Resolutions

How did I do on my 2007 resolutions?

1. Continue to eat better - I did ok...till Christmas. I gave up sweets, but of course at Christmas everyone gives you cookies and candy. I did manage to use more fresh ingredients though.

2. Exercise more - I did ok with this one too. I went walking/running a couple times and my dad and I rode bikes most weekends this summer.

3. Quit being so stagnant - I can check that one off now that I'm in grad school.

4. Stop giving a shit - I'm not sure what exactly I meant by this, but I think I did better at not taking things so personally.

Now, for my 2008 resolutions:

1. Cut down on smoking - This will be hard.

2. Continue to eat better - I'm completely giving up sweets now that most of the Christmas candy and cookies are gone.

3. Exercise More - Now that I have an MP3 player I'll have more motivation to go walking/running. Using a Walkman just wasn't cutting it!

4. Be more thankful for the things in my life - This is something I don't want to go into too much detail about, but it's something I need to do.

5. Take better care of myself - I've made some doctor's appointments that I've been putting off, but there's one thing I need to have checked out that I'm dragging my feet on. We'll see how this goes.

I hope everyone has a great and prosperous New Year! I plan to spend the rest of today and tomorrow watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi.

25 Days of Happiness

I'm going to try something new here in honor of the holiday season...going 25 days without ranting, beginning this Saturday, December 1. The goal is to write one post every day about something good that happened or something I like, whether it be something deep and meaningful or something superficial, but I'm not trying to delude myself into thinking I'll actually post every day. So, don't adjust your monitors; Jenny G is going to try niceness out for a change.

Potpourri

I've been out of the groove for the past week or so and am now just getting back in. Hopefully I'll be a little better at updating LG&E.

L. and I had tons of fun at Rusty's place. We crammed a lot into our four days in Mooresville! On Saturday we visited Lowe's Motor Speedway and took a tour. While we were checking out the track some people were out doing laps on it, and you really get a rush of adrenaline when they drive by where you're standing. I can see why Rusty likes it! In the evening we went to Rusty's church and then out for dinner. We went back to her place and I crashed since I had been up since 4:30 that morning.

On Sunday we bought tickets for a luxury home tour. Most of the homes were awesome, but one in particular was the most incredible house I've ever been in. It was $3.2 million, although in York it would cost twice that. The first thing you notice when you walk in the door is a big plate of glass (etched with grapes, no less) in the floor that looks down into the wine cellar. That's the point when I knew this wasn't a typical York County McMansion. The house boasted a walk-in beer cave (it's exactly what it sounds like), a hot tub with a lowered edge that allowed water to cascade into the pool below, and a fireplace and big-screen TV in the master bathroom above the jacuzzi tub. I don't know about you all, but I would be afraid that the TV would fall off the wall and into the tub, electrocuting me. The sinks in all the bathrooms were gorgeous and one of the bathrooms had pebbles inlaid in the floor which looked nice but hurt my feet. The kitchen, of course, was awesome and it had one of those faucets on the wall behind the stovetop that you can use to fill pots. The attention to detail in this house was incredible. I must say, however, that the decor was HIDEOUS!! Apparently you can't buy taste.

That night we had dinner at Chili's (no, I didn't get Awesome Blossom with extra awesome) with Rusty's friend Vanessa. She's British and I could listen to her read the phone book. We headed over to Sonic where I got a chocolate malt which is my favorite sweet food after tiramisu. When we got home from that we sat outside and shot the shit for a couple hours and learned that L. is a quarter Jewish, which Rusty and I think is cool, but she doesn't. If I had to belong to a religion, it would be Judaism. I'd want to be a ethnic Jew though, not just a convert. I definitely have the guilt part down and I love the Old Testament God; he was such a bastard.

