just a few days!

So, to keep myself peppy, I'm reminding myself of a few happy days coming up really soon:
March 12- pack clinic with gramps
March 21 - spring break!
March 28 - first day of spring term
April 29 - my sister's 22nd birthday
May 28 - Stacy & Mike's birthday
May 30 - memorial day holiday!
June 11- Kailee comes home!!
June 13 - Kailee graduates
June 18 - Danielle & Leon's wedding
June 24 - my 20th birthday!
July 15 - my sister's 24th birthday
Sometime in august/september - Wendie & Mark's wedding

Annnnnnd to keep me happy til then,
I'm just gonna keep laughing of this picture my sister found of me :

enjoy!

It's that time of year again....

Or should I say "time of term"??

Yep, good ol' final time. The last three weeks of the term equalling three weeks of pure, unadulterated hell in the forms of essays, final exams, oral presentations, and group projects.

You wanna know the funny part? I just handed in my last midterm two weeks ago. This is an incredibly backloaded term, with the papers piling higher and higher. Yes, I know I semi asked for it when I signed up as an English major, but c'mon people! I have two papers due this Tuesday, an "online scavenger hunt" due a week from Wednesday, a Spanish composition and oral exam that same week, a meeting or launching party or whatever we're calling it at the state capitol a week from Tuesday, then two final exams and two final essays. I feel like Jan Brady screaming "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" except I'd be screaming "Papers, papers, papers!"

at least I'm giving myself a break soon. March 12, I'm taking 2 friends home with me so that they can help out at my grandpa's pack clinic. Where there's a lot of cowboys. all day long. and delicious chili, cornbread, and peach cobbler, all made in Dutch ovens. yummmmm.

So here's to dreaming of March 12, to hold my sanity intact.

(oh yeah, and spring break. except i'm getting my braces readjusted at 9:30 on that monday. oh a spring break full of pain and boredom....goody.)

i'm walkin' on sunshine...

whooooa. and don't it feel good!

today rocked. well, not so much the traipsing home in pouring snow, but more on that later.

last night, my best friend since 7th grade turned twenty. which means i'll be twenty in a few months. yikes. but anyways.... since she hit the double-decade, i figured a trip down home to the eug was necessary. after all, she's practically my sister. and her and her boyfriend are two of my favorite people. who could resist a night with the funny couple? so i hopped on I5 and away i went. we hit mcmanimen's north bank for dinner - delicious as always. except the cheesecake. that was weird. we each took about one bite and didn't like it, but i wasn't about to waste a six dollar slice of cheesecake. i essentially destroyed it, scraping off the uberthick crust and the weird, hard marionberry topping. the cheesy part was delicious :)

anyways. that was my night. today started a little before 7 am (ugh) thanks to the lovely kitten, Miles, jumping on my face. then it was up, quick change, and out the door to be home by 9. once home, grabbed a quick bite and a sweatshirt with a hood, then dashed off to the registrars office. at our university (and i think most universities, but i'm not 100% sure...) you have to fill out a petition to take more than 18 credits. this crazyhead right here is taking 24 next term. (bring on the stress and lack of sleep. i'll be able to graduate in four years because of it!) so i dashed into the office to drop off my petition and then it was off to one of my favorite classes, spanish con Eduardo, the best teacher i think i've ever had for the language. he may tie with my 100 series teacher though.... okay back on track. so i registered in the middle of class (thank you, university, for picking the most inconvinient times for me, and thank you verizon for a phone that can access my registration website) and got into 4 out of my 6 classes. one fo the 4 lit classes i'm taking requires a pre req of ENG 254, which i'm taking next term. luckily, i had that professor last year and she signed me into her american: 1920's class. then after a hilarious linguistics class (the presenting group had a welcome video of one of the guys' cats talking in a funny accent about their subject), it was off to beg the linguistics 450 professor to let me into the class. i met him during his office hours, and said i wanted in the class. he mentioned it was full (it closed 5 freaking minutes before i registered.) and that he had a wait list. somehow he mentioned the readings, and i mentioned that i had emailed him 3 weeks ago about the reading list for the class. he went "oh yeah! you're the first person on my waiting list! here, i'll sign you in."


and that is how being a nutter gets you ahead in life.

then it was time to dash to the library and copy a play for english. two hours and $9.50 (it's 5 cents per copy. yeah, the play is THAT FREAKING LONG) later, it was time to do the 100 yard dash to my house through pouring snow. You know you're cold when snow lands on you and doesn't melt. then it's shower, off to meet mom for coffee (and a cute new mug to use for our coffee dates, thanks again mama!) then run to work. where i currently am, avoiding my homework that i need to get started on. at least for the 20 minutes it took me to write this.

oh and to top it all off, i got to work and recieved an email from my boss telling me that she did the insurance checks and that she has not had to correct a single entry i made. she literally said "Thank you for doing a great job". it made my day. and made me smile. i love encouraging notes from the boss!!


now off to keep getting ahead. have a great day!

and for your listening pleasure:

Oh this may be a tad vain....

