hey, it's wednesday!

I need to get better at being more dismissive.

so into this song

this is halloween

Should I be Dr. Quinn or Sully?

I've been trying to reconcile my desire to be a morning person with loving that night life baby, romantic naivete with the way I actually see other people, and the desire to be active in my studies with the constant urge to nap and educate myself on other topics. [Something about eating pie and cake on the reg' while aspiring to have a tight bod' here, please.]

O, Canada!

(Le château Frontenac)

I would like to go to Quebec please.



Oh, and Banff National Park also.

What should I bring with me?
Hot cocoa
Ski jacket
Mystery novels
Pup

Please Rescue me asap!! Am dying!

Hello

I guess you did receive my short note i did some little traveling that got me into mess to the extent that i misplace all my belongings;my passport,my money and my traveling documents,i came here to Africa Nigeria for a program i need to attend urgently and on my way back to the airport i was robbed and i got all my valuables am seeking your sincere help as soon as possible as i need to return back home with the next available flight which happens to leave in few hours,Am now in the Nigerian state embassy where a consular is trying to help me solve my problems but i need some money to do this,please i will need you to borrow me some amount of money till i return back home?The money i need is a bit much but i can easily refund back with interest first thing when i get back home but if you cant come up with all the fund needed please let me know the initial amount you can help me with(The money i need is $2500 to foot all this bills,according to the
consular i will be getting a new passport,few documents and a return ticket back home),if you are willing to assist me please help me locate a western union money transfer or a good bank that operate western union and wire the fund to my stated information below.

Receivers Name:Nicole
Address: NO 24,ago palace road,adekunle close
City: Isolo Lagos
Zip Code: 23401
Country: Nigeria

After the fund is been sent,please provide me with details to receive the fund,mtcn number,the stated amount been sent,senders first name and second name,text question and answers,the stated address where the fund is been sent.Please email me back to let me know if your receive my urgent message am under a serious pressure now as everything is kind of complicating,i will be waiting to hear back from you.

Nicole

...I FINALLY GOT ONE OF THESE!!!

Why we need more "Adult" Movies

Times Dispatch article on the Anti-Noise Law

Oh, my desktop is loving this!

Every time I think everything is coming up Emily, I find myself in a place where I'm scrambling to pay bills, realizing my school schedule is all wrong and eating bad-for-me foods and drinking too often (though not too much).

Even the security questions I'm answering are depressing:

What is your favorite vacation destination?
Where did you and your spouse meet?
In what city were you married?

And for the lower middle-class singles...Who is your favorite actor?

This cracks me up.

Also, I'm done with summer school and nailed the Praxis I this morning. 186 Reading, 187 math. BAM!

Now: Boner Killers, salad, bbq burger, CAT LOVE, CAT NAPS, Texas Beach.

it got the snot out of my head!

Umm, should I be Dr. Quinn for Halloween?

Attends ou va-t'en

The nectarine is the most delicious of all fruits. When I daydream, girls' mouths always taste like juicy nectarines.

Smooth skin may be acquired through rolling around in sand and sleeping on sheets with a thread count < 400.

A helpful suggestion for summer: Sleeping. Lack of sleep leads to social incompetence, plummeting sales record, failed concentration, bad posture and puffy eyes. Side effects of sleeping include social death, boredom, virginity.

I just want some of this to sink in, these things I write elsewhere. I want more time to myself, time to learn to discipline myself, time to learn how to take time and use it properly. I have three more days of summer school, then the Praxis I on July 26th and I go back to school full-time at the end of August. Somewhere in there I've gotta get everything reorganized for future productivity while doodling adventures in pen all over my social calendar.

batboy's son

I love this image so much.

Which is why I'm including it in my group's ADHD presentation.

simple lunches

1 tortilla
+ 1/2 avocado
+ sliced bell pepper
+ cilantro
+ sauteed mushrooms & onion
+ pico de gallo or sliced tomato
+ squeezed lime wedge
= Delicious!

1 tortilla
+ chickpeas, smashed with a fork
+ veganaise
+ dill
+ salt and pepper
+ diced onion
+ sliced tomato
+ greens (I prefer arugula)
= Chickpea salad wrap!

Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

Try reading this aloud:

I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
to learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
that looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness' sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a month in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart--
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five.
T.S.W.

