All posts in: weekly

weekly
11 Jun 2012

2012: week twenty-three

June 3 – June 9

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I worked retail! Which means, I don’t remember what happened, because retail blurs my memory sometimes. I’m getting better at the fast pace, but it’s still a bit of a “What just happened?” at the end of each shift.

Wednesday and Thursday, I tried my hardest to wrap up things at good old Job #1. It’s hard, because my continued employment hinges entirely on my job prospects. I could have two months or two weeks left… I’m not sure!

Friday, I had a job interview.

Saturday, I rested.

And by rested, I mean, I played Skyrim.

 

Reading:

  • Something Blue by Emily Giffin
  • New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (about 200 pages in… no action yet, and why the heck is Edward invading Bella’s thoughts after DUMPING her? I do not get a lot of this series…)
  • Please read the two aforementioned books and mourn the loss of my literary discernment.

Listening:

  • On Saturday, all I wanted to listen to was folksy oldies. Janis Jopin, Bob Dylan, etc. We ran errands for a few hours, I went into Stop & Shop to grab two things, came back, and Lance had commandeered the stereo to play Queen. I was mad, that was how much I wanted to listen to folsky oldies… I would get mad at Queen! Who can get mad at Queen!?

Watching:

  • Switched at Birth … I’m making progress!
  • Girls mini-marathon one morning… may or may not have been late for work one day last week. It’s okay, I stayed late, no worries. Everyone likes to work until 6:30 on a Friday night, righ

 

life maintenance
04 Jun 2012

2012: week twenty-two

May 27 – June 2

I spent most of last week in either a blind panic or other state of heightened anxiety. I made and recovered from a major scheduling error, rented a car for the first time, drove it for 4 hours (by myself) to places I have never been before, prepared for/performed for a job interview, and had at least two days where I ran on 5-ish hours of sleep.

There is nothing resembling equilibrium going on in my life right now, and I don’t think there will be any time soon. I don’t want to spend the rest of my summer feeling grumpy, but I’m not sure that any amount of concerted effort/planning/worrying/positive thinking will make much of a difference. This too shall pass, but for now, I’m in the muck of it.

For now, I’m going to focus on being well – sleep, hydration, no more sugar + grains, exercise, etc. Structure. Routines. Tidiness.  Peach cuddling and cooking dinner and phone chats and documentaries on Netflix.

Other assorted acts of hopefulness.

Reading:

Watching:

  • Switched at Birth – I am determined to finish Season One! I’ve been working on it for almost a year, which is just excessive.
  • On Wednesday, there was a lot of Gilmore Girls, season one. I can’t believe Dean dumped Rory like that! Scoundrel…

 

boston
29 May 2012

2012: week twenty-one

May 20 – May 26

I do not much remember what happened on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, because on Friday, my favorite roommate returned to Boston for a long weekend. Since leaving, she has become A FULL-FLEDGED, CARD-CARRYING CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN, so we had a lot to talk about. And a lot of food to eat. And a lot of Pictionary to play.

Also, there was a wedding! A wedding so epically perfect to wipe out one’s memory of anything that has happened other than the wedding, (although the unlimited champagne did not help). Two of my dear friends (who you might remember from this post) did indeed tie the knot, and it was equal parts decadent, irreverent, and completely romantic. I laughed, I cried, there was a cappella music. So, so happy for them.

I could use a bit of a recovery period, but alas, life continues to steamroll on. Blogging will be light this week, as I am preparing for another Big Job interview – this time, an all-day affair! Fun stuff – cross your fingers for me so I, too, can begin carrying my Librarian card.

 

Reading:

Listening to:

  • Okay for Now on audio. Not too far into it, yet, but there is something pleasing about the way the narrator says “Joe Pepitone”

 

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weekly
21 May 2012

2012: week twenty

May 13 – May 19

Aside from being completely ridiculous, busy, and full of joy/nostalgia/desserts, last week was a bit of a symbolic break.

2012 Phase 1:

Work 40-50 hours/week while taking class

2012 Phase 2

Work 20-30? hours/week while scrambling to find health insurance, an apartment, and solvency before September 1.

 

Last week was the in between. Goodbye to the old, hello to the new. Woke up this morning feeling well-rested, feeling happy to have a cup of iced coffee, feeling happy that it is still May.

