again?

1. did some errands today and ran around town for a bit. but it thunderstormed most of the day so i stayed inside and started a new book and watched some tv. you know, the usual.
2. talked to a bestie for about a half hour on the phone tonight! it made me really excited for the fall!
3. I WENT OUT TONIGHT! shocking, i know. but i went out with the girl who i am subleasing from, so random. but it was fun and hopefully her friends i met will be going out partners for the future. 

so i'm not really in the blogging mood tonight, but here i am, blogging anyway. this is dedication. well, stubbornness. i hope that the beach trip with my family and the boyfriend works out! a summer with no beach trip is not a summer. BP can go to hell because i will find a way!

bakelitequeen

1. no pool today, which put me in a sour mood. i had on sunscreen and everything! 
2. finished bel canto by ann patchett and HATED the ending. don't even want to talk about it. 
3. went to an arts festival thingy in downtown with the family friend's friend and her family tonight. it was fun being with people! and they have an adorable little girl who was dressed as a ladybug just for fun. 

i got a package today from my grandmother and it was an empty bottle of chardonnay and a new bakelite bracelet!!! i've been using empty wine bottles to put my bracelet collection on and it looks fabulously shabby chic--love it. i have this thing about bakelite. it's a slight obsession for which i blame my grandmother. she has a wonderfully fabulous bakelite bracelet collection. but maybe i am ahead of myself--what is bakelite, you may ask? it's a vintage plastic from the 30s and 40s that was made only for that time period into jewelry, appliances, knick knacks, anything you can think of. it went in and out of being hugely collectible and it's back on the up and up. my grandmother got me started on it and now i have a nice collection of my own. i love the stuff and wear it a lot. it makes such a pleasant noise and is totally unique on the accessory front. so i'm very excited to have a new piece and i always have to hold off from buying more! look how cool...

"it don't matter if you're black or white"

1. enjoyed reading a book during a nice morning thunderstorm. then the sun came out and i went to the pool to keep enjoying my book!
2. didn't realize until late in the day that it was thursday today! i thought it was wednesday. yay! less than 2 weeks until the hopeful beach trip...
3. went out for coffee tonight with a family friend's friend and really enjoyed it! she told me more about this place and also mentioned that i might get some baby sitting clients. that'd be great!

oh, thank you michael jackson. he sure did have some glory days. anyway, what prompted me to talk about racism was something my boyfriend mentioned to me yesterday about a text one of the ladies at his job received. essentially, it was very racist and stereotypical. something i argue about with him a lot is southern culture. i love the south and he's a northerner (kind of, also a transplant). so while i understand the concept of living in the south, it is really foreign to him. he claims that you have to be born into southern culture to get it. that may be true, but i am just thankful that i wasn't born a northerner. anyway, racism is a big issue for him. don't get me wrong...it infuriates me. it was pretty prevalent at my high school and always a topic for jokes. mainly racism against blacks or hispanics, but sometimes asians. so blatant racism bothers me a lot and often upset me in school. what i want to make a point of proving, though, is that everyone is racist. yes, EVERYONE (even you). while not every person is blatantly racist, most social psychology research agrees that people of all races have stereotypes about other races/religions/social classes/intelligence levels/genders/sexual orientations/etc. so while it may be an uncomfortable topic, especially for people who claim not to be racist, it is true. everyone is racist or prejudiced in some ways. part of it is just in-group and out-group bias, simple social psych stuff. but a lot of it is more deep seated for us--how we were raised, in what environment, around which people. racism is not always taught, but can be picked up from parents, friends, media, books, any source of information that people use to shape their world views. anyway, my point is that, yes, racism is an awful thing and has torn people and countries apart, there are none who are guiltless. racism affects everyone and racism exists in everyone. disclaimer: this picture is not meant to imply that racism is only whites hating blacks--that is not so--"racism" encompasses a lot of things in the context i am using the word.

lazy day

1. woke up relatively early, applied for another job, started a new book. such is my life right now. 
2. sometimes i get paranoid that i repeat blog post titles. 
3. have i had a lazy day before? oh goodness yes, but hopefully not as a title! forgive me, if that's the case.

i want to be productive. i want to start my work here. and i would love to have a real job that pays money too. i like being productive and working hard and being a useful contribution to society. i could never be an heiress! i would feel so lazy and slovenly and bored. and yes, i could travel and shop and eat and do whatever i wanted all day, but what's the fun in that? why spend the money from daddy's (or mommy's) little piece of plastic? the fun is to earn the money yourself and then do all of that stuff! and if an heiress, where's the real contribution to society? i mean, yes, you could give to charities, but does it mean as much when a celebrity who has mega millions gives $10,000? not really. and where is the exercise of the brain? sure, you can go to school for fun, but there is no drive to make money or to make a name for yourself through a job or scholarship. so that's that. glad i'm not an heiress (but also a little bit jealous)!

