It’s a CELEBRATION!!!

It is FINALLY official… I got into grad school!!! Yippee!!! I am SO EXCITED!!! I can not even tell you have much stress has been lifted off of my shoulders right now. One less thing I have to worry about. So this weekend will be about celebrating both Erica’s great accomplishments and now mine as well.

The suspense is KILLING ME!!!!!!!!

So I tackled my Admissions Coordinator in the hall today to inquire about the status of my grad school application, this is after of course the 2 emails I have already sent him this week. He said I should know soon. Which has always been his response. Well on my way home today I got a phone call from the interim Director of the MBA program for a quick informal interview about my work experience and my goals. At the end of the call he said that I will hear from the Admissions department tomorrow. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! This is KILLING ME!!! JUST TELL ME ALREADY!!! Classes start in 12 days! I am GOING CRAZY right now! So keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow and hopefully this weekend will become more of a celebration than an escape...

Ramblings

I actually got my fat ass on my bike today. Rode up and down the lakefront. That lakefront certainly solidifies my love for this city if nothing else.



This photo may not seem that exciting to you but it was super windy and the seagulls where actually just kind of floating in the air that way because of the gusts. I thought it was worth taking a snapshot of. I took some other photos of random things however most of them came out pretty blurry. I don’t understand my camera. It’s a really nice camera- a 5.0- Megapixel Sony Cyber-shot that I purchased for myself as a birthday present last year. Sometimes it will take an adequate picture but I can NEVER get a landscape or non-person photo to ever really look spectacular. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I look at all these amazing photos on flickr and I can’t take anything like them. One of my students has the Canon PowerShot 6.0-Megapixel Digital ELPH Camera.



Canon claims that this sleek and slim digital camera boosts big features designed to make snapping professional-looking shots easy. The DIGIC II image processor ensures vivid clarity and crisp colors for frame-worthy pictures with every snap. It’s features include:
- 6.0-megapixel CCD captures high-resolution images up to 2816 x 2112 pixels

- 3x optical/4x digital/12x total zoom

- 2.5" color LCD monitor with brightness adjustment and histogram display; optical viewfinder
It also has a video recorder on it. It is a flipping amazing camera!! I want it! I want it so bad! However I’m wondering if I’m just a bad photographer given that my current camera is just 1-megapixel behind this one and I bought it for the same price. Is there a trick to taking good pictures? I mean I don’t need them to be professional quality but I plan on taking a lot of photos when I go on vacation this winter and I want to ensure that they are going to come out okay because I presume I will be taking a lot of landscape and perspective photos during my trip. Right now when I use my zoom on anything except a person it comes out super blurry and why do things look further away in the camera than in reality?

I hadn’t really planed on ranting about cameras during this post. I was going to talk about how excited I am to be road tripping up to Red Wing, MN this weekend to see my good friend Erica and her brand new HOUSE and brand new puppy and her adorable kitty, oh yeah and her husband Alex. I have been so stressed out lately I really need some time away from here and to catch up with her. I am also going to get to see my Dad, who lives about an hour from there, which makes me happy. I’ll actually be seeing him twice this year, and possibly 3 times if I head up there for Thanksgiving again, as apposed to the 2 years I went without seeing him during the rule of the wicked stepmother Evil Eva.

Anyway, I am still awaiting a reply as to the status of my grad school application. I celebrated my 1 year anniversary at my job Saturday and am anxiously awaiting my review and subsequent raise. I am frantically looking for an Assistant Manager before my current one leaves me September 1st. And I’ve been battling the insomnia for about a week and a half now. It’s winning.