I have a goal.
And it may seem a little narcissistic but oh well.

What is this vain goal?

I want to own a copy of every edition of Johanna Spyri's Heidi.

Yep, that's right. I have 2 editions of it already, but my goal is to own all the different covers at least.
(How cool would it be to have a collage of all the different covers for my wall?? I wanna make one now! Maybe I can get an artsy friend to help....hmmm....now the wheels are spinning...)

I also want to own all the different versions of the movie (Shirley Temple versus Disney, anyone?)

Yes, the collection of books all titled Heidi may appear vain to any visitors, but I don't care. How many people do YOU know have a book with the same name as them, much less a Shirley Temple movie??!!

Now if only I had unlimited funds and/or incredibly gracious friends/family...

Here's to have a goal :)

some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs

what's wrong with that?

I know I'm a few days behind on the whole Valentine's Day post (whoops!)

but it has been a crazy week!

This silly girl didn't have any special Valentine,

but I spent the evening with my roommate and one of my good friends, Kristin,

watching 27 Dresses (because who doesn't love a good dose of James Marsden??)

and the super adorable Lilo & Stitch.

I mean, who can ever say no to watching the adorable blue alien say

"This. is. my. family.

It may be small,

and broken,

but still good.

Yes, still good.

Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind."

Oh, and the classic pickle scene.

Don't know it?

Here ya go:

Gotta love Lilo!

And Pudge the fish-

besides a minor flood in the apartment,

Valentine's day rocked!

My roommate's parents bought me a Valentine,

I got a 94% on my Linguistics midterm (booyah!)

annnd I only had to bear through one lovey dovey couple grossness in front of me.

The rest of the week blew:

1) got a 70 on my Spanish test :(

2) found out I can't get out of my gym membership until the end of April

3) pretty sure I bombed my English midterm

4) had a 1500 word minimum midterm due today

5) handed in a handwritten half-done contextual essay draft in History. luckily the prof didn't seem too upset.

tomorrow is going to be run-run-run,

but Saturday I get to go down home and spend an evening baking with one of my "other" sisters, Shauna

and (hopefully) Sunday I can relax after work & running someone back to their house in Portland

have a wonderful weekend!

imma gonna be an aunt!

That's right! My brother Dan's girlfriend is in labor as I write this, and hopefully soon I'll get to meet my new niece, Natalie Fern. This is my second niece, as my brother Jeff has a little girl who will be turning three this year, but this time the niece is on my dad's side of the family!

*side note: these are my stepbrothers, for those of you who don't know my family. Dan is my stepmom's son, Jeff is my stepdad's son*

Despite everything that's gone down with my family in the past several months, I'm really excited to see this little girl. I'm hoping I get to see her a lot more than I've gotten to see my soon-to-be 3-year-old niece. I want to be the cool aunt, but there's a lot of us competing for that title! Dan has three sisters, and Jayne, the mother, has a lot of sisters as well (at least 3, but I'm still not sure who's what in relation to her. she has a big family)

The biggest excitement (sadly) for me is that now that each side of the family has a granddaughter, the pressure is off of me to suddenly want kids!! Sorry, Mom, but Jeff's daughter is probably it, unless Casey decides he wants kids! (Casey is my other stepbrother, Jeff's brother)

Soon I'll be leaving work on my way to meet Natalie! Hurray!

today is a good day

no, scratch that. today is a GREAT day!

you may be wondering what happened to the mumphy girl who wrote the whiny weepy post last night.

she did good. that's what happened.

today started off with a failed lunch date (weekly outing cancelled i'm assuming, since i have not heard from the friend i was supposed to meet). spent the morning watching Bones, Off The Map, and Grey's Anatomy (some favs), then finally got dressed and got tutored in Spanish around 1. after tutoring, it was off to Burgerville (only the most delicious as-healthy-as-fast-food-can-be Northwest based restaurant) to set up a fundraiser. then it was back home for the rest of Bones and half of 90210 (don't judge. i like my cheesy dramas. as well as the kick ass medical and crime shows) and getting ready for work. then dash off to coffee date number one (who doesn't love a nice italian soda at Rick's Place while chatting with a friend?), then dash off to coffee date number two (yeah i know, that's a lot of moolah on drinks to catch up with people. however, i can't say no to coffee with my mama. and by coffee i mean hot chocolate).