a facade of culinary woes

1. the pool was nice today! it's really hot here but the pool definitely helps buffer some of the heat. 
2. finished the book on suicide (thankfully) and am starting a new book tomorrow! can't wait to read novels again, haha. 
3. found a perfect pair of red pumps. alas, they must wait until i have some spare change. 

sometimes i don't write about what i really want to on this blog. it's not a diary and i can't use it as a portal to vent all my feelings. unfortunately. so tonight, i am using a facade of talking about the food network show chopped instead of using this space to talk about what i really want to. this show is about four chef competitors who face off against one another and compete for a $10,000 prize. the twist is that each round of the competition, appetizer/entree/dessert, there is a basket of mystery ingredients that have to all be used in that round. 20 minutes/30 minutes/30 minutes. every time i watch this show i live vicariously through the chefs. i would love to go to culinary school and learn how to cook for real. i would love to study in france and italy about how to cook amazing food. but there are also other things i want to do with my life--more pressing things that i am more passionate about. for now, i will stick to watching the show and talking about what i would cook if it were me.

this book i'm reading

1. went to the pool today until it started to thunderstorm! it was nice to get some sunshine time in but we need rain here too.
2. grocery store, vacuum, wash dishes, make dinner, tidy up. such a productive person (today anyway).
3. watched the bachelorette from 8-10. this girl is kind of stupid and keeping some dud guys around. and the guys aren't even all that decent this season. bummer. 

i'm reading this book "why people die by suicide" for my summer work. it's a really depressing book, naturally, that is basically all about this model that tries to explain why suicide happens. i'm about 2/3 of the way through it now and on the chapter about genetics, neurobiology, and mental illness risk factors (yawn). but the final chapter is about prevention and treatment--what i'm most excited to learn about. okay, not excited, but most interested in learning about. the book has some pretty sad anecdotes about suicide and one really stuck out in my mind. a new yorker article in 2003 (i think) wrote about golden gate bridge suicides and told a few stories, one about this guy whose suicide note said something like "i'm going to walk to the bridge. if anyone smiles at me, i will not jump." well...he jumped and died. that is so heartbreaking. our society these days is so globalized and connected yet there are over 1 million suicide deaths per year worldwide. all it would have taken was a simple smile from someone, and the man would not have jumped to his death. it is an uncomfortable story, especially when coupled with the refusal to build a suicide barrier on the golden gate bridge for "aesthetic reasons." such. bullshit. but anyway, my rant about suicide is more a rant about people becoming desensitized. i was driving on the highway one night with  my boyfriend in the front seat when a man came out into the road slowly, waving his hand for me to stop. he seemed pretty normal, glasses and average clothes, and i slowed down to stop but my boyfriend told me to keep driving. granted, it was a deserted road and late at night and kind of suspicious, but i wanted to stop. i felt bad and guilty and like i wasn't helping someone who needed help. i would not have stopped if i was alone, but i figured it couldn't be that bad with my boyfriend in the car. he pointed out how it was weird and possibly unsafe and was logical about it, but i still couldn't get the image out of my head. and i walk past homeless people almost every day in my college town but usually don't stop and help. as a young female, the issue of safety is always brought up as a reason not to help people. but when did our society become so unhelpful and so untrustworthy? it's a damn shame.

this is kitty genovese, by the way.

carrie was right

1. woke up late today and still felt crappy...
2. so i went to the doctor and found out that i have a sinus infection. yay for me!
3. watched legally blonde and made dinner, then did some more homework-ish stuff.

okay, i hate to admit it. carrie from sex and the city 2 was right. carrie annoys me usually and is such a drama queen, but she was right about one thing in the new movie--time flies. she says in the beginning how years pass and suddenly a decade has gone by in what feels like a second. i have this document on my computer where i record all the topics of my blog posts to make sure i don't repeat topics. i got behind on this document and hadn't recorded any topics since march 30th. going back through all my posts and reading them again made me realize how quickly this year is passing. every christmas i get all excited for the new year and know that it will seem to take forever to go by, but in all reality it flies! it's already may 30th!!! where has this year gone--into thin air?! i feel like such an old person talking about time flying by, but it really is true. and i know that once august hits and school starts back up, i'll be like "ugh, a whole nother semester." but before i know it, it'll be december 31st again and hopefully i'll be preparing to go to italy for a semester. so much in life is temporary and i want to do great things with my life but have to question the necessity of it all. i get that being the best is important and working my butt off is important too, but there also has to be joy and zest for life in order for all of that to mean anything. i've realized with this blog that it's hard to talk about stuff just on the fly--i thought it would be easy to think of nightly topics, but it's been hard! but i am still committed and still stubborn and still all the way invested in this project. reading other blogs is fun too. and i love that i just came up with this idea one night and decided to stick to it--that's a very typical move for me. i'm very driven by emotions and how i feel at the time. so i decided to do this thing and have been doing it since.
bucket list item--design a room for my house that is just for me.