I think I love May in Boston The long weekend was gorgeous weather. Tank top and cropped pants without much sweating weather. The sun gets up early, birds chirp, your day just starts out better.

So goodbye, Phase 1. Hello, Phase 2; you might not be the most fun, but at least I’m not working myself to an oblivion and it’s May in Boston.

 

Reading:

Watching:

  • Still watching ridiculous LOST…

 

grad school
14 May 2012

2012: week nineteen

May 6 – May 12

I am having trouble acknowledging that my regular-grad-school-life is coming to a close.

Maybe because my schedule has me a bit distracted from the rhythm of academic life. More than once this has bitten me in the butt at work, lately. “Oh, you need your course evaluation packet? In 10 minutes? Offff course….”

Maybe because my schedule has me a bit distracted from… oh… creative/independent thought.

Maybe because I am in deep, deep denial.

Or maybe because my schedule is not coming to a halt, but instead, slowly unraveling. Two more library shifts. Another month or two in the office. But this past week was my last crazy one, Friday was my last day as a writing tutor, and I said goodbye to some of my favorite crazy-undergraduates. There were one, two, three little end of the year parties. Cupcakes. Champagne. One last trip to the Squealing Pig, grad students squished into a too-small booth, ordering one more round.

Next week, we graduate. It is over, it is over.

 

Reading:

Watching:

  • LOST Having watched through to this point a few times, I have a single thought about Season Three: jumped the shark.

 

weekly
07 May 2012

2012: week eighteen

April 20 – May 5

On Sunday, I went for a 2+ mile run, then swung by JP Licks on the way home for a small scoop of Oreo ice cream. With sprinkles.

On Monday, I threw a banquet. I really did.

On Tuesday, I slept in until 8 a.m., and dropped about 700 dollars on car repairs. Yeaaahhh…

On Wednesday, it was misty outside and my hair swelled to three times its typical volume.

On Thursday, I accidentally stayed late at work.

On Friday, I had my first weekday-off-with-nobody-else-home-and-nothing-much-to-do since I don’t even remember. I suspect it was sometime in October.

On Saturday, I saw the supermoon.

Reading:

Listening to:

  • Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts…

Watching:

  • LOST  The boy has me on a strict nightly regimen. Unfortunately, we’ve started watching the episodes we haven’t seen 100 times, so we have to start paying attention…
  • Picked up Switched at Birth again… luckily, it seems I haven’t forgotten a thing!
  • I keep trying to watch videos on our desktop and then cursing our desktop and then fantasizing about throwing it out the window. So, I’ve watched the first 3 minutes of a number of different shows, hoping for different results. Alas, my old computer can no longer play new videos, and my laptop has no audio. Fun times.

 

lance romance
30 Apr 2012

2012: week seventeen

April 22 – April 28

This life of mine is a teetering balancing act, right now. I keep adding things on top of the stack, carefully, but I have to be absolutely steady. Unwavering. If I think about failure too much, I start to get panicky and then I don’t perform and then I get behind and things start slipping. I must have absolute faith that everything won’t come crashing down on me.

I’m about to finish the semester without any major catastrophes. I haven’t even been sick, if you can believe it. I had a sore throat for like, one day.

But after a few days where things started to tilt, I realized just how much I absolutely rely on the support of this boy that I love. The crazier my schedule gets, the more he steps in to make my ridiculous schedule more manageable, more pleasant, and in some cases, just plain possible.

Some examples from the past seven days:

  • Helping out with dinner when I can’t keep my brain focused on more than one process at a time…
  • … and when my blood sugar falls so low I can’t make decisions or full sentences, ordering me take-out.
  • Cleaning up after my sloppy self and not complaining when I keep piling up the mess.
  • Doing the dishes twice for my every once.
  • Even though he thinks I am crazy and am inventing smells, my heart skipped a beat when he spent an hour Googling and cleaning our disgusting, stinky dishwasher.
  • Driving me to and from work, even across the river, even without prior arrangement.
  • Driving me to get coffee, even when I wake him up too early on a Sunday morning.
  • Driving me to work across the river at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday, and when I dropped my iced coffee in the middle of the sidewalk, he went back and bought me another and hand-delivered it so I wouldn’t be late for work.
  • Deciding in the midst of all THIS, that he wouldn’t mind just dealing with allllllthis FOR THE REST OF TIME!

