Holiday

Jiminey Cricket, I need a vacation!  These five days of semi-freedom just aren't doing it for me.  I am super excited about the coming internship and my class next week, but I feel like I haven't had enough 'me' time in between.  Hence why I am writing this stupid blog instead of doing the necessary prep work for my conference call tomorrow morning.  Must... stop... stalling!  BLARGH!!!

The Birthday Song

Oh my gosh... I just bought Christopher the coolest birthday present ever!  Granted, he asked for a ukulele (he never requests gifts, so I jumped at the chance to fulfill his wish), but he wasn't expecting to get one of the most beautiful, well designed ukuleles on the market!  Don't worry, he doesn't read my blog, so my secret is safe with you.  Allow me to introduce you to the Oscar Schmidt OU7T Tenor Ukulele:

It comes with the best strings on the market (so say the enthusiasts), is handmade from the wood of a Spalted Mango tree, has ebony buttons, and is bound with abalone. I can't wait to get my hands... uh, Christopher's hands... on this thing! 


Chris's birthday is fast approaching - June 27 - and I have been wracking my brain, trying to think of amazing ideas for his party.  Ideally, we would have a barbecue in the park, but we are lacking in one essential element: a grill.  There goes that plan.  Idea number two involves a bunch of good friends, alcoholic beverages, and an open, well-lit setting where we could all hang out for a few hours.  I've got a couple of places in mind, but nothing perfect yet.  He's turning 33 this year, which means he's (thankfully) over the initial shock of being in his 30s, but still needs to feel energetic and fun.  I, being the birthday nut, am more excited about having a party than he is.  ;)


All of this talk about birthdays has got me thinking about my own.  In a few short months I'll be 28 years old!  I love aging.  There's something so refreshing about constantly changing, maturing, and learning. I finally got my first wrinkle a few weeks ago, and am super excited despite the fact that my husband and friends keep assuring me it doesn't count.  I can't wait to see what I look like as a white haired, shriveled up old lady!  It's going to be awesome!


I usually throw myself a birthday party every year, but this year I'm feeling particularly nostalgic and adventurous.  I want to go to New York City.  I haven't been since I moved back to Florida, and I miss it terribly.  I have a love/hate relationship with that place, and I could never have lived there on a long term basis, but there is something about it that makes me feel completely connected with the world and myself.  It's hard to describe unless you've been there, and if you haven't yet then you are absolutely invited to come with me in September!  I'm making some money from my summer internship, and I have a few friends with whom we can stay.  Seriously, I desperately need a vacation full of friends, strangers, food, and shopping.  The time is now!

Don't Stop Believing

It is a bittersweet pill to take, realizing that you are no longer who you were. In fact, the me of two years ago probably wouldn't recognize who I am now. Not that I'm saying there was anything wrong with who I was then, but I had no idea what I was capable of.  I didn't consider myself the academic/college type.  I took my retail jobs WAY too seriously, because I genuinely thought I had no other career options. I was still desperately clinging to my single self, afraid to fully embrace my marriage. And I had surrounded myself with people who were exactly like me, to validate the person I thought I was. Something about completely separating myself from my home town and starting over really changed my perceptions regarding life, love, and possibilities. I have come a long way in a short amount of time, and I do love the person (student, wife, woman, and professional) that I have become.

Last week a friend from back home stayed with us, and it was wonderful spending time with her.  We laughed, drank, and ate until our stomaches and wallets couldn't take it anymore.  But, despite the fun and games, I found myself struggling to relate to her the same way I used to.  It was like, she was exactly the girl I remembered, but I wasn't the person she expected me to be.  I couldn't, in good conscience, bitch about the man in my life, or complain about the "joys" of working retail.  Most importantly, I couldn't pretend to be the ditzy, clumsy, bubbly girl that she remembered.  In fact, one night we went out for drinks, and the next morning she said something like, "I'm really surprised you didn't get sicker last night!  I was expecting to have to carry you home like usual." Just hearing that made me shudder a little bit. Is that who I was?  Sadly, yes, but we were all young and stupid once. Gladly, I feel like I've finally become the mature adult I always wanted to be, but was too afraid to admit.

