Things that other people think are awesome

 You know that uncomfortable feeling you get when those around you are gloating over something that you think is simply heinous? Yeah? Well, let’s revel in that awkward place today! 

Here’s a list I’ve compiled of things that just do not excite me. While I don’t hate them, I simply don’t understand the fuss surrounding these things. Behold!

• leopard print
• strawberry jam
• Victoria’s Secret
• chihuahuas
• Nickleback
• MySpace
• Thanksgiving
• VH1
• Jay Leno
• Forever 21
• Thanksgiving
• Cheerios (plain)
• beer
• John Mayer

Feel free to disagree with me or add your own!

The life of the unemployed

I haven’t updated my blog in more than two weeks, so I know you all must be going stir-crazy. I’ve been in a bit of a weird mindframe, I guess. I’ve been in transition, let’s say. And I haven’t felt like I could write about it because much of it is work related.

I was not fired or laid off, but a job that I really, really had high hopes for turned out not to be the right fit. And while I have some exciting prospective jobs on the horizon, I’m trying not to get my hopes up. How’s that for being vague?

In the meantime, here’s a snippet of how I’m spending my time:

• playing Bejeweled
• finally finishing Twilight
• watching “16 and Pregnant,” “Kendra,” and “The Bachelorette”
• learning all about Brazilian waxes, courtesy of my roommate, Katy
• polishing up my MarioKart Wii skills
• officially becoming the Worldwide SkipBo Master Extraordinaire thankyouverymuch

In addition, I’ve also been working on my title of Best Girlfriend Ever.  Jason and I trying to become more active together, so this weekend we played tennis, went running, and played hockey with his family for Father’s Day. I also willingly watched Ghostbusters and A Clockwork Orange with him – two movies that I probably should have seen by now. Oh, and because I’ve never used a lawn mower before, I boldly decided to mow his lawn! Haaaa-cha!

Graduating was fun.

Here are some pictures from the infamous weekend, courtesy of my brother-in-law who has made it his duty to take pictures of every weird face I make.

Entertaining myself for a good five minutes at the Padres game pretending to be Kenny.

At the San Diego Zoo, channeling my inner Rafiki.

 

At the Hotel del Coronado, pretending to be a bear. Naturally.

Don’t mess with Texas… or the rest of the world.

A few weeks ago, I watched an episode my homegirl Oprah did about the extensive layer of trash that rests atop the Pacific Ocean. From California to Japan, we have basically turned the Ocean into a landfill by absentmindedly littering and dumping our trash out wherever we want. A lot of the junk comes from what people throw out of their cars while on the freeways. And holy hell y’all, this PISSES me off! I always get a queasy feeling in my tummy whenever I see people chuck their Taco Bell leftovers out the window, but I try to make myself feel better by thinking someone somewhere will pick it up and daintily transport it to the nearest trash receptacle.

But NO. Dun dun dun. Clearly this is not what happens. Seeing the visual as well as hearing the details about the layer of trash has really shaken me up, and now every day on the freeway I notice the storm drains and all the lingering crap that is about to go down them and into the ocean. My main reason for blogging about this is just to shed a tiny amount of light onto things that we may not all be aware of. While I’ve always been an avid recycler and trash-picker-upper, the Oprah episode made me realize that there’s so much more that needs to be done.

So! Happy Wednesday to ya! Wasn’t this uplifting? In order to balance out the crumminess factor of this post, I’ll add a special treat for you.

Polar bear cub, eee cuddly wuddlessss!

Another post in which I ramble about how my life is changing

Sending you a big whatup from the other side of graduation. I’m here to bring you the riveting news that nothing seems too different now that I’m no longer in college! I’ve been working 10 hour days, and let me tell you, this whole “job” thing is really impeding on my blogging time. I come home and all I really want to do is put my sweatpants on and cuddle with my oversized stuffed penguin.

Oh yeah, graduation? Welcome to Awkward Town! My boyfriend finally met my parents, and, uh, let’s just thank Johosephat that’s over with. Also, I’m fairly sure that when my name was called to walk across the stage, I publicly Raised The Roof. Because that’s just my style.

I also moved out of the apartment I’d lived in for the past two school years, but that was pretty anti-climatic. I’m now living with a very tolerant couple who graciously took me in so I wouldn’t have to sleep in my car. So far we have explored urbandictionary.com together, watched an episode of Golden Girls, and consumed many snack-size packets of Nerds. Also, I made one of my signature “HERE’S AMANDA” moves by dropping one of my earrings down the sink this evening, and because I am a bit braindead, I had to ask for help to retrieve it. Awesome! So far so good!

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. While my family was in town, we went to the San Diego Zoo and there were an abundance of mind-boggling experiences. First off, right when we entered the Zoo, my brother-in-law spotted Billy Mays, the Oxiclean guy. Talk about star struck! Actually, I’m lying, I had no idea who he was until I heard “Oxiclean guy,” but apparently he’s kind of a big deal and has a new reality tv show on. The next exciting event came when we went by the gorilla exhibit. As my mom exclaims, she “loves primates!!” so we ended up watching their monkey business (groan) for a good 15 minutes or so. Suddenly, a collective gasp came from all the spectators, and as I quickly found out, the head gorilla was up to no good. He was starting to make trouble in the neighborhood. You see, he was defecating. And after he had completed doing it, he decided it looked mighty tasty. So naturally, he ate it. Yep. Wait, why am I trying to act all casual about this? HE WAS EATING HIS SHIT! And I couldn’t stop watching! It was at this point that I decided that I might not ever be able to eat food again. Oh, I hope you aren’t eating breakfast when you read this, woops.

