I don't even know how to update anymore because I'm out of habit.

May

I aced Psychology and passed Statistics. Then I spent the next two weeks watching too much TV and hanging out with Greg, totally burned out.

June

Hell if I remember. I turned 27. Went to Ocean City. Enjoyed Catch-22, a play Greg was in. Visited my mom and swam in her pool. Got a sexy new black swimsuit. Sang some awesome karaoke. Oh man then all these dang celebrities died. Super depressing.

July so far ...
Went to Ocean City last weekend. Learned the Swedish alphabet. Celebrated the sixth anniversary of meeting in person at the library. Since then I have not dated anyone else. We took long walks on the beach and talked and talked and talked. It seems like all we want to do lately is be together. July has brought many family celebrations, including all three remaining grandparent birthdays and visiting Greg's parents pretty much constantly. I haven't hung out with any of my friends this month, but I haven't had any offers anyway. Well except for Linda. She invites me to the movies and it's always someone's birthday, poor me, LOL. I want to go to Bengies with her!

Later this month I might go visit Linda at her Sexy Sexy Sexy Slumberparty where I might buy something sexy. Laughter and dick cupcakes will be involved. Maybe I'll buy another toy. Oooh la la. Maybe I can convince her to have another Bengies outing on the 31st! Maybe this time I'll actually come along! I am determined. We shall see.

This fall I'll be taking Biology and Oceanography. I bought my Oceanography textbook! And some cool pens. And some huge notebooks with lots of paper. I'm ready! I'm ready! I just need to buy my Biology books when they come in.

Aaaaand the library is closing. Pooo. Here, have a Facebook Survey Thingy.

( My Life According To Jewel )

I am highly amused by the horrified expression on Greg's face to have a tall, blonde, German girl in his arms cooing, "Cara mia!"

LOOK AT ALL THE ACTING GOING ON IN THIS CANDID!



Greg as Nately: GET DRESSED!

Karin as Nately's Whore: Perche?

Nately: Because, I don't want other men to see you without all your clothes on!

Nately's Whore: Perche no?

Nately: Perche no? Because it's not right, that's why!

Nately's Whore: Why not?

Nately: Why not? Because I said so!

Hee!

Read the review here.

Greg is hilariously sexy as Wintergreen by the way. Very John Larroquette! Everyone did a really great job in their multiple roles. Jeff Mocho had the lead as Yossarian, but he reminded me of Tom Hanks mixed with Bill Murray mixed with Michael J. Fox.

This is my favorite show Greg's ever been in.

Things my professor said about me:

"Welcome to the class. Your interest in psycholgy is great and should result in some good postings and projects as you learn about child psychology. Your 2nd posting is a good description about how Piaget applied to your own cognitive development. " 90%

"I have counted this well-detailed discussion as your two items for this forum. " 110%

"You can still post 2 more items if you wish. These later ones are well done. " 140%

"You do show great understanding of the psychological implications of the movie. JS " 90%

"Jennifer, You write exceptionally well and at times I was swept up in the smoothness of your style. You also have integrated Erikson's ideas very well into your own life. Your sources are well chosen. I would have like a bit more detail of your transition from adolescence to adulthood and more about you life in the present and how that relates to childhood. I really enjoyed reading your autobiography. JS "

"excellent! Overall high score in class!"

"Your discussion of assimilation and accomodation does not quite fit but overall answer is good."

"Your answers are model answers!!!!!!!!!! " Wow exclamation points!

Overall he likes how I organize my writing.

Last year around this time my self-esteem was pretty much NILL! Without going back to school, I never would have gained any faith in myself. Thank you school!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: I got a 100% on my Child Psychology Final Exam. I got over a 99% in the course as a final grade. This makes me feel good. Psychology is my major. A friend of mine on LJ who is also in college used to be a Psych major and she said she finds Psychology damned boring. I am so lucky that I don't! But I agree that there are more interesting topics. That's why when I finish my major in Psychology I'll move onto something else. I plan to spend forever collecting degrees and student loans. Muahahahhaah.

And now a survey I stole from elizabethsays: ( Would You Like To Take a Survey? )

Greg and I came home Friday and crashed for 7 hours. We woke up in the middle of the night, starving. So he made us some pizza and did some more laundry while I took a shower and shampooed my hair. We ate pizza, snuggled, and I went back to bed.

And slept in my hair! Oops.

So I brushed back my waves off my forehead, got dressed and tried to ignore all the weirdness that was my hair. I walk by Greg and he's all "Wow, your hair looks sexy!" and he means it.

That was fun! ^_^

I just refreshed my gradebook and to my surprise I actually have a 99% in my Child Psych class pre-final exam. I could skip my Child Psych final all together and still get a B. I'm not doing that though. Want the A. Want want want. But it was neat to see that my professor had given me some extra credit on my last assignment.

