can this day go any slower

The time is dragging by...usually by this time in the afternoon zips by seeing as how I feel as though I need to buckle down so that it looks like I've accomplished something, but this afternoon is creeping along at snail pace. I suppose not filling my time with searching out JET interview tips is leaving me at a loss for work distractions. Speaking of my interview, I feel slightly more confident about it than last year. I wouldn't say I nailed it, but I don't feel like I bombed it either. Who knows, watch me not even make it on the alternate list this year. I have no idea how many applicants they've had, or how many they are accepting. Like last year, I'm assuming the competition is still pretty tight due to the economy, and current JETs are probably sticking it out longer. I should probably figure out a plan B though in case the news isn't good. My co-worker was trying to convince me this morning to go to dental hygienist school with her. I've thought about it before, I mean, you make good money (like 2x as much as I do now), I could pay off my debt, then ease into the life of art and leisure that I desire. Hmmm, I may have to research this more.

The weather here has been quite lovely and mild the past few weeks, feeling as though spring may actually be around the corner. Of course I'm sure in a week or so March will dump a crapload of snow on us as per usual, but at least the temps are bearable. I spent v-day crashing in on my newlywed bud's (Sally and Michael) love-fest in Chicago, so that I could interview the following day. I was too preoccupied with my impending interview to think about how I'm destined to be alone for this and every future Valentine's day.

I'm losing the battle with my bulge I feel. As I continue to gravitate toward the form of the quintessential chubby girl, I've been half-heartedly attempting a go at weight watchers after seeing my roommate successfully lose over 10 lbs that she didn't need to on the program. Unfortunately one night of indulgence can pretty much use up all your flex, and things that I've been eating that I thought were pretty healthy eat up my "points" faster than one would think, so I can't say I've been doing too diligent about it. Oh, and the booze, my almost nightly couple beers or couple glasses of wine take up a quarter of my allowed points! Throw in a weekend in Chicago and the annual fondue party and I pretty much am a porker. I finally got myself a kettlebell, and have been attending some kettlebell classes as well. Good lord, if I never do a turkish sit-up again it will be too soon. The left side of my body is significantly weaker than my right. So my portliness, along with my recent bout of adult acne has got me feeling none too sexy.

Well, I had a decent session with my shrink last week. We talked about my interview and how I could try to convey more confidence, then had some awkward silence, then I brought up some other stuff that sparked decent interactions.

Other than that work still pretty much sucks. I feel like my co-worker is always talking smack about me and I feel loads of resentment towards her. I've decided she despises me because her husband flrits with me at work events. Well, he flirts with a lot of people, but I'm young and unmarried so it probably grabs her attention more when he flirts with me. I've been overall mostly successful at quitting smoking, averaging about one cig a week, that pretty much disgusts me as soon as I start smoking it, but I feel bad not finishing it since then I've wasted a cigarette.

shrinky-dink

It's that time of year again. In a little over a week from now I will once again suffer through my JET interview. One would think that since I've been through it once, I would feel more prepared, but I don't. I can only hope that I can be a bit more relaxed and confident seeming, at least I have a better idea of what they might ask me, I think anyways.

I started seeing a shrink again. I don't understand what it is about shrinks that make me cry, but they get me every time. When I talk about the same issues with my pals who I'm more comfortable with I don't -usually- get weepy. Anywho, I've only seen her a couple times thus far, and once again, I feel like I'm just not cut out for therapy. I have such a difficult time opening up. This particular shrink claims she's less cognitive-behavioral (which I don't really care for), and that she will get to the "core" of my issues and who I am, which sounded fine by me. I must be pretty daft though, because during our last session she kept asking me where I think my negative self-talk comes from, so I say likely from my negative and not especially supportive family and growing up experience. This answer is apparently not good enough as she keeps asking me over and over again saying that she isn't me and therefore doesn't know, meanwhile, I can't come up with any better answer, and the shrink consequently tells me that I don't know myself very well. This may be true, but I felt offended, as well as a little stupid that I couldn't get what she was asking. Well, I guess I'll see how my next appt. goes. I seem to find something wrong with all shrinks though so I'll probably ditch this one too.

just swell

Ah goodness. Guess I haven't felt like updating my blog much lately...what does need some serious updating is my flickr account.

A couple weeks ago I was certain that I needed to see a shrink as the funk was taking over. This week I'm feeling considerably better. We shall see how long that lasts. It seems lately that my funk likes to fall by the wayside only to come back with a vengeance in a few days.


So I started tutoring for some extra cash. I tutor math to a brother and sister. The boy is autistic and I, you know, have zero training or experience with special needs kids. However, after the first couple sessions where I was totally freaked out that I was going to do a terrible job, I definitely feel more comfortable with him and I think he does with me, and he is actually easier to tutor than his sister at the moment (and quite hilarious with all the random stuff he says). When he grasps a concept he's pretty much got it down and will work diligently, whereas his sister claims everything is hard and gets easily distracted.

