amylicious!

It being the second anniversary of the release of RED (thanks to Facebook and Saskia for reminding me!), I thought that updating this blog sounded like a good idea. I'm already procrastinating anyway, so why not? I've been meaning to update anyway (earlier this past week, I think I told Amy G I'd update... so yeah.), here we go.

Oh, November. This semester has gone by remarkably fast. I can't believe I have only two-ish weeks to write my first draft for my American Indians class, and I really need to get cracking on my other paper about feminism and the fossil record! AHHHH CRAZINESS. Plus, Thanksgiving's coming up soon, which I'm super excited about—we're going to Washington D.C., then dining with my dad's cousin Gwen, and then spending some time in Philly (which, don't tell my roomie Lyndsey, I am excited about, as I've never been to Philly before). I honestly am kind of tired of this semester, anyway. I want to go home and chill and see my friends back home! The other day, I talked to Saskia on the phone, and after that got so homesick for friends and restaurants and general awesomeness. Winter break winter break winter break, I eagerly await you! (But don't come too soon, because I have papers to write still.)

I'm also participating once more in NaNoWriMo this year. I have no idea why. All of these papers that I need to write, how am I supposed to find the time to write 50,000 words?! GOOD GOD, WOMAN. But I reached 15,000 words last night, so hopefully I can get to 50,000 before Thanksgiving again, which is what I usually aim for (because let's face it, do I ever do anything productive over breaks? um, NO). I also really like my story a lot so far—definitely an improvement from last year, when what I wrote was so painful to think about that after I finished, well... lets just say that I haven't looked at it since. And I try not to think about it. Or else I get really twitchy and cringey and just generally embarrassed. Because it was that. bad. But anyway... yeah. I like my story this year, and even though I seriously think that I have forgotten how to write, overall it's going well. I think.

Last month, for fall break, my roommates and I went to Pittsburgh, which was super exciting. I had never been to Pittsburgh before, and we got to go to a Penguins game and everything! Oh, it was wonderful. Afterwards, we waited out in the freezing drizzle to try and meet Penguins players. Luckily, Fedotenko stopped and signed autographs and got a picture with Lyndsey. It was lovely. :D Before and after that, Lyndsey took us around Pittsburgh to her favorite places, which was awesome. I really, really liked Pittsburgh a lot, whee.

Well, I guess rather than think about what else I can include in this blog, I should get back to NaNoing/researching/doing other homework. Hey! If I think of anything else, maybe I'll blog again soon! ...yeah. Sure. Um. We'll see.

Happy birthday, RED! Yay! Maybe I'll read some of you later today :)

I wrote the first half of this during my lunch break between classes today (well, yesterday). The second half was, um, now. Late Friday night/early Saturday morning. So please do not fret over any discontinuities in time. If there are any. Who knows, we'll find out.

Well. I think I've neglected you long enough, dear RED blog. I'm terribly sorry. It's not even that I haven't had the time to update. I procrastinate plenty—surely I could have found time to update this sad, lonely, and very likely dusty blog. But no. Instead I seem to have devoted my life to FarmVille. Thanks, roomies. (I'm so close to buying a treehouse, you guys! Only two more FV cash to go!) (...don't judge me.)

Since I last updated... May ended. (Shocking!) As did June, July and August. September's more than halfway there, too. But as it's been such a crazy week, one that's finally winding down and is about to end (one more class!), I figure what the hey, let's beat October to the punch.

This summer, I think that I fell even more in love with Lexington. Volunteering at the Lexington History Museum, DJing on WRFL (88.1 Lexington, all the way to the left!), trying out new restaurants in the glorious downtown area (new to me, though, and of all ages to Lexington). Who cares if I couldn't get a job? This summer, for lack of a better phrase, rocked. Country fair, Bluegrass Fair, Kentucky Kingdom. Pride Prom, Pride Fest, LexGSA in general (the most amazing people EVER

