a bad roomie.
22) If you take 45 minute showers everyday when there is one bathroom, you might be a bad roomie.
23) If you and your friends use so much of our electricity that our bill is $400 for a 500sq ft apt, you might be a bad roomie.
24) If you have a party while I'm moving my stuff out, you might be a bad roomie.
25) And lastly, if you think that I'm over reacting when I flip out as I walk into my house after being gone for a week and it smells of vomit, rotting food, and cheap alcohol, and I can't see the counters or the sink, and realize that one of your friends puked all in one of my mixing bowls, you might be a bad roomie.

There! 25 things NOT to do as a roommate! EVER!

sadly, all of them are true stories.
I think this is the last time I live with roommates.

I'm suddenly old

This is the first time I have really had time to myself in months. having a boyfriend is life consuming. I love him. but it is nice to center. I turned off my phone.

I realized about two months ago how out of shape I was. This coming from a girl who never weighed over a buck ten in her life suddenly being of normal body weight. Some people get weird when I talk about weight. I don't think about it as "oh my god I'm so fat" so much as "oh my god I miss feeling healthy and active". My mother would say I'm healthier now. anyway.

So I moved to this new apartment complex in harrisonburg right? It's amazing. I have a gym, a pool, a pool table, foosball, DDR, huge TV, furnished apartment. it's awesome. Very happy with it. I figured, I have a gym at my fingertips for free. Work out here I come. This coming from a girl who maybe worked out in a gym once in her life. I never ran before because I the back of a 70 year old. And gyms just seem to be full of people who judge themselves and other people. So I've avoided them. But this gym is virtually empty, and I discovered I can run. go me.

All of this to say that there is definitely a direct correlation between me working out and me being happy. I'm sure there are studies and all sorts of things that have already wasted hundreds of words to say that, but I discovered it for myself. It was a good discovery.

So harrisonburg is an interesting place. It's a place I have yet to get a grasp of. Cville was easy: hippies, rich snobs, and the punk/emo/I can't tell the difference crowd. There were only those three and then a few normal middle class twentysomethings that have no idea how they ended up there (me, for example). Harrisonburg is different. JMU undergrad pretty full of skanks and skunks. Girls that sit by my pool talking about waking up next to a guy and wondering what she did last night and guys who have little personality and even littler hygiene. I'm interested to see how my grad program compares. At least they're not snooty snobs. They are VERY TAN though. it's incredible.

This past weekend I went home and the weekend before that I went home. both times I was set on going out dancing like I used to do. And I felt old. I never made it out to the clubs. Mostly because I feel like going with just my boyfriend is silly. The other reason is because I can't remember why I paid 10 dollars to get into a clubs that charged even more for its drinks and was full of annoying drunk people. And I miss my girl friends. But then I never went out with them. So why do I miss this so much? I miss looking fabulous. I haven't worn make up in months. literally. I haven't gotten dressed up besides for a wedding since october. My poor shoes, who I adore oh so much, are sitting in my closet pouting at me because of their lack of use. I miss my shoes. How materialistic is that?

on friday while my brother was gone somewhere or something, I saw his longboard. Now I've never been a real 'sporty" girl in the typical definition. I was a dancer. We're danty. But I've been eyeing this skateboard thing for months. I finally worked up the courage and I put on my new balances. last time I tried to ride a skate board when i was 11 I fell and got one of the biggest blood blisters of my life. So I'm scared as I'm carrying this board outside. I grab John's John Deere hat so that I get in the right head space and I go. after about 10 minutes I'm gliding around the neighborhood, loving every second of it. But I found out that I have to do it with music playing. I'm more coordinated when music is playing. puts me in a rhythm and my muscles are used to having musical accompaniment maybe :). Anyway, by the end of the day i was doing pretty well and then john went out and bought one for me and him to play on. I went down my first big, windy hill today. and I didn't fall. very proud of myself.

Dude, it's 10pm. I'm totally supposed to be back from grocery shopping now. haven't even left yet. Bad lika.