Anywho, my regular job has a lovely vibe of negativity at pretty much all times. Everyone is disgruntled over something or another. We had a co-worker who took advantage of the flexibility here, so another employee complained to HR, and now we have no flexibility. Also, after 8 years of employment and never requesting any time off at thanksgiving or Christmas, I decided to put in a request for the days prior to Christmas this year, thinking that I've put my time in, and I was surprisingly granted my vacation. Oh, what an uproar that created, I think for 2 weeks straight all I heard about was people obsessing over holiday hours, and how I can't get time off next Christmas because I got it this year, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, the people b**ching about it still managed to get practically the whole week of Christmas off. The one that really chaps my hide though is my co-worker who took the whole week of Thanksgiving off, who asked for it off MONTHS prior, and probably mentions at least twice a week, for the past two month how I GOT CHRISTMAS OFF, she is clearly bitter about it. I'm like wait a minute, you obviously wanted Thanksgiving off since you asked for it off in the summer, and now you also want Christmas off?? Talk about a holiday hog!! I know that the fact that I am a spinster and haven't born children makes it look like I shouldn't have any obligations to anyone during the holidays, but news flash, I have a family too. A ridiculous and dysfunctional family that I'm not always keen on hanging out with, but there are some members of it, such as my sister, brother, niece, nephew and bro-in-law that I do enjoy seeing and only see at most twice a year. Even though my sister is bonafide nutso, I still like her and her family.

This same co-worker is the one who feels the need to belittle me by double checking my work because once I made one error and I don't feel the need to do completely unneccessary tasks that she deems important.

Lets see, what else...I had a surprisingly pleasant Thanksgiving with my Pa and stepmom, which I thought would be awkward because I other than my stepbrother, who was there about an hour, I was the only child to come home. It is well known that my dad and I aren't exactly the chatty types...in general, and certainly not to each other, but the conversation flowed with only moderate awkwardness. I was dissapointed to see that our huge maple tree in front of our house had to be taken down, the house looks naked without it.

I recently thought that I had almost lost 10 lbs, but then the next time I weighed myself I had put back on 3, keeping me steady at where I've been for a couple months now. I shouldn't complain since I still weigh less than I did this summer, when I had porked up to my heaviest in probably five years.

Oh, I was recently at a party where the boy who broke my heart was also in attendance (along with girlfriend). He completely ignored me which was super, but then I saw him a week or so later at another event and he told me he had sent me a message just hours before asking if I wanted to get that elusive drink sometime, to which I responded okay, and then wrote him back to set something up and ....nothing. I don't get it, he could have just continued to ignore my presence and I would just have carried on. Instead he claims to want to hang out with me and I have this glimmer of hope for some closure, but alas, it is but a pipe dream. Ah well, he is moving away soon so that's good, his presence is just a lovely reminder of the consistent rejection.

I've also had the pleasure of watching my roommate be asked out men that I also find attractive, while I meanwhile get no advances from attractive men, and continue to pathetically pine for aforementioned boy, even with all his flaws and jerkish behavior, oh, and the fact that he has clearly moved on, like 2 years ago.

*sigh*

dedicated to Susie Q

I am eight years old and it is Christmas Eve. Having endured the long day of anticipation, as well as the torture that is my mother's traditional oyster stew, I was ready and waiting by the lit tree. Like most children of the 80's, I have hope that my coveted talking cabbage patch is one of the neatly wrapped packages under the tree. Being the youngest and most eager, I wait for the rest of my family to join me while sensing that I should try to hide my greed. My parents and siblings take their time at supper, seemingly on purpose just to irk me. Finally, they file in and the opening of gifts can commence. Not wanting to blow my wad on gift one, I begin with the gifts that I know are kinda the filler gifts...barbie, clothes, a board game, etc. Then I get to the one from my parents that I'm certain is my cabbage patch. I open it and become the proud adoptive parent of Susie Q. or whatever I ended up naming her. Dad has batteries on hand so that I could interact with my child post haste. Now, my parents, while well meaning folk, are terrible at expressing love and affection in either a verbal or physical sense. In essence...I was not hugged much as a child, in fact I only remember one instance where I hugged my dad and that was because I was told to by some Tae kwon do master and I felt obligated to, and it was awkward. Actually, I think my dad's love language may be gift giving, 'cause he was sure jovial when he stuck those batteries in my new doll. Everyone was watching as my baby's on switch was flipped and she uttered her first words..."hug me". Huh?, what was this form of affection known as a hug? There my family sat, grinning and staring, as though we sat around giving each other back rubs while watching Family Ties and that hugs were apart of our normal routine. The doll was relentless in its request, so sheepishly, I was forced to give it an awkward and half hearted hug so that it would shut up. Eventually, I would lose its sippy cup as well, so not only was my doll deprived of physical affection, but it would constantly complain of being thirsty. To this day I believe my experience with my talking cabbage patch has directly influenced my lack of desire to have children.

This post is written for the Great Experiment, if you feel so inclined, vote for me, thanks!

lazy is as lazy does

I am trying to get motivated enough to at least accomplish a spot of exercise today. After a long and busy weekend during which I exhausted myself, I finally have a day off with no agenda. Well, I had a few items on my agenda, such as cleaning my ridiculously cluttered room, exercising and attempting to fix my car door handle that I stupidly dented in/broke off by miscalculating my ability to park in a space between two pillars at -you guessed it- trader joes.