On Monday we went to a race shop where they work on the cars that are used in NASCAR. It was much cleaner and quieter than my garage, and they probably don't forget to put the oil cap back on when they change the oil like mine did. After checking that out, we drove to Charlotte, which is the cleanest, nicest city I've even visited. It seems like everything is more well cared for south of the Mason-Dixon line. I loved the tree-lined freeways and the flowers planted in the median down there. Up here our median is usually a concrete barrier. If we have grass in the median it's covered in trash. Flowers? Forget about it. I don't know how they would have the manpower to take care of things though, considering we have more roads per square mile than any other state and you can tell because they're crap. If you were driving down I-83 with your eyes closed you'd be able tell when you crossed the Maryland line because the bumpiness stops. Anyway, I digress. Back to Charlotte. We checked out the Panthers' stadium and even though football is probably the last sport I would ever want to watch, even after curling, it was sort of cool to see the field. I was amazed at how small it was (that's what she said!).

On Tuesday we went to Rusty's school and got to meet her class. I would have like to have more time with them, but unfortunately they had a boring-ass orientation for 6th grade. I wish those little bastards luck; 6th grade was the worst year of my life. I couldn't be around 10- and 11-year-olds all day; they would drive me up the wall! Most of them were cute though. After school we headed straight to the airport, where security went through my bag of dirty underwear, and started our less than one hour journey home. It's pretty amazing that sometimes it takes me longer to drive to work than it took us to fly to Charlotte.

I can't forget the most important part of our trip! We ate a lot of good, fattening food, and I ingested more sugar in four days in sweet tea form than I ingest in a year at home. I majorly need to detox!

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I almost got pulled over this morning going more than 90. I was passing some dumbass on the right. Luckily I knew to look for cops in this particular spot and as soon as I saw the top of those lights I slammed on the brakes. The dumbass was in the passing lane going about 75 which should have gotten him pulled over for A. speeding and B. driving in the left lane without intending to pass someone, but of course he didn't. There's no justice in the world.

I should probably be more cognizant of how I drive. I watched Murderball yesterday, and while those men are amazing, I would rather die than be paralyzed. I don't have the strength, physically or mentally, to deal with that. It's really disconcerting that one moment can change the course of your life forever. I almost cried at the end when the rugby team was explaining the game to the wounded vets. Damn PMS!

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Speaking of wounded vets, Laura Bush said on the Today Show that concerning the war in Iraq, no one is suffering more than she and George. What. The. Fuck?!?!?!?! I'm sorry, but haven't 3,300 American soldiers died? Haven't over 20,000 Americans been injured? What about Iraqis who have died? Here's what this source says about total deaths (US and non-US) from the war: "Counting all civilians, military, contractors, insurgents, and non-Iraqi civilians, at least 70,000; to as many as 655,000+ total excess deaths due to the war (second Lancet survey of mortality)." Hey, Mrs. Bush. How about sending your daughters to Iraq, having one of them die and one lose her legs, and then you can tell the American public that your suffering is worse than theirs. Furthermore, there has been little to no outcry about this. I first read it in a little blurb in our paper. When John Kerry "insulted" (one of my feet is in the camp that he was trying to insult Bush but didn't get it out quite right) the troops it was plastered all over every media outlet.

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I'm going back to my psychiatrist this Thursday. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but about a year and a half ago I went and was put on Wellbutrin. I was happy for the first time in ages, had no desire to smoke, and had no appetite (I know that's not a good side effect, but I was fine with it.). Life was good. But life's not allowed to be good, so my body decided to give me hives that made me want to kill myself. I had them in my throat, on the bottom of my feet, my thighs were one big, red welt; it was horrible. My doctor asked me if I wanted to try something else, but at the time I didn't because I was afraid of having another reaction. For some reason I've been in a pretty bad depression since about the beginning of this year, so I decided I should try meds again. I know it's the easy way out, but it's not like I haven't tried therapy and self-talk and all that other stuff. Therapy doesn't help me. My insight is good and I don't need to be told obvious things. I know that if I hate my job I should get a new one or if I'm unhappy about my weight I should eat better and exercise more. I don't need to pay to be told those things. I have a couple minor situational things going on and I'm hoping this will help me deal with them better. I've been in a really dark place for the past couple of months. That sounds a lot more melodramatic than it is, but I'm tired of being on the verge of tears all the time, having no motivation to do even the things I like, and feeling like I want to die.

New Year's Resolutions

How did I do on my resolutions from last year?