(Oh, story time! You know how everyone has their own "when I got my license" story? Maybe mine trumps yours. Morning of my test, my dad makes me drive to the parking garage downtown where it starts and ends. I drive into the garage, to the ticket thingymawuter, and, well, with maybe a little distraction from my dad to blame (he admits it, so I'm taking it!), I don't exactly turn the wheel when I accelerate and hit a pole. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh god. My dad tells me to calm down, to not freak out, to just drive and park where I'm supposed to park for the test and then we'll assess the damage there and see what happens. And so I do, I park and I freak out a little more, thinking, "Oh my god, now the headlight's busted and I can't even take this stupid test, stupid, stupid!" My dad gets out of the car, checks it out, and... wtf. I seriously dented (like, SERIOUSLY, HORRIBLY) the car right next to the headlight, BUT SOMEHOW MANAGED TO AVOID THE LIGHT ALTOGETHER? WHAT? So I get out of the car, breathe, listen to my dad as he tells me to not freak out and just take the test, it's cool, it's cool, and I get everything set up inside and go wait in the car for the instructor guy. And I take the test. And I chat with the guy because what do you know, he has a daughter who lives in Worchester, Mass, so we talk about that, and he has a son who lives in Philly, so we talk about that, and we're totally bonding. And I get my license. Thirty minutes after driving the car into a pole in the parking garage where I started and ended the test. DON'T TELL ME I'M NOT AWESOME. But I digress.)

Then, at the end the summer, my family (mom, dad, nana, sister, and me!) headed out west to Montana. Missoula, to be specific. (Why, I even drove once or twice... shocking!) My sister started grad school out there, so we made a vacation of it to see her off. I have to say, I adore the west. Once you get away from the corn and the corn and the corn, suddenly you see sky and in the distance storm clouds erupting and miles and miles of road and earth. Its like a whole 'nother world out there, to use a common cliché. I only wish we could have spent more time out there—but what with the driving (Montana is far from Kentucky! FAR!), and the time restraints (parents only taking so much time off of work; Heather having to be there to move in, do paperwork stuff, whatever; needing to get back so I could see THE KILLERS on August 10th!!), it wasn't possible. However, just getting to see family I hadn't seen in years, and traveling through states I had never seen before (North Dakota! Minnesota! Wisconsin! All full of CORN!!) was pretty freaking awesome.

Now, I'm back at school. (About a month now, I have been.) And it's gotten a little intense so far already. Eighteen credits is definitely crazier than I thought it would be. A lot of reading. But it's all good, because they're good classes. I also have a job as a history department assistant, which is awesome—helping out the professors, doing projects for them, whatever they force me to do. Love it! I'll recap you all on my classes and job later in the semester, though, once I've really gotten involved in them.

I'm in an awesome quad (two rooms and a bathroom-turned-walk-in-closet!) with Brittany (last year's roomie) and Lyndsey (last year's honorary roomie), and our awesome international roommate, Daniela from Venezeula. She's fantastic. We all get along really well, and she's supersocial which is great. But not too social as to totally ignore us and never hang around the room, which is great, too. We talk and get along and I love her, she's wonderful!

What I've been sad about a lot this summer and into this semester, though, is that I really don't write a lot anymore. And I don't know why. And I miss it. But I can't seem to get back into it at all. Whenever I try, it lasts about a day and then I give up, move on, or forget about it. And I'm always thinking about it, definitely, stuff always going through my mind—characters, storylines, random phrases or sentences or ideas—but it never gets translated to paper or computer. Can anyone help me here? Can anyone help me figure out how to start again? Because it never works. And I hate it. Especially times like these, when I get back from something that makes me think about how much I miss it—a couple of slam poets came to Juniata tonight and blew me away, they were amazing—and how much I need to, want to, get back into it. Maybe it's because the environment's different—I'm no longer around a lot of other writerly friends, and I have so much other reading of textbooks and writing of papers to do for classes. But maybe it's really just that I'm lazy or procrastinatory or scared of starting yet another thing that I just can't seem to finish. Because I can never seem to finish anything unless I've got that deadline, that set schedule. I don't want to need a deadline for writing. It wouldn't seem genuine anymore. It would just seem... rushed. Dead. Like I'm trying too hard. I don't want writing to feel like that. But then again, it always seems to feel like that now.

So hey. Any tips? Any ideas? Any words of wisdom? This semester's gonna get tough, and it might be nice to have a way to release the stress and tension. A way other than wasting my life on FarmVille. Facebook gets old. Writing never does. Right?

I should go. Maybe help Brittany put together our psychedelic door design. Maybe take a shower. Maybe read or go to sleep. I'd like to say, "maybe write." But I don't really see that happening. (Yet? Ever? Bleh.) Time to put on some happy! And step away from this stress. For now, anyway.

Not that I don't like the month of May. I adore it! My birthday starts it off, ending my first year of college made it grand, and I got to sit in a car for, like, half of it (which, okay, is not all that fun, actually).

But seriously. It's still May? The end of May, sure. But it's still May?! This month feels as if it has dragged on foreverrrr. I feel like half of my summer has already passed, when in actuality it has not. And thank goodness because I'm still looking for a job, since I'm in desperate need of monies.