Found in Classroom Techniques: Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language (Allen and Valette)

i like health food AND champagne

Summer Emily is here. My Ed Psych class is over Wednesday and I'm ready to wear white shorts and drink on a boat. If you have a boat I can potentially fall off of, I want to do that.

Every year I make a list of things I want to do between May and September. My motto for 2010 is "why not?!" so anyway here's the list:

Swimming and sunbathing at 42nd Street x1000
Night canoeing
Camping x4 with Mattiebear and anyone else who is interested. Smith Mountain Lake, places we can swim.
Outer Banks for my 1st time
Two days in NYC
Tubing down the James
Praxis I
River house at Montross with Erin: skinnydipping, wine drinking, yacht rock listening, stingray petting
Chromeo July 26th!!!

when i'm there i wanna go but when i'm gone i don't

I've been back in Richmond an hour and I'm about ready to go.

I'M DOING IT RIGHT NOW!!!!!

"Hammer and Ferrari (2002) found as many as 20 percent of adults experience chronic procrastination for everyday tasks, while the rate for problematic academic procrastination among undergraduates is at least 70 percent (Ellis & Knaus, 1977)."
Klassen

It's like when "fungability" was the word of the hour...

"In medicine, comorbidity (literally "additional morbidity") is either the presence of one or more disorders (or diseases) in addition to a primary disease or disorder, or the effect of such additional disorders or diseases."

Thanks Wikipedia!

banjo or freakout

I need my summer to be like the last minute of this video

party and bullshit

huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Here is my first attempt at using screencasting as part of my larger Unit Plan. My first "draft" was totally mouthbreathy and rather creepy. Hope this one holds up to the rest of the class.

i didn't want to get the spit on me

"your paws smell like cat litter"

I have had the best Spring Break ever. It started with strep, then the party moved to Florida with close friends, and I have been working the rest of the week and doing some deep cleaning and sleeping with the windows open. Tonight is supposed to be my final night, but decided to go up to visit my family and attend Joanna Newsom with Anne in DC.

Tonight we (Mattiebear, Libbyboo, Marinabee) had sloppy joes, coleslaw, Wheat Thins and dip, and coffee and peanut butter chocolate ice cream for dessert. All while watching THIN ICE and asst ABC television. Truly Amurican you guys, I gained 15 lbs tonight. I'm not even wearing pants. Gotta hit the sheets to wake up early.

I don't trust the things I like.

I DON'T WANT TO.

"Consider first prolonged international and intrastate war and the ultimate ability of asymmetric-information bargaining models to provide a compelling explanation of this outcome."

Paper writing Sunday-Monday. PhotoStory Monday-Tuesday. Work+class Tuesday-Thursday.

Wednesday night is:

Clean out my car
Borrow a tent
Buy snacks and groceries for my trip
Pack and load my trunk
Get my fan belt replaced?
Oil change

Sexy People Reading- Thanks Lianna! Feel free to send me your favorite images of people reading. When I'm working on school stuff like this, I prefer my distractions to cement my excitement on future scholarly pursuits, not drinking-dancing-hanging-with-friends lust that I'm already feelin'. Spring break could not come soon enough!

& Real impressed by the Verizon "Big Red" commercial.


Listening to: Dr. Dog, "The Rabbit, The Bat, and the Reindeer"

Just received this email:

"To the VCU and VCU Health System Communities:

Virginia Commonwealth University received a letter from Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli requesting that the Commonwealth's public universities and colleges rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The University’s senior leadership team and I are examining the issue closely. Provost Gottfredson is planning forums to provide students, faculty and staff an opportunity to discuss the implications of the Attorney General's request.

Sincerely,
Michael Rao, Ph.D.
President, VCU and VCU Health System"

don't miss out on this keeper! he's a suitor!

"Look at all the poor, desperate, lonely women.' And then I saw ur ad and thought to myself..."Hey, here's a poor, desperate, lonaly woman who's actually cute"...So I thought I'd write and see if you're as interesting on the inside as you are in this picture."

wow, are you as big of a jerk in real life or is it an online act to get women to think you're desirable?

"chill woman..cant u handle a little humour in ur life..u need to lighten up..
jerk!!..hell no, i wouldnt call myself a jerk..u would wanna knw me first...and i dont need to be desirable with the ladies..i am who i am..i was just asking if u are as interesting on the inside as u are in these pictures"


I definitely have a profile on a dating site because I like reliving livejournal community bickering circa 1998. Having someone buy me pizza now and again has nothing to do with it!

