Won't be around forever, girl

Oh lordy I meant to post ages ago about one thing, which I didn't have time for, which turned into three things, and then five, and then NO TIME, and then oops a month and a half later...

( Some pictorial evidence )

In less than two weeks I'm leaving yet again to go to Minneapolis for my cousin's wedding, and I will, for the first time in my life not even joking, get to experience autumn. APPLE PICKING. Very excited.

I'm just coming off a dumb cold that knocked me on my ass thanks to some sick person from Dragon*Con. I was utterly miserable for a couple days, and now I've just got this awesome cough that just won't go away. Urgh.

Also uhhh, this is a little weird? But. I got Invisalign today. I had braces for 2.5 years in high school and wore my retainer for a long time after that. But the plastic on my retainer cut into my gums and hurt SO BAD that I finally called it quits. I should have just gone to my ortho and asked them to make me a new one, but I didn't, so now I have one tooth that's starting to turn all the way around again and affecting some teeth around it. If I didn't fix it now, it was gonna get worse, so. I don't think I need them for more than 6 months, so that'll be nice to have it taken care of. In the meantime, my teeth huuuurt. :(

And in case you were wondering, I 938472937% can't deal with the SPN S7 gag reel.



GDI

This is my new bb:





I bought my very own car on Saturday. Both thrilling and terrifying, taking on a loan for the first time. But I think - hope! - the car was worth it. It's a 2004 Camry with about 90K miles on it, only had 1 previous owner, leather seats, a sun roof, and a very clean engine. The only real cons I have with it right now is that the previous owner had a dog that a) shed E V E R Y W H E R E seriously it's going to take me weeks of re-vacuuming to get all the dog hair out and b) clawed up the leather seats a bit. The bigger scratches can, apparently, be pretty easily fixed with a kit, but the dealership I bought it from was hella dumb and tried to paint over the smaller scratches with a leather-specific paint. Unfortunately they didn't do it correctly so it's flaking off AND smells like paint in the car, so. Nothing that can't be fixed over time, but it kinda irks me a bit.

SO. CAR. OMG. ADULT AND STUFF.

My parents also put a bid on the house in Georgia and we've yet to hear anything back, so we're kind of flailing around our house with thoughts of can we do this? can we afford this? what if this house doesn't sell? what if we should have just waited a little longer? DOWN IS LEFT? So YEAH, WOW, that would be weird if we got it.

And in case you were wondering, I'm still ( unable to deal with this. )

After getting through the insane busyness of work yesterday (and leaving later than I was supposed to), my friends and I got together to pick out pumpkins at a pumpkin patch! Everyone was basically appalled to hear that I've never carved a pumpkin before, so for good measure we got pumpkin beer to go along with. While carving away we watched a pretty great dark comedy called Murder Party which I would definitely suggest adding to your Halloween movie stack. And then we watched a horrible horrible AWFUL movie called Cursed and omfg its stellar cast which included: Christina Ricci, a nicely bearded Joshua Jackson, Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Rosenbaum lololol, and the guy who plays Ron Swanson. WHAT EVEN. If it's any indication of how horrible it was, in the climax of the movie, a CGI werewolf actually flips somebody off. Yeah. It was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that I ended up getting one of the worst migraines I think I've ever had. (But ugh no really, damn you inability to eat high quantities of salt-covered foods.)

So as I came home about ready to vomit by brains out I was like, nuuuu must watch SPN, but fortunately after taking a shower, I felt a lot better, and watching SPN made me feel way WAY better, haha. I loooooved it, despite having, um, never watched an episode of Buffy in my life, and the gore turning my stomach (AGH NAIL GUNS AGH AGH AGH.) I will now also never unsee speedwalking!Sam, thank you Jared.

Anyway, ( the pumpkins wot were carved )

Also the weather is amaaaazing right now. I'm so utterly ecstatic that it's below 80 degrees. I actually wore a (very light) coat yesterday! AND I WILL WEAR ONE TONIGHT TOO. Perfect for having a glass of wine (or three) and a clove, oh yes.

Ooh, I realized I never showed pictures from the wearable art runway show my friend did about a month ago!