A lot has gone on this month since I last updated the day after my birthday, which I guess might explain why this month has felt so long. Here's a nice little bulleted list:

• I stayed up until 3:30 the morning before I left school to finish two papers. Then I spent another half hour packing up more of my room (and even though the styrofoam that came in my printer box kept squeaking like crazy, my roommate managed to sleep through my loudness), and decided that it was time to go to bed. Since I had to wake up at 8:30am. My dad and I then packed up the rest of my room, I checked out of my dorm (until next year, third floor Lesher!), turned in my papers (one professor wasn't in his office, but I assume he got the paper as I managed a B in the class, and the other professor was, so I chatted him up a little before leaving—I was the first person to turn in the paper, too, which came as no surprise to me seeing as it was actually technically due the following Tuesday—tell me why I felt the need to go to my sister's graduation? Oh, right, because I'm an awesome sister like that, cough cough anyway), and by 10:15 my dad and I had Sheetz coffee in hand and were on the road.

• The day after getting home, my family went back up to Wooster, Ohio, to see my sister graduate from college. We met up with Heather, her friend Julia, and my nana, and went out to dinner on Saturday night, then did some special graduate stuffs on the Sunday (a luncheon thingamawhatter). Also on Sunday my dad, sister and I got supercompetitive when we went out to a go-cart track. Let me tell you, after years and years of losing to the two of them, I am something ferocious now! The first race, I was able to hold off my dad until the final lap (THE FINAL LAP UGH), and the second one it wasn't even between me and my dad or sister, but me and this other kid who raced with us who was insane!. Had we gone just a little longer, I so would've spun him out (or so I like to think, um).

• After that I was home for three days and hung out mostly with my friend Katie. My family also went to see Star Trek. Which, yes, I LOVED OMG.

• I spent the next weekend with Miss Saskia Boggs in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had never been to Michigan, so I added another state to my list and got to spend time with the best person in the entire world. We went out to dinner at a Lord of the Rings-themed pizza place, and did manual labor in Kalamazoo for her Building Blocks class, and saw a fantastic musical, and ate good food at the Crow's Nest I think it was called, and we watched JONAS and Wizards of Waverly place because we're just. that. cool, as well as an episode and a half of Buffy in her boyfriend's room (and I sat on his Red Wings blanket and I hope it smells horrible because hello Pittsburgh Penguins plzkthx). And basically just getting to spend time with Saskia made my life :)

• Since then, I have officially been back in Lexington for break. I went to see Star Trek in IMAX and got to pet the penguins at the Newport Aquarium (REAL LIVE PENGUINS! I PET THEM! I DIDN'T EVEN CARE THAT I GOT PENGUIN POO ON MY FOOT! THEY WERE THAT CUTE!). I helped DJ at Pride Prom (which, um, could have been a lot more stress-free except we had some MAJOR TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES ESPECIALLY DURING THE DRAG SHOW AND I WANTED TO HIDE IN THE CORNER AND CURL UP IN A BALL AND DRINK FROM A JUICE BOX it was that frustrating) and participated in the rally downtown yesterday against California's decision to uphold Prop 8 (fhidjsak I love all of my LexGSA friends so dearly, they are some of the most fantastic people I have ever met in my life). I've applied for a bunch of jobs and should call some places back about my applications, which I guess I will do today or tomorrow. A former postdoc of my dad's came to visit for a little bit with his family and I loved chatting with them (apparently I've grown up a lot, ahaha), and we even gave the two daughters a copy of RED (yay!).

Tonight, the Summer Movie Classics at the Kentucky Theater begin with The Apartment! And tomorrow, the Country Fair begins (and continues until Sunday)! And then it will be June. And I guess May really does end. Huh. How 'bout that.

Also, I got my grades back. Four As, an A-, and a B. My cumulative GPA is 3.7 AND IT FEELS HELLA AWESOME. As does knowing that the Penguins are going to the Stanley Cup finals! Whooooo! (My dad isn't happy about this, though. The Pens swept the Hurricanes, who beat the Bruins. And my dad is all about them Bruins. So er. Hockey's kind of a touchy subject in our household. I'M A TRAITOR, TEHEHE.)

Here's hoping I get a job. :/ And parents are finally forcing me into getting my license. So I guess I'll have to start driving myself everywhere. Sigh. Oh well. I'll get used to it. I hope. Errrr.

Yesterday, I turned nineteen.