This time next week I'll be hours away from dancing to this:


Listening to: Rogue Wave "Stars and Stripes"

From Charles Maier's "Wargames: 1914-1919" (250-251)

"The non-deducive knowledge derived from history must depend upon history being understood as a process of complex development, not just as a warehouse of examples. It may thus offer insights akin to the mental enhancement provided by good literature or successful psychoanalysis. History provides awareness of layered complexity, warnings of pitfalls, and a fall for the contextual determinants of outcomes; it fills in a sense of human community. At its best, this knowledge can be emancipatory, but not pragmatic.

Does this limitation condemn history to uselessness for policymakers? Only if they approach it as engineers, seeking technological guidance; otherwise, it is indispensable. As Croce summarized history's contribution: "We are products of the past and we live immersed in the past which presses on us all around... Historical thought reduces the past to its own raw material, transforms it into its own object, and history writing liberates us from history."

...How does written history "liberate" us from being blindly caught up in a stream of events? Accept that it cannot deliver simple, straightforward lessons; how does it provide insight? It does so primarily by virtue of the historian's laying bare its counterfactual implications. The good historian is distinguished by an awareness, which is communicated to his or her readers, that what has come to pass is intensely problematic. Describing what has actually happened, wie es eigentlich gewesen, should be like walking on thin ice...it must explain why other outcomes did not prevail- not in the sense that they could not, but in the sense that they might well have...Exploring what conditions would have been needed for alternative outcomes to materialize, history can assume a heuristic role."

Recipe: The Perfect Breakfast

Start with one day spent with a BFF, v.BBQ chicken tacos for dinner, and four hours of pumpin' and dancin'.

Add eight hours of sleep.
Add one white bathrobe and a splash of water on your face. (Glasses removal optional.)

In a separate room, mix one can of Orange Juice concentrate with water in your favorite vintage carafe. Put five cups of medium roast coffee in your friend, Mr. Coffee. Toast one everything bagel and spread Tofutti cream cheese atop.

In a separate room, add AIM gossip from a Vincelli sister, one glass of ice water, and one small yet well-fed grey cat.

Total time: 25 minutes. If you don't have work, this process can be drawn out up to two hours.

Listening to: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

"but orca is supposed to be my favorite whale"

Orca, orca!

moats and boats and pay phone calls/bb kiddo snugglefest twentyten

Most favorite album of the moment: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Up From Below"

I'm kind of sick of becoming interested in wishy washy or flaky people. I know I frequently employ these qualities myself, and I know these qualities are only found in people that I won't work out with, but oh, on cold nights how easy it is! Parties, Chuck Shaw and my mid-twenties!

(I'm equally annoyed by and perhaps jealous of the overly certain.)

Bom,bom,bombombombombom!

oh i wish it would raaaain oooh hoo

Resolution: Start writing the date I open jars, cans, and tubs of food on the lids.

Also, I love icebreaker messages like this "I'm in love with yoooooooooooooo"
(Thanks Brandon vE, but did you break edge or fall on your head?!)

Also, having a well-timed drip in my apartment is something like having a grandfather clock. (Honestly it just sounds vulgar.)

Also, Long Island Iced Teas are Big Trouble when listed as a drink special.

F'n Friday, S'n Saturday!

It sucks when "an early night" turns out to be 12:30am. My little bee is waiting for me at the tuck in the covers, and now because I'm taking too long she's biting my ponytail. So much for typing things I'll delete in the morning.

Johnny Weir!

I love you! Men's figure skating really has been a delight this year. The personalities, the attitude! The sequins, the glitter, the velvet, the lack of seperation between pants and shoes! It is truly a different world on ice!

P.S. "Skeleton Boy" performs next!

hey guys, remember these?

(That one wasn't mine!)

my romantic grandpa

It's been a week and a half now that I found my Grandfather dead in his home. I was coincidentally up in Northern Virginia for a lecture when my mom and I stopped by his house to bring him flowers. He was face down in the doorway to his bedroom. His dinner plate was in the sink and the television was on; he was just on his way to the bathroom when he died the night before. I felt his back and was able to remain composed for upwards of an hour to take care of my mom. There was an unopened box of kleenex sitting on the bed waiting for us.

