Recap

It must seem strange, spending the last few hours of 2011 relatively alone but that's just like 2011 for you, teaching until the very end. It's been a certifiably insane year. Let's recap, shall we?

January
Moving back from London was crazy and stressful and, after the excitement of coming back had worn off, I was left coping with reverse culture shock and a feeling of loneliness I just couldn't shake. It was clear that everyone had moved on and I was glad I had J to count on. There were obsessions with IKEA and red wine that came and went with the seasons.

February
Valentine's day and celebrating 1 and a half years with J were wonderful, even though I can't remember what we did. It snowed a lot and I became obsessed with baking.

March
We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Buffalo Wild Wings which had become something of a tradition. I became obsessed with sno-cones and we celebrated my little brother's 11th birthday.

April
We started the tradition of Wednesday night game nights which always involved funky themes like 'Pursuit of Pie' (we baked pie and played trivial pursuit) or 'I Spy a Pizza' (we made our own pizzas and played some clearance version of Clue).

May
The world's most stressful semester came to an end and J and I got to dress up and go out on the town with one of my best friends in the entire world. The month wrapped up with a trip to El Salvador and a Mother's Day/Sister's 16th celebration.

June
J and I got the chance to relax! My family took a trip to San Antonio. I also went to take the LSAT which went... alright.

July
My roommate, J and I started summer school (PE for me!) and my brother came to visit! We also went to a Katy Perry concert very randomly, and went to the last Harry Potter midnight premiere! We added a super adorable addition to our little apartment family (Even though he ultimately went to live at my home-home). Finally, there were random roadtrips with the best friend that made July fly by!

August
We celebrated Meelz's 21st birthday and J and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary :) On a sadder note, school started again.

September
September marked the beginning of football season and more roadtrips!

October
J and I were broken up for a while but this is the month we got back together, just in time for my birthday! School was insane (per usual) and we celebrated a low-key Halloween.

November
Thanksgiving was probably the highlight of the month! Though J and I did take a MOAS-related trip to San Antonio where he encountered what is probably the largest burrito of all time. J and I also popped on over to Austin to visit Amanda AND there were general good times to be had.

December
We wrapped up the semester, I fell in love with a stray cat and we celebrated Christmas :) Lastly, I got my wisdom teeth out but that REALLY wasn't a highlight haha

It was a blissfully uneventful year and I know that 2012 is going ot be a whirlwind of changes. There will be finishing law school applications, (hopefully) getting accepted, graduating, moving to whatever city will be my next home, STARTING law school, settling in and hoping those I love most stick around and that the thick skin 2011 granted me helps me in the year to come. I hope for it to be a year of spontaneous adventure, too much love and laughter, permeating gratefulness, lots of pictures and unwavering courage in the face of all the change.

Happy new year everyone :)

Bucket lists

I found the link to this tumblr on Pinterest today and I spent quite some time looking at all of the things people wanted to do with their lives. (I just got my wisdom teeth out today so I have a lot of time to kill). Anyway, one of the things that really struck me was how incredibly lucky I have been. Some things that people have only dreamed about, I've already gotten to do and I haven't even graduated yet!

But I must say there is one that I am itching to try:

I've never been one for lists, especially bucket ones that make me feel all kinds of stress out, but this close to the New Year to think about what kind of adventures you want to go on and who you want to be on January 1 :) But until then, there is so much Christmas fun to be had! I still have to catch you up on J's birthday! (22, the old man) And the end of the last fall semester of college. I just can't believe time flies so fast.

Hoping everyone's holidays are happy and bright!

Way Back Wednesday: Paris

I was poking through my e-mail earlier, trying to figure out what books I had rented from where, when I came across a confirmation that reminded me, a year ago today, J and I were headed back from this great place:

We were only there for a few short days and our entire trip was tainted with these term papers that hung over our head but we managed to see a bit of the city:

I had always heard that the French were notoriously rude but we didn't experience any bit of that. Everyone we met had helpful directions or nice things to say to us! This might have been due party to the fact that we were pretending to be from a Spanish-speaking country but I think more of it had to do with the fact that we made genuine attempts to understand their cultures and learn a few basic phrases, like "Please" and "Thank you", "good evening/afternoon", "hello and goodbye" and things like that since the French are apparently big fans of manners :) And it was a wonderful trip!

The only crazy part was that we were staying in a hostel and we met two fun Australians who went on a bar crawl. They invited us our first night there and we politely declined BUT, later that night, they came back and started throwing up ALL OVER THE PLACE. So gross :( It turns out there was all this drama that went down (They were a couple) but I really couldn't get over the vomit part. I am one of the most easily disgusted people in the world. That's 60% of the reason I don't stay in hostels anymore.

But Paris is every bit as beautiful as people would have you believe :) And it is possible to see the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, a Christmas Village, Champs-Elysees and a few museums in a weekend :) I'll leave you guys with this video of a sparkling Eiffel Tower to end this flashback!

The Great Senior Breakdown

There are sometimes in life that call for an emotional breakdown and I feel like college graduation is one of those things. I'm not ACTUALLY graduating college until next May but everyone's shipping off for Christmas, leaving our Christmas tree to sit alone for the rest of the holiday season :( When we come back, we'll have temporarily lost a roommate, be preparing for our last semester in our cozy home when it's finally starting to feel like homes, searching for our NEXT homes and the whole thing just makes me a mess! Endings tend to do that to me, though.

Motivation

You know those days when you have EVERYTHING you need to be doing and yet you have absolutely no motivation to do any of it?

Today is one of those days. Despite the fact that I have a 15 page final due tomorrow at noon and another final at 2, I'm still hanging out on Pinterest.

I'll just leave this right here and be on my way

Books to Movies

I went to film camp. I know all about turning books into movies and how it's a different medium and I know that inevitably, things get changed along the way. The one thing I can never bring myself to like about books that are turned into movies is the way they erase what you had previously imagined the characters to look like. I've recently started reading the Hunger Games, knowing full and well there was a movie due out next year. Just today, I decided to peek around some pictures to see if they lined up at all with what I was thinking. And they didn't :( Jennifer Lawrence is a great girl I'm sure but she is not nearly ANYTHING like how I imagined olive-skinned, black-haired Katniss. Probably because she's blue-eyed and fair-skinned. Peeta is pretty accurate since there's only so many ways to picture an adorable blonde boy but the one casting I am not prepared to accept is Cinna. I'm sure Lenny Kravitz will do a great job but this is my Cinna:

His description:

Most people who live in the Capitol follow very absurd fashion trends. This is not the case for Cinna. The first time he is seen in the book, he is described as wearing a simple black shirt with matching pants. His one strange fashion choice is gold eyeliner, which brings out the gold flecks in his green eyes and which Katniss describes as attractive. Other than that, Cinna looks very normal, with close-cropped natural dark brown hair.

It will probably be the reason I can't bring myself to see the movie. I refuse to have my Peter Facinelli look-alike, young, well put-together Cinna taken away from me. Can't you guys see it? Or am I just crazy?