I miss you, Sonic! (Back to school)

Long time, no post! Sorry, life got a little out of control this week with the start of a brand new quarter. I survived, but I'm in desperate need of sleep.

My very last Cherry Limeade before I ventured back up to Olympia. A little birdy told me there was a Sonic in Tumwater, but they just closed! That's what I get for getting re-addicted to Sonic over Christmas break. I miss it terribly already.

Along with being back on campus, I also...

• had my first Theories of Personality class - I think this is going to be a really interesting class, and it only meets once a week! We also get two Monday nights off because of holidays, so that's even better! There is a group project (and we all know the luck I have with those), but I've decided that it will be a successful project no matter what.
• did something really scary! - I'm in a writing program this quarter which is probably the scariest class I've ever taken. I feel incredibly intimidated by everyone in the class, but I know there's a writer deep inside of me so hopefully she'll resurface sooner rather than later. We have critique groups in this class and....I don't want to talk about it. 9 more weeks to go! (This is the class that has the torturous 8 hour long Saturday sessions, ps)
• finished week 1 of HM training - well, sort of. My 3 mile long run turned into a short 1.5 mile run, but other than that I did a decent job I think. Today I received an email about a 10k being hosted on campus in February, which I may have to take part in! That could be an excellent way for me to stay motivated because right now the cold and gloom just aren't doing it for me.

So those are the 3 big things that happened this week. I also had 2am Wal-Mart trips, a girl's night to see Sherlock Holmes (not bad!), a crazy adorable meet-cute, a night with my parents, the best pizza I've had since Rhodes, a brand new roommate (and the sad news that another roommate left us!), and lots of reading and writing for class.

Oh yeah! I turned my hair purple, too. Apparently the hair dye reacted badly with the previous brand I used and it ended up a big burgandy/purple/DARK mess instead of the pretty pomegranate shade it was supposed to be. OOPS!

How was your week? I'm not sure how many of you live there, but I heard about snow in Florida, which is absolutely insane! 

2010: Do one thing. And then do one more thing.

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I was planing on doing a year in review post, but honestly 2009 was not my best year and I just don't want to think about it right now. I don't want to sound ungrateful because nothing terrible happened during the year, but it just wasn't that great of a year. 2008 was by far better, and I'm hoping that 2010 will top every other year in the past.

So instead of looking back on the past, I decided to do a little brainstorming for the future!

Here are a few of my goals/plans for 2010:

Run a half marathon 
Find a race - DONE! 
Create a training program - DONE!
Run, run, run!

Study abroad in Italy 
I can't wait for this! I picked out a program and all that's left to do now is wait until they post the dates and the application materials. And then when (if) I'm accepted I'll have to choose a topic for my independent research project.


Spend the summer in LA
As we get closer to summer I'll have to find an internship, which could be quite a challenge this year. I guess this is where networking skills come in handy?


Have a reunion by December 
90% of my closest friends are long distance, which can be really hard. I'd love to be able to go on a trip with friends from school somewhere fun, or even just fly to Memphis to visit them. I did that last time though, so it's their turn to fly to me! ha


Graduate college by summer of 2011
Okay, so this is a 2011 goal, but I don't care! My mini goal for this year is to finish my junior year in June. I'm beyond excited to be this close to the end of school.


Read 24+ books by December 31, 2010
I'd also like to become an eclectic reader, so they'll have to be 24 very different books. What are you planning on reading in 2010? I need ideas!

I  also want to…


Learn some Italian before I spend a semester abroad
I got an amazing Christmas present from one of my best friends...Rosetta Stone! I have levels 1, 2 & 3 for Italian and hopefully I'll be able to stay on top of things and work on them this year. I'm really nervous about spending 5 months in a country where I don't speak the language, so hopefully this will help!

Go to church
I have no religious background whatsoever and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to church. I'd like to spend some time this year exploring religion.