It was very low-key, no real celebration. My 9am class was cancelled, so I got to sleep in a little, and our quiz in anthropology was moved to Monday, so I didn't even need to review for that. I chilled for most of the day, went to the final All Ways of Loving meeting, and then went out to dinner with my friends. We ate at OIP (Original Italian Pizza, aka heaven) and checked out Gardner's Candies (a chocolate and candy shop, aka heaven number two), then went back and watched TV and chatted for the rest of the evening. Overall, it was a really nice birthday. I adore my birthday, and while I'm not so big on huge celebrations anymore, just knowing it's my birthday puts a huge smile on my face. I can't be unhappy on May 1st. Totally impossible!

I go back home in less than a week—next Friday—and I'm notttt exactly ready yet. I have to finish revising my comics paper and inking my comic, and I need to write my Latin American Society & Culture paper, too. I'm hoping to get a lot of this done this weekend (which begs the question, why am I writing up this blog post instead of writing up a paper? Hush up, conscience!), so that I can chill through the rest of the week. I've got one final on Thursday (that's anthropology), and a take-home final for Major American Writers that I'll be turning in around the same time I turn in my LatAm paper, I guess. All of this writinggggg! Thank goodness I, you know, like to write.

Man. My freshman year of college... almost complete. It went by so fast! The first semester seemed to drag on and on, but now—how is second semester over already?! Insanity! And it'll look so weird once I've packed up all of my stuff to take back home. One half of the room is going to be empty while my roommate stays here for a few more days after I leave. Strange, so strange.

And my goodness, do I have a lot of crap to pack up. :O

But now I am ready to go home (and then go to Ohio for my sister's college graduation and then back home and then to Michigan to visit Saskia at Kalamazoo and then back home again), and find a job (oh man I hope I find a job), and visit my old high school and say hi to teachers that I still miss so much, and go to the movies at the Kentucky Theatre every Wednesday, and watch hours upon hours of The O.C. and Dawson's Creek and Veronica Mars and other TV shows, and run around downtown through the fountains and go to my favorite coffee shops and the library and all sorts of restaurants I have yet to eat at and maybe even play kickball or throw a dance party in the giant hole that is CentrePit/CentrePointe/horrendous and ugly. And good food: I am looking forward to good food. And reading for fun.

Man oh man, I can't wait for summer.

I've realized a problem that I have when it comes to choosing my own topics for papers: I suck at it. In the effort to be different and choose something that perhaps no one else will use, I end up choosing a topic that is very stupid and impossible to take seriously or do well. Back in sophomore year of high school, for instance, I chose to do some paper on the Silent Generation (the one between the GIs and Baby Boomers), and it was totally not as interesting as I thought it would be.

Likewise, for my research paper for Comics & Culture this semester, we got to choose anything we wanted—holllllld up profs. You shouldn't let me do that. (Though I guess this is maybe like practice for when I choose later on a topic for a senior thesis or something—but really! I never learn! Never!) Because for this paper, I chose to compare Art Spiegelman's Maus and Captain America.

...really? Really. No, really? Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I mean, it has the potential to be really interesting, I guess, but overall, the more I wrote, the more I realized what a load of crap my paper was becoming. Maybe if I didn't have a page limit (I had a page limit for the rough draft, but I'm not so sure about the final paper—I need to look into this), I would be able to elaborate more on all of my points, and it would all (maybe) seem less stupid. But when I turned in my rough draft, I definitely felt like I had made a mockery of the whole thing. It was... it was just not pretty.

But until we get that paper back, I have other papers to write and books to read. (Though I should go back this weekend if I get a chance and start to revise that paper, anyway. Because it needs it bad.) I need to get cracking on my paper on José Leocadio Camacho for Latin American Society & Culture—conveniently enough, a lot of the resources I will be using are either written by or reference my professor for that class. Woe is me. This paper needs to kick ass now. Le sigh. So I want to try and get a rough draft out within the next two weeks so I can take it by his office and ask him if I'm on the right track and all that jazz. Plus, I want to write my anthropology paper this weekend so I can maybe drop into my professor's office this week to ask her if I'm the right track for that one—it's due on Friday, so that one is a bit more pressing, I guess. And then I need to read two books for Wednesday and Thursday this week: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number by Jacobo Timerman. (And then two more books for the next week.)

dshafkdlj. Just typing up all of that makes me want to rip my hair out. Why am I even writing this blog post?! I should be writing and reading and researching! Gahhhhhhhh!

In other news, my roommate no longer trusts me for I keep playing and singing songs that get stuck in our heads. Right now it's Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You." She hates me. I love it. Also, I may get to be a campus tour guide next year. I find out on Friday. I'm super hopeful (I think the interview went really well—I'm pretty optimistic about Juniata and I really think that came through), and super excited.