Since my Grammy (Alma) died in 2006, his motivation and health have gone downhill. Before she died, he was still getting up on the roof (at 86!) and so on, but since then apart from having friends to the house and spending a lot of time with my folks, he's simply been waiting to reunite with her. The last few times I visited with him he's cried and it's broken my heart to know how lost he felt without her and that all he could do was wait. The last month he had been seeing her around the house, and told his friend Bo the week of his death that "when they find me, tell them to not be sad, because I will really be happy". Dying quickly at home is the way to go, and few people are afforded that luxury. I'm sad not for him, but for myself, his relatives, and my mom who is now going to have to deal with 1. not having any parents and 2. going through his house that he built with his two hands for my grandma and putting it on the market. Talking on the phone with her the other night she indicated she'd like to have the house cleared by August. It is mostly the house that I cry for. That sounds silly, but I'm sure some of you can relate.

I'm very fortunate to have had them to take care of me when my parents were working, and to show me that unconditional love and affection does not only exist, but can and should remain passionate and exciting throughout the years. It makes me feel better about my single life, because I know if I can find someone who looks at me the way they looked at each other, treats me the way they treated each other, and can make me laugh the way they were always carrying on, well then I have a pretty good chance of having my ass squeezed at family functions when I'm 85 years old.



In the aftermath, I feel very disorganized. I've been putting off dealing with it apart from a few key conversations (thank you), but I know in a few weeks I have to go up and start helping my mom prepare the house for a memorial service we'll be having in April. We're going to light up his house and play records and utilize the basement bar one last time. That's all I really can say about that right now. Back to Foucault and other shit I'm having trouble concentrating on.

UGHHH

“The computer, unlike a text, is built for action; it sits there humming, waiting, demanding that you punch some key or click some button. It is distracting, perpetually promising something more interesting than your own unfocused thoughts or the words currently before you on the screen."

if you hold me up, i will hold you up

I'm ridiculously good at not dealing with things.

stress chest!

Listening to: The Lawrence Arms, Oh! Calcutta!

either way i'm going to feel like shit tomorrow

Late night reading McSweeney's and watching clips from Ken Robinson lectures. He makes dad jokes, you know I like that. I feel like I keep repeating myself. Because I am.

0. Six discussion board threads.

1. Two-three page paper:

Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site. The following link provides information on strategies and methods
First go to the link below and review the various strategies and methods.
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/pd/instr/categ.html
In each strategy there are examples of various method.
Based on the reading from our texts which method or methods in each strategy best fits today's learner and why?
Make your own order of teaching method priority related today's learner for instance is Direct Instruction at the top and Interactive at the bottom of the scale?

2.One page paper on what type of learner I am and whether I think students in five years will be successful at that type of learning. Am I supposed to say no? I could certainly write more.


Not related.

Have I become a more or less honest person? I would say generally I am very honest, but I also have a desire to spare feelings and preserve some silent dignity, which means I am often times not honest about my desires and emotions. So...morally yes? Socially no? I've been spending a few minutes of each day going through mid-20s topics I'm supposed to enjoy discussing. Like:

Should I stay in Richmond or move?
Do I have a rambling bone?
Do I want to be a morning person?
Know two stories of past accomplishments with the following keywords: shots, sex, literature, foreign, the next morning, film, volunteer, tour, so stoked, tiny show, Jolt soda
Have I grown up? Is it ok to be a different age for each season?
Which of life's secrets have I unlocked? (The answer of this never actually matters. It should probably involve some of the above keywords.)
Do I yearn for the American dream or have I rejected that as an absurdly dated ideal?

What questions did I ask of myself on the cusp of turning twenty? What questions did you ask yourself? What do these things matter but to our personal histories and as procrastination aids? Rather than moving forward with a sense of real purpose, are we acting on desire of our make-believe futures? Is that all everyone ever does? Is that the same thing?

Listening to: William Elliot Whitmore, "Diggin' My Grave"

isn't it eaaasy?

I have gotten really sucked into watching the Grammys with Marina and Jenn.