1. Quit smoking for real. - Oops.

2. Eat healthier (to me this means eating less processed food, i.e. giving up those evil Lean Cuisines that I don't really like anyway, not buying white bread anymore (even if it's X-treme), etc.) - I actually did ok on this one, but I could do better. And I did give up Lean Cuisines. Man, those things are fucking nasty.

3. Read more - Again, I did ok but I could have done better. I read 15 books: The World According to Garp, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Bastard Out of Carolina, The Glass Castle: A Memoir, Kitchen Confidential, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, The 158-Pound Marriage, The Hours, The Corrections, Ten Big Ones, The Pelican Brief, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Da Vinci Code, and Drunk With Love

4. Continue working on my cognitive-behavioral issues. - I don't think I did well with this. I'm still messed up.

5. Exercise more - Rusty and I actually went hiking a bunch of times till she moved and I did some walking on my own. I could have done a lot more though.

6. Working on easing up on some of my OCD tendencies - Nope

Now for 2007's resolutions:

1. Continue to eat better - I've cut out a lot of processed foods and I'm working on cutting out more. I also have to cut down on the fried food I eat. I only eat that shit when I eat out (which is rare for me), but I need to work on making healthier choices when I do eat out. Luckily the deli one block away from works makes awesome grilled chicken sandwiches and when I ate there last week I chose chicken corn soup over fries. Now I have to work on stopping my habit of getting grease-laden chicken wings and fries from the Chinese place when I have my period.

2. Exercise more - I need to start taking more walks and I want to work up to being able to run again. I need to do this even if I don't have anyone to do it with me.

3. Quit being so stagnant - One of my coworkers said they were talking about me at staff meeting (Greeeeat) and she pointed out that I was too smart to stay in my position for any length of time. I thought about it and she's right, hence the grad school research. I'm talking to my dad about money this weekend and I hope to apply by the middle of February at the latest. I have a tendency to stay in comfortable situations that aren't that good for me and that needs to end.

4. Stop giving a shit - I don't need to go to extremes and be like Peter in Office Space, but I really need to work on this. I'm actually pretty proud of what I have done so far. I used to get so stressed out at work because I'm a perfectionist. One of my co-workers has been out sick and a while and will probably out for a good while, leaving me bent over my desk giving work full access to fuck me up the ass. I'm now doing the work or 2 1/2 people. I just found out that my supervisor can hire someone to help alleviate some of my work, but she won't. So now I've resolved to stop giving a rat's rectum if my work isn't perfect. I don't give a shit if I'm late. I don't give a shit if I piss someone off. What the hell are they going to do, fire me? It's spreading to other parts of my life too. J. would be proud to know that I no longer have massive bouts of road rage on my way to work. High-strung Jen is about to become laid-back Jen.

Less Talk, More Action

Ok, I've finally decided. I'm going to go for my MS in Library Science at Clarion University. I chose Clarion because MSLS programs are few and far between. The only schools in PA are Clarion, Drexel, and Pitt, none of which are within driving distance. Drexel's program isn't what I want and Pitt doesn't have an online program. The University of Maryland also has a program, and it's within driving distance from York (which doesn't help as I'm working in Harrisburg), but the school itself is more expensive and it'll be even more since I'm out of state. Clarion has an online program and a satellite campus in Harrisburg.

I think I might start in the spring of '08. I could do fall '07 but I have to look into grants and loans and taking the GRE if I need to (and thankfully I don't think I do). I don't have the first clue about how to pay for school since my parents paid for my undergrad, for which I am eternally thankful. I'm not looking forward to having student loans, but I only have about $200 on my credit cards and the only other debt I have is an interest-free car loan from my dad. When I go to work tomorrow I have to talk to my supervisor about the possibility of having evening classes and not being able to work at night. Obviously I have no idea what night my classes would be, but I'd rather take care of that now than have to panic because the class I need is only on a Thursday evening.

My goal is to do more research on the school and degree requirements by the middle of this month and to know what to do about the financial aspect and have my application ready to go by the end of this month, and if it's ready by then I might as well go for the soonest semester possible. The only possible roadblock is that if I want to do 100% online (which I would prefer), it's a cohort program, and I think it's full till '08, but that's where the research comes in. Wish me luck as I prepare to embark on my journey as a coffee- and cigarette-fueled grad student.