All in all, having no classes on Good Friday has been incredibly lazy—but thank goodness I have two whole days left to be productive before classes next week. Whee! Now to stop with the internet funness and get cracking. :/

Hello! Just checking in here, as it's been about two weeks since I last posted. I had midterms one of those weeks and spring break the next. I gotta tell you, spring break was a welcome vacation.

As for my midterms, I am waiting to get my Anthropology midterm back, but I received my Latin American Society & Culture midterm grade today. I was so worried about that exam, so unsure of how to approach studying for it (I ended up typing up all of my notes from class, reorganizing them, etc.), and when I walked away from the test I didn't feel very good about it at all. Today in class he told us that a lot of people didn't do very well—which scared the bejeezus out of me even more. And so he handed mine to me and... and I got a ninety?! Really?! Holy cannoli!

Spring break was wonderful! My roommate Brittany brought me and our friend Lyndsey to her home on Long Island. It was my first time taking a train (go Amtrak, whoo!), and I've also never been to Long Island before. It surprised me how much I really liked it! Brittany showed us around Northport and Huntington, and also took us to the movies (I wanted to see Watchmen but we saw Confessions of a Shopaholic instead—which, okay, was hilarious, haha) and the aquarium.



Lyndsey and I loved seeing seagulls everywhere. We took, er, a lot of seagull pictures.



And it was so great to be able to take the train into New York City. We went to the Met and Times Square, 5th Avenue and Canal Street, and I even attempted some Gossip Girl stalking. (Sadly I did not meet anybody, as we weren't at the filming location at a time of filming. But I did manage to track down the trailers! God, I'm such a creep.) Lyndsey had never been to NYC before, so it was fun taking her around the city. She convinced us to go on the ferris wheel in the Times Square Toys-R-Us, which was SPECTACULAR. We got the My Little Pony car (though Lyndsey wanted the pink Barbie convertible—"But that one has rainbows and ponies!" I said. I won).



But now it's back to the daily grind. I've got papers to start researching for and writing, and books to read, and all sorts of other fun homework things. But hey! At least it's getting warmer! Goodness knows I'm tired of the cold.

I decided that before this week officially starts, I should make a post of a few things that will keep me sane and grounded and smiling and laughing. Because midterms? They're gonna suck. A lot. But! If I can smile and laugh just a little big, then hey, maybe the stress won't kill me.

1. The Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. I ordered this on Thursday evening after seeing the movie (which was amazing, and if you haven't seen it by now, then what? Are you serious? Go!), and it should be coming in by Wednesday (free shipping = happymaking). I'd much rather go down to the theater every day this week instead of study, but unfortunately that would be a very stupid idea. So instead of doing that, when the soundtrack comes in, I will probably be listening to it constantly.

2. Spring break in New York. I have the end of this week to look forward to! For on Saturday, I will be hopping on a train and traveling to Long Island to spend the next week with my roommate, Brittany, and our friend Lyndsey. We're going to go into the city a few times, and Brittany will show us her hometown and take us to the aquarium and all sorts of awesome stuff. We'll get to eat real food and have tons of fun and pretend like school doesn't exist. And my goodness, it will be fantastic.

3. The Lonely Island's album Incredibad. Andy Samberg and company? You are my gods. My friends and I sing their songs pretty much every minute we're together. And then we laugh a lot. So in the middle of my freaking out and throwing tantrums, I will at least be laughing.

4. The Great Gatsby. I adore this book and just my luck! It's the book we have to have read for Major American Writers by this Friday. It's not too long, it's wonderful, and it's a nice break from trying to figure out how to study for my Latin American Society & Culture midterm (I am so lost!). Oh, Fitzgerald, I love you.

So hopefully I'll be able to find some sanity throughout this week. I can't wait for Friday afternoon, after orchestra sectionals, when I can just sit back, chill, and then pack for spring break and clean up the room. Oh, glorious!

(Yes, I look forward to cleaning. That's how much midterms suck.)

I get scared sometimes.

When you're a little kid, you fear sleeping without a nightlight, or the monsters in the closet, or the boy with cooties who lives next door.

But then you grow up and you wish you still feared those things.

No, then you grow up and you start worrying about things like your future and your accomplishments and if anybody really cares what you do and if you'll ever amount to anything and if you'll ever achieve those goals that you set for yourself.

It's easy enough to tell yourself to just live day by day, to not worry about the future but just about the next class, the next test, the next semester.

But I get scared sometimes. Scared that thinking like that isn't going to work.