Praise from my teacher means everything to me. I think after final exams I should mail him a thank you note. Not a thank you for my grades as I earned them but a thank you note for his comments. I wasn't expecting such praise from him. It was a pleasure working with him.

As for my Statistics Course, I'm so so so nervous. I still have no idea how I'm going to do in that course. If I hadn't utterly blown the midterm with a 75% I'll bet I wouldn't be so nervous. As it is, I was able to maintain my grades and am currently averaging a B. Now it's a question of whether I'm getting a C or a B. In order to really blow it and get a D, I'd have to get below a 30% on the final. Guys, I want to say that it's impossible to get a grade that low on a final exam, but you never know. Just the chance that that small possibility could happen is freaking me out. Granted, it's impossible to garner how much extra credit I may have earned because we have until midnight the date of the final exam to earn extra credit. She won't factor it in until afterwards.

Okay, time to hit the books!

I'm excited because I'm taking one of my final exams right this very minute!

And I just read that one of my friends is getting married EXACTLY SIX MONTHS FROM NOW. Six months from now, at this very moment, I hope I won't be saying "Gah, my poor feet hurt in these effing heels!" I think it's a good thing that all I can imagine going wrong on her big day is my feet hurting from dancing too much with Greg or something, hahaha.

And I just got a crazy thought: six months from now I could be 10-20 pounds lighter. I have at least four months of free time to get my behind back to the gym, and I plan to keep it up next semester. (How much math and pen to paper academia could Oceanography require? I mean, really, I could study it on a treadmill, right?) Maybe my feet won't be hurting so much after all! I also do not plan on cutting my hair more than twice in the interim. I think my next haircut will be around July or August and maybe I'll get a trim a week before her wedding. I'm giving up on this goofy hairstyle I've had for the last two years: no more bangs or shoulder length waves for me. I'll be bang free with below-shoulder length waves that will be tamed with flat irons and shine treatments for this shin-dig.

Come to think of it, I've never really been to that many weddings.

Hmmmm.

Is it strange that I'm so excited? It's not like it's my wedding. Maybe after this wedding I'll get up the courage to have one of my own. As it is, Greg and I are both OMG NOOOO to big weddings. We'll see.

I like the idea of my friend's wedding though because the bride and groom are two of the coolest people I've ever met. I don't get to see them much (uh, maybe I should stop cancelling at the last minute on things???) but when we talk or when I do see them it's very relaxed and chill--and mindfuckingly hilarious, I might add. It was smart of me to introduce two such funny and smart people to each other and I thank the Lord for their unstoppable chemistry and love of all things ninja.

I think it's cool to see people all dressed up. I don't get a chance to do a whole lot of grown-up things. I have a definite Peter-Pan complex. I watch copious amounts of cartoons, play far too many board/card/video games, and still like to watch Disney movies. I'm my happiest at my most innocent state of mind, where my thinking is unbiased by life experience and my heart is at its most vocal. Still, I'm pushing 30 (I love saying that ... I'm looking forward to age 27!) so I think maybe I should at least try a few grown-up things this year.

I just dropped my friend David in DC an email and I figured I'd share some of it in my journal as a nice, lazy little way of "blogging" or whatever.

Hi there David!

I felt like dropping a line to see how life was going with your new job and your house and family and boys and other exciting things. Spring is here and I welcome the sunshine which has immediately made life much simpler. I automatically get up early with the sun naturally waking me up. I find myself able to find more nutritious food on the grocery shelves. Coworkers are more pleasant to be around, now are whining about how nice it is outside instead of whining about some silly drama which just serves as a reminder that all is right with the world. Even Greg is perking up a little, taking time with his appearance, going for walks, doing some spring cleaning. It's nice to see him happy. I wish I could spend more time with him.

I'm in the final rush of my classes which should be done in about three weeks. I'm already reigning in the springtime with all those nice girl rituals like leg shaving and using more SPF. I get excited to use my bright purple umbrella, although I'm sick of the desperately needed rain sometimes, especially on the commute. Easter has renewed my faith in Jesus and I've taken on reading the Bible. I stormed my way through Genesis, falling in love with the story of Jacob/Israel and his many wives and sons and daughters. I almost don't want to start its sequel Exodus but I have to keep going if I want to make it the New Testament by Christmas! I find myself daydreaming and procrastinating on my studies, but knowing how close my deadlines are has me working as hard as I can to succeed. It's funny to think that next year this time I might be graduating if I keep this up!

Take care!
Jenny

Armpits!!!

...

I got nothin'.  Statistics has eaten my brains.

BRAAAAINS.

I was really depressed a few days ago and I finally had a long talk with Greg and I feel much better.