I feel like, despite these realizations and monumental shifts in priorities, I still have no idea how to bring who I am now to who I knew then.  When I go home for the holidays or friends come out here, I incur a huge amount of cognitive dissonance.  I literally don't know how to act.  I know who my family and friends expect me to be, and I know enough psychological theory to realize that they will perceive me in that way forever no matter how I behave. However, I still want to express who I really am in a way that they will see and understand.

Often times I think about the friends of mine who went off to college right out of high school and actually finished their degrees in a normal timeline.  Many of them are working on graduate school now and have fantastic jobs that they are proud of. I wonder if they thought about me the same way I'm thinking about my other friends now.  I genuinely ponder whether or not they had trouble relating to me, because I had no idea what they had been through and how capable they were. They must have, at least a little bit, because now I feel like they are some of my favorite people to talk to.  I finally get it, and can relate to them on a different level than before.

There is no real point to this blog (is there ever?), except to say that life is tough, and, at times, isolating. It is up to all of us to figure out who we really are, and keep that realization in our hearts and minds, despite how others might perceive us (or how we perceive them perceiving us). I could pull a Carrie Bradshaw and end with a semi-thoughtful question, but I think I've said it all. Love you guys!

We Belong

Phew!  This school term is finally over, and I could not be more relieved.  Don't get me wrong, it was great fun; I met a lot of new and interesting people and gained a lot of practical experience. However, there is one thing that regrettably took a back-burner over the past few months: my marriage. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to balance the different areas of my life, as I become more involved in school and make new friends.  This term alone I probably clocked about fifty hours per week on campus, working on projects and attending classes and meetings. When I was home I was usually in decompress mode, meaning that I would immediately veg out by tinkering around online or by watching movies/television (much like I'm doing now).

The truth is, marriage is work.  It's fun work, but work all the same. Christopher is a wonderful, supportive husband, and he does a great job of keeping me in check when I start to lose my mind, but I have to be careful not to take him for granted. There are things that I might not want to do, but that I have to do as a symbol of my commitment to making us work (i.e., doing the dishes, even when I'm exhausted; scooping the litterbox from time to time; and/or stepping away from an important email, because Christopher wants to tell me a story from his day). All of these things are, of course, totally worth it in the long run.  He and I are committed to each other forever, and, to quote one of my favorite movies, "forever is an awfully long time." Truth is, I love the guy. That's all I really need to remember. I'm happy when he's happy, and vise versa.

So, I fully intend on spending the next week and a half spending time with him. My hope is to do some serious hiking, cooking, and cleaning over the break, while simultaneously helping a good friend find a new "boy toy." Next term will come soon, so my time is limited to get my priorities back in check. Next term I am taking three courses, working as a peer advisor for the psychology department, acting as vice president for the psychology club, and hopefully working as a TA for one of my professors from this term. That being said, the end is in sight (I should graduate in December 2010), and Christopher will be around long after my career as a student has ended.  My marriage needs to be priority number one.  For those of you who know me, please make sure I remember that fact when my head starts spinning around from all of my other responsibilities. I thank you in advance.

Against All Odds

I never thought I would be the kind of person to come home at night, after a long day of work and stress, and pour myself a pinch of liqueur to ease my nerves. In fact, the first night I felt absolutely scandalous! Me?  Drink alone?  I mean, I could justify a glass of red wine (it's good for your heart right?!), but liqueur... that's a different bag altogether.  Well, friends, let me tell you, Chamomile liqueur is a godsend! The relaxing properties of the chamomile, mixed with the mulled-spice taste of Christmas... it's like a glass full (not full... barely full) of comfort.

Now, don't get me wrong. This term has been wonderful so far! I am working on a variety of highly educational, community interactive, experience-laden projects.  Case in point:

• I am working on a two-person research team that is responsible for coding 400 participant responses to the same complex math problem, in order to assess participants' levels of confirmation bias (people deciding what they think the answer should be, and then skewing their work to back-up that answer) and patterns of information "clumping" based on both their answers and their provided mathematical evidence.  
• I am also working as part of a consulting team for the Oregon Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC). We are conducting research on the links between pornography and sexual aggression with the purpose of providing effective recommendations for an anti-pornography curriculum installment, which will potentially be implemented in high schools in the Portland Metro area next school year. 
• I am a member of a small consulting group (me and 2 ex-marines) that is working with the Vikings basketball team to assess current player motivation levels and coaching strategies, with the goal of making effective recommendations to the head coaches to improve players' motivation levels during practices and games next season. 
• And, last but not least, I am researching my passion: psychological studies on the effects of social support and dietary restrictions on the quality of life of people living with Celiac Disease. I have actually been researching this topic for months now, but, conveniently, the final project for my Health Psychology course is an annotated bibliography on a medically-relevant psychology topic of our choosing.  It is a nice excuse to gather information and create writing samples for my potential graduate school applications.