I have friends who know exactly what they want to do for the most part. Finish college, go to grad school, get x job and live in y city. And I know that I'm not the only person my age who has absolutely no idea what to do, who only planned as far as college. But it gets unnerving when I think about planning my schedule for next semester, when I don't know if I should plan towards the possibility of grad school, if I should be thinkin about specific jobs I might want, if I should be trying to accomplish goals before it's "too late" even though I don't know when "too late" is or what those goals might even be.

I get scared sometimes, because sometimes I feel that overwhelming sensation of having no idea who I am or who I'll be or who I'd like to be. Part of me thinks it's hilarious and silly that I worry about these things—I'm nineteen and I've got a whole life yet to live and what do I really know by now, anyway? But it's that push in this world to get success early on, to get a good job and earn good money and leave a good impression on the world and make something of yourself.

I feel like I've already missed out on so much already. I want to have traveled the world or something. I want to have gone on that Great American Road Trip. I want to have finished that first novel. I want to have done something really important. But I haven't done any of that, and the more I think about it, the more worthless I start to feel, and then I feel even more worthless for feeling worthless in the first place, and then it's just a dumb neverending cycle of worthlessness that doesn't even make sense because it's not like I've done nothing, it's not like I'm eighty years old and have wasted my whole life.

I get afraid that I'll fizzle out before I've even begun.

Traces of it seem to come up, like when I have good, strong starts in writing projects—hell, even whole drafts finished—and then it just... stops. I can't move on. I can't get past those walls of what happens next. And as much as I'd like to just keep writing and see what happens, I can't. Nothing comes out. Absolutely nothing.

I'm not going to lie: I have this overwhelming need for people to like me, to maybe even want to be my friend, to maybe even feel like I'm a really great person. But I don't usually feel like that really great person—after all, I'm just the girl who goes to class and then comes back to her room and sits around and doesn't do much besides go on the internet and read articles and browse facebook and twitter and attempt to write and eventually do homework. It gets too hard to drag myself away to go to that All Ways of Loving meeting or to practice my violin (even though I desperately need to).

And I guess it all boils back down to fearing that I'll never be good enough, I'll never finish what I start, I'll never achieve whatever it is I aim to achieve. I like to put up a strong attitude, like to say those confident words and tell people that I think I'm amazing. And I guess some or a lot of the time it's true. But deep down maybe it's not that I think I'm amazing. Maybe it's just that I want other people to think I'm amazing. Even though I may not be, even though I may not have done much to be considered amazing, I want so badly for people to see something wonderful in me.

Those goblins you once feared, the ones living under your bed or in that closet your parents never open—when you get older, you wish those goblins were still the scariest things in your life. The worst thing you can come to fear is your future, because those goblins can be killed. But you don't want to kill your future. You just want to know what to expect.

I have a bone to pick with The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Sure, it may be old news, but for some reason I keep on tuning in every week. I think part of me hopes that every week, it will get better, but nope. Nope, actually, just about every week my friends and I end up yelling about it even more, and my rants drift onto twitter and most likely annoy all of my friends and whoever else follows me.

This show is not realistic in the least. I don't even see a lot of familiar stereotypes that have been applied to the characters—except for the whole teens just want to have sex sex sex all the time thing. But here's what I get out of the current storylines (and yes, I know I tend to get repetitive and incoherent in my ranting—you don't have to read it, I just had to get it out, haha):

Amy's pregnancy: Talk about glorifying pregnancy! Tonight's episode starts off with Amy being "sick." I put this in quotations because she's of course not really sick, but just upset over her recent breakup with Ben. No, of course it's not the pregnancy that could cause her to be sick—there's no morning sickness, no hormonal craziness. (Though, okay, her hormones do go a little nuts at the end. For the first time since she got preggers. What?) No, pregnancy isn't difficult in itself—it's just deciding on whether or not to keep the baby, and who's going to act as father.

And don't even get me started about the whole adoption thing. I was very happy to see that Amy was ready to give the kid up for adoption—to a gay couple no less! She's fifteen and doesn't have the time or the maturity to raise a kid. (I mean, her own parents are having serious problems right now. Keeping the kid in that household? Not a good idea.) Oh, but wait, Ricky decides he loves Amy and wants to help raise the kid.

Wait. What? Ricky? Dude who just wanted to get laid with Adrian and Grace? Suddenly his dad comes back and terrorizes everyone and he has a heart? He has no job, he just recently decided that he ~*loves*~ Amy. And you know what? He's a high schooler, too. He doesn't know if he'll be a good dad. And chances are, he's not mature enough for it, either.