All of these acts of service while also listening to me whine about work, applying appropriate comforts when I cry about the future, and generally forgiving me for being the world’s worst human.

Thank you. Thank you. Thankyouthankyou.

I could not do my life without you.

Reading:

Listening to:

  • I listened to an episode of JD’s Cocktail Lounge on Monday and had the song “Dividing by 70” stuck in my head all week.

Watching:

  • LOST – We are trucking through this series with amazing speed. It helps that we’ve seen the first 2 seasons 3-4 times now…
  • Accidentally/on-purpose watched the first two episodes of Girls. I like it!

 

weekly
23 Apr 2012

2012: week sixteen

April 15 – April 22

This week, I…

  • got a sunburn
  • executed two work events
  • made my first foray into the wide, wild world of Retail
  • called my best friend, my sister, and my mother on the telephone
  • had the pleasure of entertaining the future in-laws on Friday and Saturday
  • only ran 2 miles
  • rediscovered this little thing called “stress eating”

But it’s okay. I am writing this from the other side of “week seventeen” but already I have turned in two final projects and am this-close to finishing two Master’s degrees.

Also, apparently Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu retweeted something I wrote professionally last week. Whilst I wrote this post, I had no idea that 1% of my validation anxiety was already quelled.

Reading:

Listening to:

  • Norah Jones’s new album on NPR’s First Listen – my favorite site when I need  quick album on the go.

Watching:

 

life maintenance
16 Apr 2012

2012: week fifteen

April 8 – April 14

Busy? Super-busy? Crazy-busy? Manic? Completely insane?

All of the above, this week. All of the above.

My schedule has gone from pleasantly packed to over-stuffed and now we have landed at “I am embarrassed to tell people how much I am working.”

So I won’t tell you. But it’s a little insane.

Feeling less “stressed out” and more “completely obliterated.” And again, the mantra of the semester, all insanity will come quickly to an end. Four more weeks of madness. My finals are due a week from today, so three weeks of just running around and juggling jobs – no homework looming over everything. Then: a week off.

Blogging might be light in the meantime. If this week was a good model, my brain capacity is lacking.

Other news of import: remember my self imposed blogging break a few weeks ago? It worked. I got my first Real-Job interview for a job I really would love. Excited!!

P.S. All my cute dresses went out of stock. My life…

Reading:

  • Bouncing back and forth between two completely incongruous books
    • Tweak (which, for some reason, is making me really anxious to read this time around, and
    • The Ivy (which is completely silly – is Harvard really that much like high school?)

Watching:

  • I have been re-watching Shameless, which is SUCH an excellent show. Every character is this amazing actor who is also amazingly attractive, the storylines are equal part madcap and complete heartbreak, and yeah. Love it.

 

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weekly
09 Apr 2012

2012: week fourteen

April 1 – April 7

Graduation is just over a month away. I am doing a lot of graduation-related things – talking to my family about travel plans, ordering a cap and gown, trying to muster up some energy to send graduation announcements.

I want to buy a dress. I have a wedding the next weekend, too, so it would be nice to have something fresh to wear.

Buying a dress. This should be fun. I never buy clothes, especially not non-necessities (trying to find a decent black cardigan or pair of jeans isn’t exactly enthralling). But I have been looking ALL WEEKEND and apparently I have impossible specifications?

All I want is a dress that is

  • Longer than my knees (or at least longer than other people’s knees, which means it will be just right on me)
  • In stock in my size
  • In the 30-60 dollar range
  • Not black
  • More substantial than spaghetti straps or zero-straps

I’ve narrowed it down to the two orange selections above. I really like the blue, but alas, it is out of stock.

But now I can’t decide which one to buy… and have I even checked everywhere? I’ve scoured through Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, J Crew, Modcloth, eShakti… on Target’s website, I narrowed my search down and was left with six choices – three of which were Maternity dresses.

Agh. Shopping. You suck.

Reading:

Listening to:

  • Nothing by WTF with Marc Maron. Diablo Cody. Jeffrey Tambor. Paul Gilmartin (so awkward…) Weird Al.

Watching:

  • More LOST – on to Season 2!
  • Frasier (please don’t ask)
  • I finally watched Babies! Loved it.

 

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