You're still waiting for the "doing good" part, aren't you?

Well, in between coffee dates, I happened to turn on the local country radio station, KRKT. (pronounce cricket, like the bug) Well, KRKT happens to be doing a telethon for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Sooo, I make a decision. I called in, and am now a Partner of Hope for St. Jude. I figure that since I've only used my gym membership once in the three months I've had it, I would take the $20 a month from that and "waste" it on a good cause. I would rather not feel guilty about not going to the gym, and there are millions of children who depend on St. Jude's. I did a good thing, and nobody is gonna guilt trip me about where my money is going.

So, today rocks.

holybeejebers

Since it's Thursday evening, and I have no classes on Fridays, I decided to procrastinate doing homework research a study abroad trip for my junior or senior year.

Do you have any idea how expensive study abroads are??? The price ranges from $9,500 to $18,000! I've barely got enough income to cover my school and living expenses as is, and that's aided by a HUGE student loan. We're talking debt up to my ears when I graduate. Insane.


I wish I could have known how expensive life was going to be before I leaped headfirst into it. I wish I had gotten a job in high school, saving every penny instead of going to every sporting event and spending money like it grew on trees. I wasted every dollar my parents gave me.

still, who expects a college student to be able to afford EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for a three month study abroad????



And the other craptastic moment of my life?
Friends disappearing.
Nobody has time to even send hello texts anymore.
Some are turning nasty for no apparent reason.
Some have gotten too snootypants to care anymore.
Some just fell off the grid, or are ignoring me.

Remember when you could share a funny joke with someone on the playground and you were instantly best friends for life? You couldn't wait to get to school to see them, to joke around, to play together? What happened to those days?
Not gonna lie, I'm getting really, really tired of  being the only person putting any effort into the friendships.
It's already stressful enough with school and work.
I don't need toxic "friends".

So here's to purging, detoxing, and letting go.
(and saving a crap ton of money to go to Spain)

I'm falling apart. I'm barely breathing.

There's nothing like a baby shower and your ride talking about moving in with her boyfriend to really drive home the fact that you're single.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't need to be with anyone to be happy. However, it does get a tad lonely after awhile.
It's been almost a year since my last "thing". That was merely a couple dates which resulted in me hurting a great guy because I was scared and let my friends' opinions get to me. Luckily, we managed to become good friends a few months later. He is currently with a girl he says is his soulmate (I don't believe in that concept, but it works for him) and I'm happy for him.
There was another day-long fling with an ex, which ended with me getting hurt because well, he's a jackass.

Other than those two, though, there's been absolutely nada. The last real relationship I had was back in sophomore year of high school, when I got my heart ripped to shreds and spat on. Sure, there were two temporary boyfriends in the last two years of good ol' CHS, but they only lasted two weeks each. I was afraid of relationships. I was afraid of anyone with a penis. I didn't want to hand over the power to hurt me again. I had made that mistake once, and I was not about to repeat it.

Now, though, I feel like I'm ready. I think I could handle a slow moving relationship, one that builds at a steady, slow pace. However, I go to a school where no men exist. The ratio of men to women here is 1:4. Of the few men that go here, about half swing the bat the other direction, and the rest are taken. Or assholes. Or come up to my chest. And what man wants a gigantor on his arm? Even the most well-balanced, self respecting man doesn't want a girl who is a good three inches taller than him flat footed, and I want to wear my heels on a date. I want to feel like a girl on a date, yet still be taken seriously.

Honestly,
 all I want is a kiss. I like kissing. I miss kissing. It's one of my favorite things. I don't need a boyfriend to do that. however, it does tend to require a male. especially when you are of the very straight persuasion like I am.

All in all,
I'm a little lonely. And it sucks. And I hate that it sucks. I don't need a man. I need the thought that maybe, someday, there could be a man. That I am desirable. that someone, somewhere, may want me for me. Someone who will be attracted not because I was attracted to them first, but rather they see me for who I am and who I want to be. They will want me for me. They won't think I'm pretty, they won't tell me I'm amazing. That's been done again and again. I hate being "cute" or "pretty". That makes me feel like I'm two years old.