Cook one new recipe a month
This should be fun! I haven't decided how I want to do this, but I'd really like to turn it into some kind of fun project for the blog. I know the whole Julie & Julia thing is way overdone by now, but it sounds like so much fun!


Go to at least one: book club, knitting club, running group, cooking class, swing lesson, salsa lesson, spin class, yoga class


Take better care of myself 
I'd say I do a pretty good job of taking care of myself right now, but I could always do better! My two big things are flossing and wearing sunscreen 24/7.


Write
This scares me. A lot. For some reason it has entered into my head that I'm not a write and that I cannot write. I know this isn't true, I used to write so much when I was younger! I'm taking a writing program for both winter and spring quarters, so hopefully I'll be able to overcome all of this blocked thinking. 


Go somewhere FUN for spring break
I've never done this! Somewhere warm and sunny with good food and cute boys. Probably can't be found anywhere near the Northwest, and I'm okay with that.

Whew! Lots of stuff. I'm excited for summer and the second half of the year, but the next few months just feel like they're placeholders to pass the time. I hope these goals will help change that!

What are you doing for your New Years Celebration? I'll be home with my parents, probably watching The Hangover and whatever NYE stuff they have on TV. One of these years I'll be in the same city as some people I know so I can go out! I don't mind staying home, but it'd be nice to see the other side of things too.
Do you have any goals for next year?

Mardi Gras: A Primer

For Christmas, my parents bought me Arthur Hardy's Mardi Gras in New Orleans: An Illustrated History, which has become the foundation for the research project I'll be doing next year. At the end of the quarter I'll be turning in the manuscript for a similar book of my own! 


My own final product is going to be a collection of photographs and writings I created during my stay in New Orleans during the Carnival season (which will include Mardi Gras day, of course!) I'm going to focus on 10 ways to"laissez les bons temps rouler", as well as 5 individual Krewes that are an important part of the Mardi Gras tradition. At least, that's the plan for now...who knows how it will evolve over the next year!


Even though it's still a year away, I already have a big, huge list of the types of people I want to get in touch with, a stack of books and articles almost as tall as me, and a bunch of events that I really really want to attend.


 I've been getting a head start on things because there's a lot of preperation work I want to do, and I need to find a faculty sponsor for my independent contract AND I'll be studying abroad in Italy the quarter before I leave! Okay, and I really just like to plan ahead and I may have a slight obsession with anything New Orleans related. Maybe.


Anyway, I just wanted to share some thoughts about Mardi Gras with you all. I'm not from New Orleans and I've only experienced Mardi Gras once, so if I have something wrong please don't get too sassy.

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The official definition:

Mardi Gras has been around for over 300 years, but the celebrations are still somewhat similar today. Mardi Gras is technically just one day, Fat Tuesday, but it's commonly used to refer to the entire season of Carnival, which New Orleans is known for celebrating.

(Deltas do NOLA! Myself, Kimi and Tiffany on Bourbon St. during our Mardi Gras trip.)

Misconceptions

Many people have a picture in their mind that Mardi Gras is about 3 things - beads, boobs, and beer. Fortunately (or I guess unfortunately for some of you), the Carnival season is about so much more. Sure, if you never venture out of the French Quarter, or really just Bourbon St., then you won't really get a taste of what else Mardi Gras day and the Carnival season has to offer (and you'll miss all the parades since they don't travel through the Quarter!). But you will experience lots of BB&B. I think in order to get the most out of Mardi Gras you really need to visit New Orleans with someone that's from the city. They'll be able to get you away from the touristy things so that you can experience something that's really different, and also full of the culture and tradition that the city is famous for.