Tonight has been full of surprises- attempting to complete my "Net Gen" reading about effective multitasking, all the music, all the Taylor Swift acting humble ("thanks to my record label for letting me write all the tracks..." [You are SO real.]), and that they have only shown this hot piece TWICE over the last three and a half hours:



There's a lot of snow on the ground here in Richmond, and I had my first real SNOW DAY (!!!!) in years yesterday. My hair is dirty, my boots are soggy, and I've had plenty of time to think about art I'd like to be obtaining for my walls and books I ought to be reading.

Oh yea, and the RMIC Italian Film & Food Festival coming up February 20th. Excited to be volunteering for the 11am showing of:

"I PUGNI IN TASCA (FISTS IN THE POCKET)
Directed by Marco Bellocchio (1965, 105 mins., b&w)
Part of the Second Italian Renaissance, writer-director Bellocchio shocked Italy with this first feature – a stark and memorable portrayal of bourgeois dysfunction and murder. Burdened by his own epilepsy and as weary caregiver for his blind mother and three epileptic brothers, the hero makes a rational decision to end the family curse. This is one of the great, unheralded films to emerge from Italy in the sixties. With Lou Castel, Paola Pitagora, Marino Masestar."

what's a book to you in bed? do you feel better, older?

I love this week. Four birthdays since Tuesday and everyone's wishes are rubbing off on me.

(I had the last sentenced framed differently and it would give you the wrong picture entirely.)

you've been nighttiming baby and you oughta get home

Here is a short list of some of my favorite things:

Staying up all night
Waking up really early
Heavy exercise
Making dank quiche with daiya cheese
Coconut Records because listening to Jason Schwartzman in movies isn't enough anymore.
Dads On Vacation
Zoe's new spot is under the kitchen table at my feet
Dog sighs
Freshly dyed black hair
Vacuums
Dancing in a bathrobe
!!!s

it's about time to start keeping un-gifted xmas presents?

"Students on average retain 10 percent of what they read but closer to 30 percent of what they see. Much of the reading done by the Net Gen has been on the Web, where they are more likely to scan than to read.

In fact, overreliance on text may inhibit Net Gen participation. Net Geners “prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite.” In one course (Library 1010 at CSU–Hayward) significant numbers of students would not process extensive written directions. They would either try to infer the directions or they would turn in incomplete assignments. When the homework was altered, presenting pictures first rather than words, refusals to do the assignment dropped (by 10–14 percent) and student scores increased (an improvement of 11–16 percent); pretest versus post-test scores gained 4–9 percent."

From my Net Gen online book. This class is already sort of strange, because the text focuses heavily on those who are reliant on technology over any other means of communication, which is partially true in my life...it is even a little reassuring to hear that I'm not supposed to be able to focus on one task at a time or have the odds stacked against me when assigned an ambiguous project. However, I don't feel the pull toward immediacy the way younger people do. In fact, I find it pretty annoying and immature, like a toddler mindset.

Visuals, group projects and peer-to-peer instruction will be prevalent methods used in my future classroom. These methods are useful even for me, but the way students should be taught is very different from how I was taught to learn. (Obv, I like the idea of sitting in a lecture class, listening to someone talk and NOT texting, fucking around on the internet or trying to figure out some way to multi-task. That is the "structure" my generation apparently craves, but anyone more than two years younger than me is incapable of.) Everyone's reliance on discussion based classes seems to contradict what I know from my experience- that most middle and high school students find it difficult to speak in front of their class and even specific questioning often only engages a core of already achieving students.

Listening to: Bishop Allen, "Little Black Ache"

sleep on the beach if i ain't got a ride

This song, twice today.

I taped a penny I found to my wrist for good luck...within fifteen minutes French Dad came into my store. (My #1 customer crush, around 40 with a thick accent, I've been going weak in the knees over him for three years, it has been six months since he's been in, maybe I lay it on too thick.) Anyway,,BIGDEAL, thanks lucky penny.

Few fun things about this vid 1. this is the show my Australian pen pal went to on my recommendation. and 2. the name of the venue is the Annandale Hotel.

face down in the right town

A few things being admired on a cold, wet evening:


Geoff McFetridge; I've got a birthday coming up (in April).

Hello Tiger!
Super cute Swedish blog. They collectively remind me of my friend Whitney Rainey.


Bjorn Bruun's Ibiza vacation house


Tomokazu Matsuyama and this work.

It is driving me crazy that the images don't automatically resize. The CSS hack codes suggested to quickly fix this issue failed. Help?