What I don't get is that these kids are obviously not mature enough to raise a kid—yet you can tell the show is going to let them keep the baby anyway. Teenagers should not be parents. They still have to grow up, they still have mistakes to learn from. They know the people that they were giving the kid to—so let the couple adopt the baby. Chances are it will have a much more stable home. Because what's all that stable about living in a house with a fifteen year old mother, a thirteen year old rebel, and divorced parents that argue all the time but for some reason are still living under the same roof?

Amy's love saga: Amy and Ben got married with fake IDs. Ben insists that Amy's baby is his kid, not Ricky's, because he's willing to take responsibility. They break up. And now Amy is thinking she should be with Ricky because he's the father and wants to take responsibility now. And she doesn't know who to choose because she wants to choose the person she'll be with for the rest of her life.

Holllllld up. You're fifteen. You're talking about marriage? You're talking about being with one person forever? You're fifteen. What about high school? College? (I vaguely remember her wanting to go to Juilliard.) Just because you love somebody now does not mean you will be with them forever.

I know Amy's pregnant, but why do they have to be so serious all the time? I mean, really. She may be pregnant, but she's still a teenager, meaning she still should be going to the movies or gossiping with friends or stressing out over homework! Not over who she's going to be spending forever with. The parents on that show bicker like teenagers and the teenagers sound like dang forty year olds.

Grace: Ah, the Christian do-gooder who wants to be a virgin but thinks sex is glorious and can't wait to have sex with The One. She got birth control tonight. And now she's like, "I want to keep it as a reminder that I want to wait until marriage to have sex!" Okay, really? Really? This girl just confuses the hell out of me.

Also, boys do not care if a girl is on birth control or not. Why the hell did she get a million phone calls after she announced it to the school? Whatever.

Adrian: At first, I thought Adrian was a pretty realistic character. She's independent, okay with sex, sure of herself. Until we realize that's all she cares about. Tonight, her step-brother (...yeah) comes over with flowers and the offer to take her to dinner and a movie, and she's confused over this. "What? I thought you just wanted to have sex with me! I don't know what to do! Oh my gosh! Sex!" I thought she was smart and independent, but no, she's just the stereotypical female asserting her sexual independence by doing it with pretty much everybody.


My friend Lyndsey pointed also out something today. We've got the teenagers wanting to get married. We've got the teenagers wanting to have sex with everybody. But what about the couple who are in a committed relationship—for more than a week, thanks—and then decide to have sex? Oh yeah, that was the asian couple. They did it and then didn't like it so broke up. Yeah. Thanks for that. Sex will also ruin relationships.

Yeah. See. I have no problem with waiting until marriage, with falling in love in high school. But teenage pregnancy is not okay—and though this show tries to send that message out at the end of every show with their little PSA saying, "talk to your kids about sex," every show is basically saying the same thing: pregnancy is easy, it's the boy problems that suck; sex at fifteen is okay, so long as it's with the one you're going to be with for the rest of your life. But let's be real: you don't know what the rest of your life will be like. So just take it slow, okay? Wear a condom, don't rush into things, don't get freaking married at fifteen. Okay? Please?

I don't know why I watch this show. I can't even be that coherent with my arguments against it. Which means I should just give up and not watch it. Ahhhhhh!

Classes are in full swing, and I'm a little bit overwhelmed, not gonna lie. I am of course freaking out over speaking up in class and participating, as per usual. For some reason my mind just blanks out, even though I take extensive notes on reading and try to prepare myself for class. I just never know what to say, what to ask. I don't think I'm that great a student :( so I may do well on quizzes and papers and the like, but when it comes to actually making an impression during class, it just doesn't work out. And it frustrates me to no end.

But I got a Valentine's Day card in the mail from my Nana today, though, so that was happy-making. :) (And I know she reads these blogs, so hi Nana!)

Awesome news: not only did I get to go to NYC basically three times within one year (thank you RED, colleges, and Thanksgiving), but now I get to hang out once more over my spring break! My roomie is from Long Island, so we (me, her and our friend Lyndsey) will be going out there with her for the break. We're planning on spending a few days hanging out in the city, of course. It's going to rockkkkkk! I wonder if there'll be any RED events that week... hmmm. And of course, I am hell-bent on stalking the cast of Gossip Girl. How do people find out where they're filming?! I can never find any info on this!

I've been writing a lot lately, which is nice, and a good way to clear my mind. I had a crazy dream the other night which I woke up from and couldn't get out of my head, so after classes I went back home and wrote wrote wrote about it. It's weird, the story, but I like it. I think.