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A taste of the real deal

So much more goes into Mardi Gras than I think a lot of people realize, which is somehting I've been really delving into recently. There are Krewes, which are organizations (some of them are kind of like secret societies!) that put on the parades and hold elegant balls (or tableau ball masques) and they even have their own royalty. Everything is steeped in tradition, which is amazing considering how long the celebration has been going on. The parades create an amazing atmosphere and they're so much fun. All kinds of things are thrown from the floats (that's why they're called throws!) and some of them are especially prized, like the amazingly decorated shoes the ladies from the Muses Krewe toss out every year. There are all kinds of events and groups that come together during the season, and it's definitely a family affair! There's even a Krewe for kids 8-6 called The Little Rascals and they have their very own extravagant ball and parade. No BB&B there, that's for sure! The city comes together for the season, and as soon as the clock strikes midnight on Fat Tuesday the party's over. Until next year, of course.

(From l-r: Me, Kimi, Tiffany, and Colin. Part of our group from school. And of course we ran into a million people we knew over the weekend. Tiff's from New Orleans and she definitely showed us the real experience! )

SO. Have you ever been to Mardi Gras? Have you always wanted to go? Or are you like my dad and totally against the whole thing? I've been to New Orleans a few times, and this past February was my very first Mardi Gras experience. I went with a bunch of friends from school, one of whom is actually from New Orleans, and it was so much fun! When I was 16, I also had the opportunity to attend the Okeanos ball with my best friend and her family. She was on the court, and her father was King that year! That was a really fun time, too. I'll have to put up some pictures!

Calling Mother Nature!

First off, they're doing construction on the apartment building next door, and it's been an epic fail from day one, I'd say. Yesterday they managed to hit a pipe and we were without water for about eight hours. That was LOTS of fun! Today they started my morning off with what sounded like a tribal drum circle. Drum circles are awesome, but not so much at SEVEN in the morning.

Today's my run day, which I'm really excited about. I'm not quite as excited about the downpour that's happening right now. What do you have against me, Mother Nature? I don't care, I'm running anyways! I guess I'll just have to wear my rain jacket and pray I don't kill my ipod. It'll definitely be an adventure.

Oh and that paper I was working on last night? Yeah, I got nothing done. I went to bed with two or three word documents open, and some quotes and ideas written down, but that's about it. I woke up this morning at 8 and one hour and 990 words later...I'm ALL DONE!

My fingers are tired!

We have a problem.

Something has taken over my life. I can't get through the day without thinking about it, and it's been keeping me up at night. I don't know what's left to do...



Except eat the entire container!

Seriously, this stuff is GOOD. I think I've finally found my replacement for Ben & Jerry's Apple Crumble. I think it's only around until November, which makes it perfect for a fall favorite.

Hot apple cider was one of my fall favorites, until I tried the Caramel Apple Cider at Starbucks. It was just...not great. I think I prefer hot apple cider that's just...apple. This had too many different flavors mixed in to one, and it made me really sick. Nothing like being stuck in traffic for an hour when all you want to do is curl up in a little ball. I feel much better today though!

In fact, I SHOULD be finishing my paper that's due tomorrow at noon, but in true Natalie fashion I'm procrastinating to the max. I like to think of it as letting the ideas meddle in my mind for as long as possible. Then when I actually do sit down to write it takes no time at all! Have I told you guys about the time I wrote a 10 page research paper in 90 minutes? Yeah, it happened. I sat down to write at 8am expecting it to take me all the way until the deadline at 4 to finish, and I was done in a flash!

I'm a big fan of mind maps and detailed outlines, and in this case I had an outline that was about 7 pages long, and an entire table full of post-it notes with quotes from my sources and my own thoughts and analysis. Am I the only crazy one out there? Maybe we really DO have a problem!

Three Things.

Classes have finally started! In fact, I'm almost done with week one. So far things have been going really well, and I think it's going to be a great year. The workload has been super light compared to what it was last year, but once we begin our HUGE research projects there will be a lot more work involved.

My parents are taking an awesome roadtrip (and they even brought the cat with them!) and I'm kind of jealous that I'm missing out on it! For some reason they must enjoy driving across the country because this has got to be at least the 5th time they've done it in the past few years.

