Posts (page 2)

It is now late March and you know what that means?
- Baseball season has begun
- Aries are dominating
- Tax season is afoot
- There is something sexy in the air...or maybe all my friends are just going batty.
- March madness of course but I'm finally not affected.

It also means
- I've now been working for 7 months and have gone through one cycle of reviews (fun, fun)
- I'm going on my first business trip around the globe in less than a month!
- I'm happy.

Oh and Niki is royally kicking butt at competition :)  Hopefully that streak will continue

Flowers keep growing
Water flowing
Life is kind
Still every scene's a memory I won't miss
Motors are humming
Water flooding
Numb the mind
Still this is someone else's form of bliss
~Nellie McKay

"It's always the same for me,
Break up, break down,
Drink up, fool around,
Meet one guy and then another,
fuck around to forget the one and only..."        

~Two days in Paris

I feel like these entries should all be broken up into two separate ones since the thoughts in them are so dichotomous.

First off, I've been hearing a song that I cannot help enjoy the meaning of no matter who it was written by or why:
It's called Clumsy and as usual with me, it's not the chorus that strikes a cord.

"Can't help it
The girl can't help it"

This made me smile when I heard it the first time and continues to make me smile every time I hear it despite my dislike for the chorus and most of the song itself except for the spoken stanza toward the end starting with

" You know, this isn't the first time this has happened to me..."

The other side of my mental processes right now is still learning about who I've become through college and since.  I'm finally single, very happy about it and learning about who I am on my own.  Completely on my own: the family is at arms length on most things not pertinent to my health, most friends are too far away (physically, mentally, emotionally) to keep in touch with properly even if they wanted to.  This obviously excludes you, dear Lulu, and for that you get a whole separate chunk of me that doesn't seem to have ever changed but is only now being heeded by the rest of me. 

The reason for this post of course is part of this other part of me.  I've finally begun reading.  This is a very strange revelation to come upon and it's not the actual revelation I came up upon but is a product of the other oddities I've encountered. 

When I was in high school, I used to write.  I do not by any means mean that I wrote poetry or anything profound but because it was required, I wrote quite a bit and, until my mind went gaga over a certain someone (not something I regret), I wrote fairly well.  This is actually not what I noticed since it's fairly obvious, what I noticed is that even though I used to write and enjoy it quite a bit when I was tasked with it, it never really blossomed into much of anything outside of required writing.  This is quite a product of the schooling itself; if I'm required to do it and I learn to do it on demand why would it ever occur to me to do it of my own free wish.  No journal or diary writing assignments ever stuck and when I did try on my own, it wasn't very interesting to me except when I decided it was a necessity on my highly compressed trip to Israel and even then the entries become more skeletal than personal after the first three.   I believe when I decided to join Vox and test it out (in my beta-testing obsessed phase which I haven't really grown out of) I decided to write more interesting entries than those I had become accustomed to seeing on LiveJournal and MySpace.  As it has turned out Vox is a magnet for those who have a passion for musings and observational writings than "uh..why won't he call me?" so it is exactly what I was looking for and for about the first two months I was diligent about it and actually enjoyed it.  My attention span quickly waned and moved onto boys and school as expected.  Nevertheless, my life is mostly out of school and boys aren't a focus so I'm back.

So this idea of not writing for myself because I only need to do it for school came from my reading.   I catch myself in this bad habit that was probably created when I was seven or so; I am constantly counting chapters and checking to see how much of the book I've gotten through.  This does not mean that I do not enjoy reading or that this happens with only the crappy books I'm forced to read (or force myself to read).  No, this happens with all books.  I get completely caught up in the story and transform into a fly on the wall to the point where I fall asleep dreaming about potential side paths for the plot but I still force myself to stop at a new chapter or at worst a break in point of view, close the book with a bookmark, and look to see how much is left (or how much I've gotten through).  I know exactly where this habit stems from and why it was never outgrown.  In short, my mother.  I know that's a really easy answer but I only now noticed that no matter how titillating the story is and no matter how much I want to stay up all night reading on in the story, I will continue these bad habits.  I earnestly hope that in some way my subconscious will let go, allow me to enjoy the actual process of reading finally, and let me discontinue this particular habit but I know it takes work and acknowledgment is the first step.   So here goes:

My name is Lina.  I'm ashamed to say that I hate the process of reading.  I have since I was forced to learn to read before I ever cared to.  I love books and the stories in them however, so, I am overcoming my hatred for the sakes of the characters I can't wait to learn more about. 

It's like people-watching to me.  I love to find out what people will do, how they will react to various external stimuli or what internal stimulus sparks various actions.  But it's rude to stare.

For those of you who still read this...
Some thoughts for the day:

Tell a girl she can't have something...she wants it even more!

On another note altogether...what is it that is programmed into the males of the species that makes them see things that aren't there and not take a hint?

I am simply not enough of a bitch to be completely blunt/brutally honest with them.

PS. To my stalker:  This is not about you...

Wake up call... There's nothing better.

It's funny how things don't turn out the way you think they will.

I'm saddened to announce that this is the first year since high school that I will be missing the annual medieval fair in town.  I've loved the Hoggetowne fair for 4 years and am saddened that I will not be able to see it this year :(

If I'm lucky someone will go in my stead :)

Vancouver was AMAZING!!

Eric and I stayed at a very cute, b&b called the Nelson House.  The town's pretty young so the b&b was not too old but very cute.  The owner is great and cooked really yummy, very filling breakfasts so we were stuffed until dinner.  It's located in the center of downtown between three major streets so we parked the car on Friday and didn't start it again until after we checked out.  We picked a Bombay themed room, reminiscent of British India with some very nice flair and an ensuite bathroom with a large clawfoot tub.  The only down-side of the whole stay is that the room had this great bathroom but it had pretty much no doors. It was these two small swinging parallel slat doors that didn't do much at all. 

We went to these two restaurants the owner recommended and they were very very very good.  We went to a tapas place called Bin 941 (Spanish appetizer-only eating style) and this very nice Italian place called CinCin (pronounced ChinChin) that was really yummy.  We walked about 8 miles on Saturday through the gigantic Stanley park in Vancouver which is a peninsula, so it had some beautiful views and great wildlife but it was very cold that day so we could have had a shorter walk.  A vacation that altogether was very good, and I think I needed it a bit. 

I came home and apparently Rocky was not pleased with being left home alone for 2 hours so he showed it.  Rocky knows it's wrong, but he's upset he didn't get much time with me during the weekend. 

Oh and I managed to get most of my presents purchased in Vancouver so that's done.  Still don't know what to get my dad and brother-in-law.  My bro is into the bartending thing right now so I was thinking of getting him a set of bottle stoppers or pourers but I still don't know.  My dad is still a complete mystery.  I need to find him a gadget or something that he can be occupied with for a few hours. Any ideas?

Overall a very good trip that will not soon be forgotten :)

The festival of lights is upon us and this is the first time since I moved out to college that I'm celebrating Channukah on my own.  Well, not quite on my own.
The lights of the channukiah can really bring people together and this is a great time to stick together. 

Planning to go on a mini-break this weekend to Canada.  I've never been so this will be something new and interesting and I get to spend time with a special someone. 

I'm just taking life one day at a time and each day seems to be better than the one before.