Well, we're watching Zoolander right now, so I'm not really paying much more attention to this entry. I just thought I'd let you all know what's up :) Hope everyone is having a fabulous year so far!

So it's been a few days since I went to D.C. for the Inauguration, and though at the time the experience seemed sad and terrible, I now look back on it more fondly. After all, I was in Washington, D.C. on the day of Obama's Inauguration! And I got to stand in a huge crowd of people who all wanted the same thing: to see him sworn into office. And we all chanted and cheered and shouted together. And it was an exhilarating experience—standing out in the freezing cold for hours, yet adrenaline that pulsed through my body warmed up my toes and fingers, adrenaline brought about by the energy of an excited and energetic crowd around me. It may have been disappointing in the sense that we didn't get to see Obama, didn't get to hear him—and okay, it still feels disappointing and I still feel a little gloomy about it—but it was worth the experience of being in D.C. along with thousands of others who felt the same way I did about his becoming president.



I am sorry, Professor Steve Steve. That purple ticket got you nowhere. But hey! At least you were in D.C. Right? Right!

And hey! At least Obama is president now! I'm pretty happy with how his first week is shaping up. Signing the order to close Guantanamo Bay, overturning the Mexico City Gag Rule. President Obama? I do believe you're freaking awesome.

Not that I think he's a superhero or anything. It's just so nice to have a president that inspires people to work together, to get involved in their communities and in politics and government. Because yeah, I want to feel inspired by my country and my president.

I really look forward to combined efforts of Republicans and Democrats in working to fix the economic crisis—and overall, just them working together at all! Goodness knows I'm tired of bickering between the two.

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So it's back to school for me—this past week was the first week (yes, I missed two days of school, but hey, I ain't complainin'!)—and my classes so far have been pretty good. For MWF, I've got Major American Writers, which should be really enjoyable—I'm so excited to read books and stories and ahhhh, so fantastic in general!—and Introduction to Anthropology, which is wonderful so far—my professor is so passionate about the subject matter, and we also watched this really amazing video in class that I think everyone needs to see.

On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I have Comics & Culture, which is awesome. Um, reading comics for a class? Yes please. I've never really been that big into comics, actually, so it's really interesting to really learn something new. And then on Tuesday and Thursday, I've also got Latin American Society & Culture. I had the professor last semester for that Sixties class (!!! by the way, got an A on my Bob Dylan paper! Happy happy happy!), so I'm positive this class will be a good one, too.

I can't really say much else by way of classes, though, since I've only had three days of 'em. But I'll keep you guys posted, yeah? In the meantime, I'll be reading reading reading lots and lots.

I know I always say that I've been away too long, I'll start blogging regularly again, it's just that exciting stuff doesn't tend to happen to me that often.

Oh, screw it. I don't have to blog about exciting things. I can just write about whatever comes to mind. I think I'm just partially afraid of starting to write things that don't turn out very good. But that's just part of writing, I have to remember. To write anything good, you've gotta write at all.

I don't like making new year's resolutions. To me, they mean, "This is what I'm going to do to make this year better than last year." But I don't necessarily want to make 2009 better than 2008. Last year was a good year: I got into college, I started college. I made new friends and good grades (did I tell you? Five As, an A-, and a B+. That's a 3.8 GPA. And my first A in a science class, ever). I played in two wizard rock shows. I smiled a lot. I laughed a lot. I saw Spring Awakening and RENT and Spamalot. 2008 kicked ass, to put it simply. And instead of trying to figure out how to make 2009 a better year than 2008, I'd rather just look ahead and think, "Well. I hope this year kicks ass, too."

But if I were to make one resolution for the coming year, it might be to not make so many excuses. To not regret things as much. I won't say I want to lose all regret—regret can be helpful, and let's be honest, every once in a while we're all going to think about that alternate universe in which we chose orange juice over milk or something like that. But maybe it would be nice to start a blog entry with something other than, "Wow, it's been a while, I've just been so busy." Or maybe I'd like to be able to fess up when I've read the wrong chapters or written something crappy, rather than give the excuses, "Oh, I was just too tired/busy/bogged down with other work." Sometimes we screw up and we have no excuses. Sometimes we forget to do things or procrastinate too much and we can't turn around and wish we'd changed things. We can only move forward and think, "Okay, maybe I'll try to do this differently in the future."

So the next time I blog here may be tomorrow or next week or next month or next semester. Who knows? I'm not going to say that I'll try to keep up more often, or that I'll try to create some sort of schedule. Instead, I'll say, "See you around." That's better, right? Truer. Freer.