And look at that, I just dedicated more space to telling you about a shit-eating ape than about my college graduation. That seems about right. I’m hoping things at work will quiet down in the coming weeks and I can get back to blogging regularly. Because let’s face it, this here blog is a hot commodity.

Je suis fini avec l’université

I’m done with college, what up in the hizzyyy! Apparently when this stage in life happens, you begin speaking a very white version of Ebonics, or at least that’s been my experience for the past 24 hours. I’ve been all, jigga who? and trying to convince my middle-aged mother that she is leading a double life as a rapper.

My brain is fried, like the eggs my mom ordered at breakfast this morning, and hello? I’d never heard of fried eggs. I’ve lived a very sheltered life.

I’m graduating on Sunday morning, and my whole family is in town. They have never all been to San Diego at the same time, so it’s basically a three-day party. Today we went to the San Diego Zoo and a Padres game, and tomorrow we’re going out for happy hour at the Hotel del Coronado and then a fancy dinner on the waterfront. Um, I’m kind of loving my life right now, and it’s all made 20 times better by the fact that at random intervals throughout the day my eyes get wide with the realization that I DON’T HAVE TO DO HOMEWORK AGAIN EVER. I feel like I basically came out of the womb armed with a #2 pencil and a scantron sheet, so I imagine there will be plenty more moments like that in the next few months.

Cheers!

On earthquakes and penguins

Last night I lost my earthquake virginity. Yep. I’ve been in California for more than three years and it wasn’t until 8:39pm on Sunday night that I felt my first tremors. My bed started shaking and I’ll be honest, at first I thought I had just let out a huge fart. The shaking continued for about 10 seconds, though, and that’s when I realized something was up, ’cause even on bad days my farts only last about 5 seconds. I’m unable to act normal during most situations, so I immediately flung open the door to my bedroom to go see if the Roommates I Never Talk To had just felt the magical plate techtonics shift that I just had! To make a long story short, no, they hadn’t felt anything. One was still making spaghetti and the other was on the phone, so they just gave me the hairy eyeball as I looked at them with wide eyes and a questioning expression that was supposed to translate to, “Did y’all just feel that?!” I retreated back to my room with my tail between my legs, but still feeling victorious that I had felt my first earthquake and lived to tell about it.

In other news, hi, it’s 1:03am and guess what I’m doing? Not studying for exams would be the correct answer! Instead, I am trying to come up with new looks to spruce up my drab cap and gown. Here’s a snippet of what’s going on up in here tonight. This is me and my obese stuffed penguin, Petri, and I think he just might walk at graduation with me.

Zoloft is my BFF

Heavens to Betsy, it’s been more than a week since I last updated. You’re in luck, though, because you haven’t really missed much. I spend most of my days like this:

For a week or so, I just endured one long panic attack but now it’s morphed into a dull, constant state of being uncomfortable, quite comparable to the feeling you get when your stomach lurches before you have diarrhea. But, like, longer.

The reason for my anxiety stems mainly from that ever-looming date, May 24th. It’s the day I graduate, but really it feels like the Day I Have To Prove I Have My Shit Together. And I’ve never been fond of pressure.

Basically, I have less than two weeks to completely finish school, celebrate and do the happy dance, move out of my dorm, and find somewhere to live. And in the midst of all that, I need to attend to a slue (slew? slaw? cole slaw? I hate that stuff) of family and my new job. Halp halp! Life feels kind of unsteady when the prospect of living out of your car becomes a real possibility.

Although… it would probably make for some good blog material…

For all of you who are concerned

Think you have swine flu? Feeling a bit nauseated  and occasionally emitting a faint “oink” sound?

Well, consider this my gift to you: www.doihaveswineflu.org.

You’re welcome.

New chapter

Okay, so my last entry was a bit brief. I’m still trying to catch my breath, but here’s what’s up. The down low. The nitty gritty.

My roommate from last year (who I haven’t talked to in… a year) e-mailed me randomly last week saying that there was an opening at her job and she thought I’d be the perfect fit. Of course I read the e-mail in the middle of a group meeting, so I was all, AHHH! ShRIEK!!! I mite haz a job!! Oh, sorry, I don’t know what came over me.

I had a phone interview last Friday, and a real interview on Monday morning. I also had to edit three news articles to catch spelling and punctuation errors, and, no joke – that kind of stuff turns me on. Like, raging boner. Some people may find editing mundane, but I just love it. Just get me going on comma splices and misspellings, and in five minutes I need a cold shower.

So I got the job. I rocked the test. I don’t care if that sounds arrogant. I’ll be an Editorial Assistant, and to be perfectly honest, it’s my goal job for myself right out of college. I turned in so many applications to similar positions, and I’m so thankful that something finally worked out.

The drawbacks? The book I’ll be working on publishes at the end of June, and so my boss isn’t sure if he’ll “keep me on” after that. So basically, I have a full-time job through June, and then who knows. I’m hopeful that I can Bring It and impress him so much that he dreads the thought of not keeping me, but I won’t know for a few weeks. In the mean time, I’m starting to look for my own place. My own place for a month or so? My own place for the summer? It’s all up in the air! And it’s kind of an uncomfortable place to be in. But at least I have something.