( Wearable oddities. )

Got a call a few days ago from the Starbucks I had the interview at, and she pretty much wants to hire me on right away as a shift manager. :DDD A shift is pretty much a key holder, counts the safe, drops off the deposit, opens and closes, and get's PAID MORE YAY. This is pretty much the best possible outcome for me for working at Starbucks right now. I have another interview at the store on Monday, as she wants to talk to me about all the shift stuff, and for me to talk to another manager for a nearby store. She's afraid that I might not get all the hours I'd want, so I might be floating in between stores for a while, just until holiday hours pick up. The only problem with this is that the other store is in a crappy location; there's road construction all around it which is so horrible that that Starbucks has to close at 6pm. But MEH, we'll see how it goes.

Also I am trying SO VERY HARD to tamp down my anxiety on this upcoming Apple interview. What if, after all the interview process for it, I actually get hired? Then I'll have to tell Starbucks and my accommodating manager kthxbye and I would feel horrible about it. Ugh. I don't know. I'm just going to tuck those thoughts away until after the interview and make decisions as they come. But either way, YAY JOB! :DDDD

Bryson City, NC ♥

Also, this was taken a few months ago. Sometimes peacocks roam through our neighborhood, nbd.



Tomorrow morning friends and I will be driving down to Miami for a friend's birthday for a few days. Egh. Miami is nowhere near the top of my must-see list, but hopefully it'll still be fun times. I'm also being dragged out to a club (with an expensive cover fee, no less) and clubs are the opposite of my favorite buuuut since, again, it's for a friend's birthday, I will do my best to not sulk in a corner.

Also, I have not yet seen this past week's True Blood, nor Harry Potter. I MUST RECTIFY THIS IMMEDIATELY.

Sorry, no posting because I have nothing to talk about except how much I hate my job and how depressed it's making me and that would just be boring and repetitive, so. (But really, have I mentioned that the coworker slammed a door in my face on Friday, and, oh yeah, I have yet to receive a raise since I started there a year and a half ago? Yeah.)

I've also been having miniature panic attacks because I have no fucking clue what I want to do with my life. I mean, there's what I'd LIKE to do, but as far as figuring out what is beneficial and smart and will further my life so I will be fitter, happier, more productive etc... I have no idea. I am good at very very few things and mediocre with most things and I swear if I bounce around nothing but office jobs for the rest of my working life, I will be a deeply damaged person. (To be fair, my mom did remind me that not all office jobs are as soul-sucking as the one I work at now, which I agree, so lol good luck on finding the good ones, self.) I know, regular welcome-to-adulthood crisis, I'm not the first, but I am the kind of person who gets really really upset when there isn't a Plan. I greatly enjoy having a Plan.

This makes me sound like I'm not doing well, but, meh, I'm okay. I think once I quit this job, I'll be stellar. Then I'm going to have some mental downtime and figure out just what the hell I'm going to do.

Today was good because, you know, day off (which tends to lead to those awful office-y conversations after you get back, you know: "Hey, how was your weekend?" "Good, but way too short, ha ha!" "Oh yes, I need a weekend from my weekend, HA HA."), and I went over to my aunt and uncle's place and had BBQ and carrot cake and swam in the pool. At least I have a short week this week, and my parents are back from their trip to Alaska, which helped to lessen the depression that was piling on me the past two weeks or so.

This also makes me happy, so I must inflict it on you also:



Derptown USA. ♥

Ha ha! Of course I have not forgotten! Much to the chagrin of many, I'm sure, lulz. Onward!

( March 21st I arrived at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. )

Next: Leiden and Amsterdam!

OH my goodness. How can I possibly be 24? When I was in high school, do you know what I was thinking about myself at 24? Maybe not married, not yet, but maybe in a serious relationship. Definitely done with college and powering full steam ahead in my set career, moved out of Florida and etc etc. Lol I guess one out of four ain't bad. And I'm not disappointed with how my life post-high school has gone, not at all; I guess what I mean is, back then, 24 seemed so much more distant and grown up than what I actually am. HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE CONSIDERED AN ADULT. I still live with my parents! I have no idea what a health insurance deductible is! MY BED IS NEVER MADE.