However, at this very moment, laying on the sofa and watching this bizarre early October snow fall through the window, I'm finding the prospect of getting bundled up to get to the gym rather daunting. I've become rather adept at falling asleep in bars lately. Let's see, Friday was spent preparing for, and then hosting our Oktoberfest party, which was cold but successful. Stayed up til after 4 a.m., woke up around 9 a.m., did some cleaning, went to breakfast with the roommates and friends, did some more cleaning, watched a movie with the roommates, dozed off for approx. 15 min. during movie, went to attempt to nap in own bed, after 10 min. was woken by phone call from friend asking when we were going to zombie pub crawl, got up to get zombie-fied for zombie pub crawl, picked friend up for pub crawl, walked in the 40 something degree weather with friend dressed as zombies amongst thousands of others dressed as zombies, acquired brain anxiety, consumed one pbr, lost energy, met up with other zombie friend, ate chipotle, attempted to pub crawl to 2 other establishments before deciding it was too cold and exhausting to fight the crowds, went home, showered, debated for several minutes about attending show at beloved local bar that will be closing soon to see local bands that I am fond of, decided to go, ordered a coffee which clearly irritated bartender, sat and chatted with friend on phone so that people who clearly have friends would think that I have friends even though I was alone, waited for an hour for music to start, enjoyed first band while standing in a corner trying not to draw attention to the fact that I was there alone, continued to stand in corner while waiting for second band to set up, started dozing off WHILE STANDING, decided I should probably go to bed, felt dissapointed that I was being lame and going home, but excited to sleep, awoke early to go to work, dozed off while sitting at desk, debated on going to church or napping after work, chose napping, went home, napped, went to friends house to watch Twins lose to the Yankees, ate copious amounts of soup, watched mermaid girl after Twins defeat, started to doze off, went home, watched dude from Korn on the christian station talk about his conversion, fell asleep prior to hearing about actual conversion, woke up at 3 a.m. and went to bed.

So that was my weekend in one long, hard to read nutshell.
Gah! Soap opera's or gym! I'm also slightly sniffely which is making me even more lazy, justifying that I should rest so I don't get full blown sick, but I also don't want to get full blown fat! Blast!

Uggh, my computer is so ridiculously slow. I was going to attempt to wipe my hard drive, but after some research I got scared to attempt it myself. Some computer tech I contacted said an increase in RAM would help also, and is cheaper, so I think I'll do that instead.

whoops

I'm pretty sure I missed my blogiversary again.

So, after spending 6 hours on Sat. looking for appropriate flapper style attire to wear to the 1929 party I was attending at which a young gentleman that I have a slight crush on was supposed to also attend, well, it was a major bust. Not only did I not find a suitable dress, but the object of my affections was not in attendance at said party.

Man, costumes totally stress me out. We are having an Oktoberfest party on Fri. and my pal is trying to convince me to be a slutty German bar wench. I'm not really too keen on this idea as I don't want to fear folks getting an eyeful if I bend over slightly. Nor do I have any motivation to try to come up with a costume for Halloween. Besides, I don't think I can top my boy george costume from last year.

It has been horrible weather here...cold, rainy, for like 2 weeks now. We are trying to be hardy and thrifty and have yet to turn on our heat also, so it's freezing in our house. Sure makes one excited for winter.

Thanks to those who voted for me in the blog contest that I wrote the previous post for. I think all but one vote that I got was from somebody that I did not coerce into voting for me so I'm encouraged by that. Nor have I seemed to gain any more readership than I previously had...oh well.

The floodgates

It happened the summer following my freshman year of high school. My two sisters, brother and myself were on a sibling camping adventure. On our agenda...whitewater rafting. I'm neither athletic nor adventurous, therefore the prospect of whitewater rafting sent my heart a-palpitating. When we found ourselves running late the morning that we were to embark on this endeavor, I felt hopeful. The frenzy to arrive at our destination had left no time to pee. Noelle sped the car along and barked at me to change into my swimsuit, she'd glance furtively at me in the rear view mirror with furrowed brow to make sure I was complying. Sweaty and terrified that my brother might look back and catch an eyeful, I attempted to shimmy into my suit in a manner that showed as little skin as possible. Much to my chagrin we made it just in time. Of course, by this time, the urge to pee was steadily increasing. The rushing water, jostling, and gripping fear of our raft flipping, consequently sending me downstream to crash into sharp objects, was not helping. We managed to make it through unscathed.

Afterwards, Romaine wanders off to relieve herself in some disgusting latrine in the woods. By this time I had to pee something fierce, but I'd be damned if I'd subject myself to a stanky biffy. I was certain I could hold it. We waited what seemed like a millenium for the crew to load the gear, and I felt a trickle run down my leg. Seconds later the floodgates opened and and no amount of clenching could close them. I stood there as the urine escaped my bladder, seemingly in slow motion, while I looked at my siblings with desperation and embarrassment. At the age of 13, I had wet myself.



This post is written for the Great Experiment, feel free to vote for me, topic is embarrassing moment if you couldn't tell.