I went to a meeting tonight for girls and their parents interested in joining Girl Scouts and I signed up to volunteer! Which means I might have my very own Brownie troop! How crazy is that? I'm really really excited though, because I absolutely LOVED being a Girl Scout. I was involved for more than seven years and my mom was our troop leader for the majority of that time. We had such an amazing troop, we had so many patches and badges that we had to add extensions to our sashes! Hopefully I can be half as good of a leader as she was. :)

This has been the longest and busiest day so far, but I really wanted to give a little update on things. I have some really cool posts coming up too, with some for the girls about nail polish and organization and some for the boys about football and stuff like that. And if you're a boy that likes nail polish or a girl that loves football, I'm down with that too! It's all good.

It's that time of year again.

Photo by: amyboemig

Fall!

And with fall comes football season, Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks, and the start of school! Everyone I know has been back to school since the end of August, but here in Washington they do things a little differently. This Tuesday is FINALLY my first day of classes. Things are picking up and free time will soon become a thing of the past. I can't wait!

So here's a glimpse of things on a large scale (broken down by quarters):
Fall 2009 - School
Winter 2009 - School
Spring 2010 - School
Summer 2010 - Los Angeles - Internship & USC summer film program
Fall 2010 - Study abroad in Italy
Winter 2010 - Independent Contract (New Orleans)
Spring 2011 - Independent Contract (New Orleans) Graduate!
Summer 2011 - Home sweet home in LA!

Looks pretty chill, right? Not too bad!

Well here's the (partial) to-do list that goes along with that:

Academic year 2009-2010 - Draft contract for Winter 2010/Spring 2011 (because you'll be abroad for Fall of 2010)
Fall 2009 - Apply for USC
Winter 2009 - Apply for Academy of Arts & Sciences internship in LA
Spring 2010 - Apply for other internships, find summer housing, apply for study abroad, finish draft and find sponsor for contract
Summer 2010 - Prepare for study abroad, finalize contract for Winter/Spring quarters, arrange job/internship for Winter/Spring in New Orleans
Fall 2010 - Studying abroad
Winter 2010 - Finalize contract, housing, internship/job, etc. before you leave, then begin independent/internship learning contract in New Orleans!
Spring 2011 - Researching/writing in New Orleans. Make sure things (credits!) are lined up for graduation, job search for summer, prepare for move to LA.
Summer 2011 - Find housing, finalize job, and move to Los Angeles!

And of course there's what's happening right now with classes starting on Tuesday, working, and of course the millions of clubs and volunteering things I've committed myself too. Hip Hop Congress and Girl Scouts, anyone? I'm still working on finding somewhere to tutor elementary school kids, and I'd love to try out the gym on campus...and somehow stay healthy on top of everything else!

What can I say, I'm definitely working to get involved on campus and in the community. I think that's more important than ever, especially as a transfer student. I volunteered on Friday and met some of the most awesome people, and learned how to wield a giant pick axe! Life skills, people.

So...things are getting crazy! I'm so glad things have begun to pick up though, I felt like I was spinning my wheels for a while during summer and not accomplishing much.

This mini update has gotten way long, so I'm going to end things here. I could go on and on about my plans for the future, but that's pointless unless I go out and act on them! I am definitely excited to report back with what I've been working on for my ILC (independent learning contract), especially because I feel like putting it out there will really help get my wheels turning.

I hope you all had an awesome Saturday watching football (Go Trojans!), enjoying your lattes, or whatever you did today!

Home Sweet Home...Almost

I always love seeing the apartments and houses that people live in, so I thought I'd do a tour of my room at school!

The apartment has six bedrooms, and only one bathroom! That definitely makes for hectic mornings at times, but so far we've worked it out. The kitchen/dining/living rooms are huge and really nice. The entire building was redone over the summer, too. This on-campus housing defintely beats where I lived last year.

Okay, ready?

True, true love.

As I mentioned in this post, I worked on a music video shoot in Portland a few weeks ago.