Ah, well. Panic about getting older aside, it's been a pretty good weekend! Trying to go out with friends last night was a bit of a clusterfuck, but we made good of the bad; we were late for a neat little planetarium show I wanted to see and therefore couldn't go inside, BUT a nice gentleman took us on the roof anyway and showed us through 3 massive telescopes the moon, Saturn, Sirius, and the nebula on Orion's belt, all of which was SUPER AWESOMESAUCE in case you were wondering. Then we headed over to a restaurant that I was really excited for, a Thai-Mex fusion, but they stopped serving 10 minutes before we got there, SIIIGH. Fortunately we knew another good restaurant in the area, so it worked out! Then there was drinking. LOTS OF DRINKING. So at least it ended well. :D

Today my parents and I went to Orlando to the Great American Pie Festival, where $10 gets you into the all you can eat pie buffet. Piiieee. If you can think it up, I probably had it. Omg. So good. Unfortunately it was all outside and almost unbearably hot (I know, it's April, I KNOW, MY RAGE, IT SIMMERS) so we didn't stay too long. Later we went to dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant which was holy crap amaaaazing. Quail is awesome, btw. When we came home we had a Skype session with my sister, which was really nice because I miss her! I opened the present she sent me while we Skyping, which was pretty cool. A framed picture of us, vanilla rooibos tea from the Republic of Tea, and an assortment of ethnic food goodies from a store they have up in Chicago called World Market. DO YOU ENJOY HOW MY BIRTHDAY HAS CENTERED AROUND FOOD. I sure do. And thennn my parents gave me Tron on blu-ray (AHHHasjkdfla;jdka I am so excited to watch it you have no idea), $40 gift card to the ~mall, a full year's subscription to Flickr, and a pair of shoes of my choosing. I will keep you up to date and informed about said shoes.

Tomorrow I get to have the peppermint chocolate cake that my dad is making me. It has peppermint schnapps in it. And ganache. Omg. Sugar coma. This weekend. I cannot.

( OH YEAH THEN I GOT THESE STUPID FACES )

Also HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS to my fellow birthday buddies who are continuously awesome, kashmir1 and poppyjar. I hope it was super! ♥

And last, but certainly not least, thank you SO MUCH for all the messages, comments, and other birthday wishes! Your awesomeness is my happy place. ♥!!!

HI. In case you haven't heard me blab on about it for the past three weeks, I went to Europe. More specifically, Germany, the Netherlands, and I randomly ended up in Luxembourg for about half an hour one day. So now it is my duty to blab about it all even MORE, with more detail! pictures!! and wistful heartfelt longings. I feel I have to add the disclaimer that I HAVE to blab, it is in my imperative NATURE to blab; mostly because it gives me the opportunity to chew over everything, as it was such a whirlwind, and more than anything, livejournal is a place to store my memories. So don't feel obligated to look over it all and/or comment on anything; this is for me too.

So basically this was my first time out of the country. I've been to Canada - Vancouver specifically - but I guess in my mind I can't really count that as ~out of the country, haha. Obviously, everything is different. Not so different that I felt completely out of my element, but different enough to generally keep me wide-eyed and happily processing everything that was around me. I kept a little notebook with me so I could write down tidbits or places I had been that day, which is super helpful now, as some things I would have forgotten. I was constantly in awe of how old everything is. I mean, you know, I've been to places here in the States where there are Frplaces that say omg we were established during the CIVIL WAR DOESN'T IT BLOW YOUR MIND, and then in Europe, shit is so old you wonder how it's even still standing. That's awesome. I'm a bit of a history nerd, so I took a guidebook along to not only help me with, you know, not getting completely turned around and lost while walking around the cities, but to also explain the history of architecture, relics, churches, etc.

Not only am I enamored with the ancient history, but I am almost obsessed with more recent history - specifically World War II and its impacts. The guidebook I brought along explained some of the buildings/churches/etc that got heavily destroyed from Allied bombers during the last half of the war, and just being able to distinguish, say, the new bricks on a cathedral that were replacing the bombed out sections from the older, grittier, sometimes completely black bricks from the fire of the bombs was simultaneously incredibly sobering and really interesting. There are sections of some downtown areas where there are really old houses lining the street with new ones sandwiched in between, evidence of more bomb/fire damage. I think it interests me so much because it is so recent, and I'm also fascinated by the psychological takeover of Nazi party, more of which I'll get into when I show the pictures of Nuremberg. Now that I'm back I've planned on checking out some books having to do with all of this. I'm also super bummed again that I didn't continue with my history minor in college, haha.

But anyway! Onwards to the pics!

( Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Darmstadt, Rudisheim, and Cologne )

Lol okay, I've decided to split this up quite a lot otherwise everyone, including myself, will be going cross-eyed. TUNE IN NEXT TIME for adventure! history! and more mentions of every food I ate there!