Someday,

I'll be somebody's someone.

(thanks Grey's Anatomy for the excellent song that provided this post title.)

Believe. Dream. Peace.

Have you ever had a day where you questioned everything?

Me neither.

Today, however, I did question myself. I was at coffee with my mom, blabbering on as I tend to do, when a thought hit me.

"What the hell am I doing?!"

I have no idea. Honestly. I'm bound and determined to finish my double degree, but I'm killing myself to do it. Why? Who knows. It's just something I'm making myself do, just to prove that I can I guess. I have no idea how a literature minor will help with my career goals.

And yes. The career. Whenever I'm asked what I'm going to do with my majors in Spanish and Linguistics, I always reply that I want to translate, preferably for the government. What exactly does a translator do?

I have no freakin' clue.


Seriously. I've got no idea. What would I translate? What would I do every day?? How can I possibly want a career that I know nothing about?? What kind of crazy person does that?

It was like a brick wall hit me full force in Starbucks. I realized I need to pull my head together and figure out what the heck I'm doing.

Let me make a side note: I hate making future plans. I hate thinking further ahead than tomorrow. Ever since I was little, I've hated making plans. Now I'll venture a little further in my planner, making dates with friends at least a week or two in advance. I still hate thinking about next year though.

Back to my life plans - or lack thereof. I am attempting to figure out how I will finish my degrees, and I believe I will be in school at least one extra term, which means I would not get to walk with my fellow classmates. I hate that idea. I have grown close with so many people my age, and it would be severely disappointing to watch them walk and not be standing next to them, sharing in their excitement.

The only thing I can see holding me back would be the fact that as a Spanish major, it's practically a requirement that I do a study abroad. A semester long study abroad would take away my chance to cram classes in during the summer and fall terms. I'm afraid by taking a semester trip, I'll be putting myself behind in my studies. However, I'm afraid that not taking the trip will render my Spanish major entirely useless, as you can't completely comprehend a new language without living in an area where that is the primary language. My dream would be to study in Spain, as it is the one place I have always dreamed of visiting. Unfortunately, the cost of Spain is insane. So, my alternate destination (which my advisor is pushing for, since she grew up right by it) is Rosario, Argentina. I have met two girls who went there, and loved their experience. Argentina may be better for me cost wise, as well as aiding in my career choice. Once again though, I have no idea what my career entails.

Enter my uncle. He is a US Marshal, and my mother says he can help me get a job as soon as I graduate if I want. I think I want to attend graduate school, but I won't know what I want to do until senior year, if even then. I plan to start an email campaign of sorts, picking my uncle's brain, talking to my sister's incredible friend J. (he knows about 7 different languages fluently, including Portuguese, Arabic, French, Spanish, English, and more) about his job of translating books from Arabic to Portuguese, and attempting to get some answers from my state capitol (yeah, I know. Good luck with that)

Well, here goes nothing. Time to get to bed, then get my butt into gear on figuring out what I'm spiraling towards.



The post title is the titles of the three books displayed on my TV stand, the words and stories of Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr., and Gandhi, respectively.

Jealous

The green eyed monster has bitten.

That's right. I'm admitting to being jealous.

I'm jealous of many things. Of those who got to enjoy the gorgeous Library of Alexandria before it burned down. Of anyone has access to the Library of Congress. Of independent bookstore owners. Of anyone who has a house big enough to dedicate one room solely to books. (Hmmmm... I'm sensing a theme here...)

However, today the green is spreading over me for a new reason.

Earlier today, during my lunch break, I was hanging in the main Honors office because I was bored and the director, Gavin, is always hilarious. Well, another Honors student (whose name I don't know at all...), Gavin, and I were all discussing names, and Gavin decided to use Yahoo People search to see if anyone had the last name of Awesome. Lo and behold, there is some named Awesome Awesome, I kid you not. Search yourself.

Then, the topic of naming kids strange things lead into me mentioning that some celebrity named their kid Inspector. Which prompted mystery Honors kid to say, "Like, Go go gadget arm?!" which led to Gavin to search to see if anyone had named their kid Gogo Gadget. Sadly, no one exists with that name.....yet.

How does this make me jealous?

Hello, there is someone named AWESOME AWESOME. How could you NOT be jealous?
I mean, think about it. That person could never have a bad day. Their life just has to be awesome. How could it not?

(yes, this is how Honors students waste time at my school. plus one English professor/Honors Program director. Now you're jealous. .....right?)