So, in a nutshell, all of this work on top of my normal class reading assignments has me sort of frazzled.  I am fortunate to have such a loving, supportive, understanding husband right now.  I don't think that either of us were expecting me to work this hard until grad school.  However, my resume has quickly transitioned from retail to consultation/psychology, and I have met many new and interesting people outside of PSU during this process. And, honestly, just writing all of it out in this blog makes me feel better and instantly more organized.  After a while all of these groups and research projects meld into one big glob of mush in my brain. 

So, I deserve some liqueur every now and then, right?  Yeah, I thought so! 

Ain't No Sunshine

Okay, okay... I haven't posted anything in a long time.  I'm sorry!  I've never been one of those people who can keep a steady diary.  I haven't had that burning sensation to unleash my feelings in text since I was nineteen. In fact, that is the last time I had a consistent diary.  And thankfully for you, my dedicated blog audience, I hung on to that delightful piece of my past.  In traditional nineteen-year-old-just-graduated-high-school style, it is all about boys, friends, boyfriends, and "what the heck am I going to do with my life" passages.  Here are some of my favorite tidbits (those of you who knew me then might get a kick out of this):

January 13, 2001 - I don't think I've ever had so many guy-friends at one time, and not a decent boyfriend in the lot. I miss having a relationship.  I'm afraid that the more time I spend hanging out with boys and not kissing any of them, the less attractive I'm becoming as a girlfriend.  Ugh, I hate sounding lonely and desperate.

July 16, 2001 - Things I could do with my life: teacher (any level), movie critic, food critic, musician (singer), business manager, shop owner, party coordinator, caterer, artist, poet, or actress.  With a list like this, how am I ever going to decide?!

July 21, 2001 - Once upon a time, there was a girl who desperately wanted to leave the state she was born and raised in to pursue her education and start anew. Unfortunately, her mother strongly disagreed with the idea, calling it "stupid" and "unreasonable." So, the girl's dreams were crushed and she gave up all hope of ever discovering herself in the world.  The end.

August 11, 2001 - My birthday is three weeks from today!  I'll be 19!  Too old!  I'm not ready to grow up. The rest of my life scares me. I've decided to change my major to either music or art.

-

In 2006, when I moved back from New York, I found this diary hiding in my old bedroom. It made me laugh to read all of my old dreams and ambitions (or lack thereof), and it was funny to think that I still had all of the same friends and feelings that I did five years prior. In September of 2006, I began writing in the diary again, and as I read those entries now (3+ years later) they remind me that keeping a journal is a wonderful way to store memories.  I wish that I could commit to writing in one again.  Maybe I will.

-

September 22, 2006 - I have a date on Saturday night!  Can you believe it? It's the first time I've liked a guy in four years.  Or, rather, the first time I'm going on a real date in four years.  I've liked a few guys.  But I digress... His name is Christopher, and he's a 29 year old cameraman.  He has his own apartment, a job, and a cat. I think I might really like him, which is obvious because I'm breaking my "no dating until I move out of Florida" rule to go out with him. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.  My new rule is that I come first.  I am not allowed to abandon my life goals again for a guy, no matter what.

September 26, 2006 - I went on my second date with Chris last night, and it was fantastic.  I really like him.  It's hard not to fall too fast into this one.  He's so honest (albeit a little self-loathing), trustworthy, passionate, and intense.  Not to mention extremely sexy.  I think I am in way over my head here, and I'm enjoying every second of it.

-

I totally need to start a new journal.  It's so fun walking down memory lane!  Thanks for letting me drag you alongside.  Sometimes it is fun to entertain company in Nostalgiaville.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

Well, we have been back in Florida for two whole weeks now.  At this point, I have transitioned from confident Portlander to twitchy houseguest to full-blown Floridian again.  Portland seems like it was just a distant dream at this point, but, thankfully, it also retains a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel aspect (much like it did before we moved there).

We are Borg.  We have been assimilated.  Resistance is futile.

More to come.