Now that it's premiered I can talk about it and you all can see it! The song is called True Love 1980, and it was done by this awesome band called Ash. They've been around for the past 20 years or so, and though I had never heard of them I really like their music.

It's totally catchy, even after hearing it a million times during the shoot, so consider yourself warned! It makes me want to have a John Hughes marathon, too.



They're doing an A to Z series of singles and concerts, which you can check out here.

And on a completely, totally different subject, I'm now at school! The endless summer has finally…ended. I'm all moved in, unpacked, and decorated and now I've got a week to kill before classes start. This place feels like an entirely different world, the people are waaaaay different than what I'm used to, and it's been super cold, but I like it.

The world of college football.

Photo by sesame_seeds

It's big and scary and I like it.

My dad has never been a football fan. He loves soccer (Go Man U!) and watches it all the time, and we do watch tennis, but that's about it. I don't think I've ever watched the Superbowl (aside from the half-time shows), and at one point I was a Greenbay Packers fan but that was just because my 3rd grade teacher (who I idolized) was too. But other than that? My experience with the all-american sport has been next to nothing.

A few years ago I was in New Orleans for a Mardi Gras ball, and we had tickets to the Saints game. For some reason or other it was a huuuuge game -- maybe something about the championships? All I know is that I made it through the tailgating, which was SO much fun, before I got a fever of 102 and spent the night in our hotel room on the brink of death. Okay, so I just had strep, but still. We were staying downtown and I could see the people going crazy after the win from outside the window and knocking down stoplights. Cool beans.

Going to school in Tennessee for a year did give me more of an inside look at the world of college football. At the beginning of the season everybody was updating their Facebook status with things like "ROLL TIDE!" and "HOOK 'EM HORNS!" and whatever other witty phrases there are about the schools. SEC football scares me. SO. INTENSE. (That said, GEAUX TIGERS!)

For some reason or other, maybe I'm trying to find religion, maybe I'm just wanting to conform, I decided that this year I would live and breath football. Or not. More like I've decided to pick a team and follow it and sit down and watch some games and see what's up with football. If nothing else, I now have an excuse to eat tons of junkfood every Saturday.

Since I'm now a West Coast girl, I decided to pick a team from the PAC-10. (Why am I not rooting for my school's team? We don't have one!) Go Trojans!

I did a little research on football and found the Stiletto Sports guide to football, and that along with some Wiki Hows have made me feel like a pro. Or at the very least, I was able to watch an entire game yesterday AND understand what was going on! Luckily I was the only one home because I definitely got into it. And it was actually pretty exciting.

Their next to games are against Washington and Washington State, so it doesn't look like I'll have too many friends for the first two weeks of school. But hey, at least I've figured out a blitz is!

Take Two.

I'm baaaaack! It's been so long. True confession time: I get performance anxiety when it comes time to writing blog posts. Weird, right? I overanalyze things and obsess and it just does not go well. That's probably not so weird, but it's definitely a pain in the ass. So from now on I'm going to quit worrying about it and let my freak flag fly (thank you Crosby, Stills and Nash). Which means? Uh well, I'm not sure yet. We're just gonna keep it real.

So what have I been up to?

Papers and Pointy Sticks

I'm back! I haven't really gone anywhere, but it's been a few days. Many new things are going on right now, which is way awesome, but it's also taking away from my internet time.

I'm a month in to my summer class right now, and it's going really well. I've gotten straight A's! Even though it's an online class, our professor has made it really interactive and engaging, which I think is great. A definite plus compared to previous courses I've taken online where all you do is read read read. And we don't have tests. :) Of course, that means there is a LOT of writing to be done, but luckily I seem to have figured out the formula for a well written paper. Two pages is no big deal after a year of 5+ page papers. Thank you Rhodes!

Speaking of Rhodes...I get to take a vacation in August! I'm SO excited to spend (almost) a week in Memphis! I can't wait to see everyone again. I'll be there right when they're starting classes, and then when I come home it'll be almost time for me to go back to school! My summer class ends a week or so before I start at Evergreen State.