Also, is reading >= social networking? My time management suggests otherwise.

Also, the sight of a hungry cat waiting patiently on a dresser while I dick around on the internet is equal to the affluent American version of heartbreaking. Her wide eyes suggest she has eaten, but not nearly the amount she deserves for her loyalty, admiration, resume writing and Arnold Palmer fetching.

Also, Go ahead and read this interview with author Richard Rodriguez about Prop 8 and religion.

My whole life is one last hurrah.

hell yea i don't even know what this is

A few things about my life as of late:

I shouldn't be driving. Wed, my car key mysteriously disappeared between Lamplighter, Carytown and Sticky Rice with M & L.H. Thurs, I get pulled over for making a right on red on the VCU campus. Two blocks from the scene of my first ticket seven years ago. (These are my only traffic infractions caught by the badge/the only traffic laws I've ever disregarded.)

Watching this video before bed:

Allowed me to dream that I was taking Aziz Ansari out on a date. At a party on Cumberland, I prevented him from being hit by a car and after explaining the nuances of beer pong left him in the basement to win a few rounds in my name.

School starts again on Tuesday. My schedule has changed since my last posting, so I'll be taking one grad class, two undergrad and sitting in on a survey class to review. I would like to be doing more, but I have a feeling this semester is going to challenge me regardless. I plan on taking Praxis I and II by March. My results will be something like this:

Throwback!

I've been visiting DC more often recently. My father is still in Florida and no one knows when he'll come home. My mom is okay with this and plans on doing major renovations to the house while he's gone. I will be attending this event with a very smart lady next month. This will be in contrast to the ridiculously reckless Jersey Shore dance party I'll be at next week.

My hair is finally long enough for a First American-style braid, but I haven't been rocking it. Why?

Harvest of Hope line-up posted! I had so much fun last year and would love to attend this again. Three days of camping, music, friendship, and slip 'n slides.

I don't want to be a cat anymore. Gotta get moving.

Listening to: "The Boy I Used to Be", Bombay Bicycle Club

actually, more love on the run

Spent the last hour and a half at the gym. It feels good to be back. Coming soon for your listening enjoyment: my Jersey Shore and workout playlists.

& If David Lynch directed Dirty Dancing

& Jay Z "On To The Next One"


& And duh, a little Billy Ocean for my walk over to Lamplighter.

Midnight Listen:

little bit of hi-fi

Jon Hamm's heavy breathing is driving me insane. I could turn off the space heater!

I'm having a few cups of coffee to prepare myself to clean the apartment. Card game nights should begin shortly. Women who attend can bring small items they want to get rid of to gamble away. This is turning into a diary and I'm sorry for that.

wake up call.

I want this!


On my budget, this is more realistic:


P.S. Here's a place I'd like to check out- the Dunton Hot Springs. Remodelista.



On my budget, this is more realistic:

it's time to PARTY, PARTY

Last night encompassed the following:

Rum & cherry cokes, 30 Rock marathon, breakfast, sequins, having my hurr did by my fabulous boomate, VCU colors all over the city (black and gold), smoochin' on best friends, floral wallpaper, and ended with a slumber party with my BFF Mattie.

Once in awhile I get really lonely and weird, but it doesn't take very much to bring me back around to reality. 2010 is going to be the best year yet. Here are a few of my resolutions:

1. Get in shape so I can go backpacking.
2. Push myself.
3. Learn to swim.
4. Ace the Praxis.
5. Celebrate my birthday.
6. Try a new recipe each week. Start writing in my cookbooks.
7. Go to the language lab at least twice a month.
8. Something about dating?
9. Continue my life as a non-smoker.
10. Get a credit card with a low limit.
11. Go on an adventure outside the U.S.
12. Quit being so initially shy around crushes. Stop worrying so much about people thinking I like them if I do. (I'll start working on this one around July or August.)
13. Take my studies seriously and make them my #1 priority over vegan cheesecake, hang-outs, movies, sexy paperbacks.
14. Take more of a proactive role in my brother's life. 2009 left both me and my parents incredibly drained. I hear about him everyday, talk to him at least once a week, but refused to really get involved because of how much it stresses me out. Obviously "putting him to the back of my mind" and "only letting myself worry when I'm on the phone with my mom" isn't working. I don't think those tactics ever really worked.
15. Get my health care expenses paid off.