Hopefully I will have some fun roadtrip stories for you upon my return. Until then…

Sick in bed for 2 days with nothing but myself…

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be, said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." – Alice in Wonderland

Sometimes I feel myself plunging toward a state of solitude. Violently twisting and turning as life falls further and further from my grasp. It happens more often than I’d like to admit. I probably should not be confessing such things but I imagine the handful of people that might read this already know this about me. I need to move… go, shift, budge, stir, be in motion, move about, travel, progress, walk, step, jump, run, turn, dance… Today a coworker brought a job posting at the MOMA in NY to my attention. It sounds fabulous (really anything at the MOMA would be) and I qualify for it. My main reason for leaving NY is gone so really there isn’t anything preventing me from applying for the position. It threw me for a loop. I knew I was restless but I didn’t think this much. I think the fact that I haven’t heard anything regarding my grad school application is really getting to me. Lets face it, I’m not very book smart, never have been. School was never an easy place for me. Maybe they don’t feel that I have any potential- they certainly wouldn’t be the first ones. I think if this grad school thing doesn’t work out I will apply to the MOMA. I make no commitments on that matter right now. I hope to go to MN next weekend and visit a good friend. I miss her and I think that the trip might stir my soul a little bit, which I need. Nothing like a road trip…

Cough, sneeze, wheeze, and repeat…

I awoke hot and sticky dressed in nothing but a tank top and panties. Squinting at the clock without my lenses the digital display reads 1:14pm. White fluffy objects surround the clock and cascade down to the shelf below. I slip on my glasses and these objects come in to focus… balled up tissues. Yuck. I’m sick. I could have told you that Friday but I like to fight the obvious as best I can. I managed to go out Saturday and work a second job Sunday but today as I awoke the first time to get ready for work it became quite clear that I had a cold. Nonetheless, I went to work only to be sent home an hour and a half later. I’m not sure about my hesitation to use sick days. I imagine it has to do with my many years in retail in which there is nothing called a sick day. I also blame my father for his ridiculously fierce work ethic, he who wouldn’t miss a day if terrorists were bombing his office. However, after the cats got over the initial shock of having me home so early they curled up next to me in bed and slept with me until my constant coughing annoyed them enough and went then to their respected corners in the apartment to take their own naps. I awoke needy, lonely, and unable to breathe. I turn into such a baby when I’m sick. I just want someone to take care off me. Isn’t that pathetic!?! I’m a grown woman- I don’t need to be taken care of! I’m deciding if I’m going to go to work tomorrow or not. I really could use another day of rest. I could of course go to the doctor but I’d rather not. I’m not a big fan of drugs. All the women in my family just cringed. I come from a long line of nurses. Always the perpetual black sheep of the family- not only did I not go into the medical field I use homeopathic medicine more often than not as I don’t like to put foreign substances in my body (lets ignore the fact that I drink for the time being). There was this cute little old Chinese lady when I was in NY who used to give me all sorts of herbs and teas to help with my many ailments. She used to enthusiastically explain what they were in broken English until she was satisfied and then would tell me to “Go. Go now. Be well.” I miss her and her crazy teas. Although I have no idea as to what any of them were. I think I might have actually purchased 1 or 2 of them during my year of acquaintance with “mom” as she would always push my handful of bills away rattling off something in Chinese that I never figured out. Whatever was in those teas they certainly worked and as I gingerly suck down my chamomile tea with honey I hope for the same results.

A comment on a distinct difference between my mother and myself…
Saturday my mother and I went to get passports. When it was time for my dear, sweet 61-year-old mother to get her picture taken the photographer asked her to remove her glasses as they were going to cause a glare and you would have thought he had asked her to strip down to her underwear and quack like a chicken by the way she reacted. So I’m standing there holding her purse and our applications trying to calmly explain to her everything is going to be all right as she starts ripping the photographer a new one. Always conscious of what’s going on around me (especially in public places with my mother) I notice the line of people staring at us and whispering. My mother still refusing to take off her glasses is scolding the poor man who’s trying to do his job and once again I get that all too familiar look of helplessness and pleading from whom she has decided to hurl her wrath at and I am reduced to a 12-year-old as I try to calm my mother down. Eventually I convince her that if she should ever decide to leave the country (which she currently has no plans mind you) she can easily take her glasses off for the attendant in customs but if there is a glare they might not let her travel. That seems to do it, she takes her photo and then I’m up. I quietly apologize to the photographer who is visibly shaken (she can do that) and he snaps my photo from where it had sat on its tripod for my mother who is all of 4’11”. So I have a great picture of my neck and chin for my passport photo. Thanks mom. While we wait in line for the actual application process she is still bitching about the photo and I stand there thinking of my pending travel, I have long since learned to pick my battles with her.