Okay, that's a mini update for tonight. I've been knitting all evening, and I really want to keep going! Right now I'm working on this scarf, but I REALLY want to make these! I think they'd be perfect for people with iPhones, since they rely on your fingertips to work. And they're cute! I'll have to see if I can find a knitting place around here, because the pattern looks really complicated. I've never made anything other than a scarf!

Goals, shmoals.

I've never been good at setting goals. I know how to set them, I just never follow through. Maybe I just don't make them exciting enough to want to follow through with. Or maybe it's even a combination of the two.

Whatever it is, goals and I definitely aren't best friends. That being said, I feel like I have accomplished a lot of great things in my life so far. Now if I can just figure out how to get my goals out of my head in some form or other I'll be all set!

Recently, I've been working on a few things of my own. I'm the type of the person that's driven by interest-led learning. I learned from Googling it that interest-led learning is a term used frequently by unschoolers to describe how they teach, but in my case it's more like I find something I'm interested in and then I learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. I like to research things and read as much about them as possible. Some of these interests are quick and fleeting (like soap making - my enthusiasm lasted until I got halfway to Michael's for supplies), and others stick around for a long time (I had been figure skating for 3 years and acting for 5 before I got tired of them both).

Right now, my interests (obsessions?) have been floating all over the place. I've decided it's because a) it's summer and I have free time finally, and b) I made some big decisions recently and I don't know where to go from here.

So this brings me to my first list!

Things I've been Googling/Reading about/Dreaming about/Planning for:

• Teaching - This is one of those interests that's been around since I was little. I remember (and my dad just won't let me forget!) when I was little I would line up all of my nail polishes in cute little rows and put my bottles of nail polish remover in front to teach them the day's lessons. I divded them into small groups for centers, made grade books, sent the trouble makers to the hall for detention, and on and on. I loved my colorful classes and creating all kinds of school activities. There's so much more to share on this (my thoughts about teaching, not my nail polish schools days!), but I want to keep my list short...for now.
  

• Nail Polish - Okay, so I guess I should explain my history with nail polish. Right now, in the cutest pink and orange set of drawers are approximitely 200 bottles of nail polish. How the heck did I get there? It all started with a shoebox of inherited nail polishes from my mom when I was little. I rarely painted my nails at that age, but as I grew older my collection slowly grew. Now, my Google Reader has feeds from multiple nail blogs, I order from online wholesalers ($8 for OPI or $2.99? Hmm!), and during the school year I always had people visiting my room to do their nails. It's an addiction, be warned.
  

• New Orleans - Ever since I first visited New Orleans in the summer of 2006 I have been in love with the city. I feel it pulling me. It pops up all over in my life. I've been reading books that are either set in New Orleans or about the city in general recently and this is one of my favorite quotes to sum things up.
  
  "New Orleans inspires the kind of love that very few other cities do. New Orleans has a mythology, a personality, a soul, that is large, and that has touched people around the world. It has its own music, its own cuisine, its own way oftalking, its own architecture, its own smell, its own look and feel." - Tom Piazza "Why New Orleans Matters"
  

Well, there you go. A little glimpse into what's been rolling around in my mind recently. I'm going to try to create my own set of goals soon, hopefully incorporating different aspects of what I've listed above. Maybe. Possibly. I hear goals are essential, so I might as well TRY.

What prompted all of this? I did a little math yesterday:

• Credits needed to graduate: 180
• Current number of credits: 85
• After Fall Quarter: 101
• After Winter Quarter: 117
• After Spring Quarter 133
• Credits left: 47 = 3 quarters (at 16 per quarter)

So, even though I'm Class of 2012, I'll be finished with college in two years. TWO YEARS!
That's SOON. And it could be even sooner than that if I take any summer classes.

How exciting! And a little scary. Mostly exciting. I can't wait, there's so much out there I want to accomplish. Now I just need to get some plans together and start the ball rolling.