I'm also not as nervous about school. Granted, I have so many deadlines still! However, if I keep my grades up, I'm bound to at least pass Statistics with a C. I currently have approx. 87% in Statistics. I have seven out of ten quizzes complete, three out of four homework projects, and I have a final that is 25% of my grade. If I do well on the next three quizzes and one homework assignment I have left, I can almost completely flunk my Final at a grand 25/100 on it and still get a 70%. This is good. I hope I can keep this up. I also hope I do REALLY REALLY well on the Final and luck out and actually get a damn good grade, but I'll be so grateful for my C. C means I don't have to retake it. D means I either have to retake it or take a math class at UMBC. So yeah. Pray for C or better for me. Actually, pray that my scholarship applications are accepted, while you're at it!

I've had at least four or five friends that are kind of sick of me cancelling out on them, but also very understanding of this school year and how hard it has been to go back after five years of taking a break from it. There are lots of things I'm looking forward to this summer:

• Being able to say "Yes" to visiting my friends!
• Refocusing on my weight loss efforts.
• Growing my hair long.
• Going to the beach and the pool almost all the time.
• Having time to make healthier sounding recipes than toasted pita bread with refrigerated spinach dip, a major diet staple during this past semester. Come on fruit salads, jello molds, and grilled veggies!
• Pampering my skin: exfoliating, moisturizing, hair removal, sunblock, dermatologist: whatever I can get my hands on to get rid of the dry skin on my neglected calves.
• Decorating my apartment
• Attending Greg's plays, those he is acting in and those he's written and submitted to community theater directors.
• Hours upon hours of living in my bath suit, board shorts, good quality SPF protection, and flip flops while exploring different cities on foot.
• Making delicious iced tea with my Mr. Coffee iced tea maker.
• Turning 27!!!!

I definitely do not plan on staying indoors all summer like I've been doing, trying in vain to tinker with my air conditioner to no avail.

One goal I have in the next year is to find an apartment that pays for my BGE and one that has a washer and dryer. So I think I should start purging belongings and cleaning my apartment this summer while I have ample time to do so. I know of an apartment like this in the area and I'm really hoping to court them. It's a higher rent, but because it includes my BGE bill it should cost less money.

I also need a new laptop with a wireless card. I'd like to get Greg one as well. A good sturdy one.

When I think about it, I am living the life I dreamed of at age 20. Age 20, summer of living in a tiny bedroom smaller than an office cubical. I liked this guy who lived in Florida. Since he lived in Florida, I was very lonely. In addition to feeling lonely, I felt like my life had no direction.

So I gave it direction. I wrote down a five-step plan. Get a real federal job with health insurance benefits. Transfer to Florida. Hang out with boyfriend every evening and go to parties on the weekend. Volunteer, travel the world. Get married and have babies. Yada, yada.

I never did get that Federal job. I did get a County job, which makes up in sexiness what it does not make up in pay. I changed majors, although I'm still open to changing my mind. I broke up with that guy and found a different guy, so I didn't have to transfer to Florida. I hang out with my boyfriend whenever I get a chance and I sometimes go to parties on the weekend when I'm not studying my ass off. I've yet to volunteer. I've yet to travel the world. I've yet to get married and have babies and no longer want to. I yada like it's going out of style.

Those are the technical things, but if I looked at my life at age 20 and compare it to age 27, I can definitely I say I'm no longer lonely. I'm also not happy. I try to hide it by saying I am happy, mostly because at age 20 I was so miserable that in comparison I'm now ecstatic. Things could be more ideal, though. I'm weary. I don't feel good about myself. I don't feel good about my friendships or bonds with my family. And I still want to get out of Maryland. Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to do that. Even if I change scenery, will I still feel this weary and unloved and unworthy?

I felt like there was more promise at age 20 and I no longer feel that way. At age 20 I was looking to outside sources for the answer: men, running away from my problems, trying new risks.

I guess I'm simply ...

bored.

There's a difference between being bored at 20 and being bored at 27. My life feels far more out of control at age 27 because of all my obligations. My life is filled with obligations. And those obligations are very boring. I would like my life to filled with less obligations.

How do I do that?

Ages six to ten house my favorite childhood memories. I did all kinds of ridiculous things and believed all kinds of ridiculous ideas. I remember at this age my friends and I would stick Cheetos up our noses and eat them on a dare. We would also streak across the yard with bold confidence, totally not caring about modesty but knowing we were being bad. I spent most of this time playing outside with my friends. All of my friends were particularily good in school and it was fun to do homework in groups and then play outside when we were finished. We usually made up games to play like Garden Scavenger Hunt and Make Me Laugh, where the first person to laugh at somebody who was doing funny things had to be the next person up.

I believed whole-heartedly in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, as well as in love conquering all and that I'd be rich and famous when I grew up. I believed God was a gray-bearded old man in the sky that dropped me from the Heavens and that's how I was born. There were no gray areas and I was always right, no question.

I did have other friends outside my brainy/preppy clique who were different from everyone else and usually ostracized. We usually bonded over our differences, like we had our own special secrets about us that nobody else had. It made me sad when those friends would get picked on by the meaner popular kids or bullies. Sometimes it was hard and too much pressure to be the only kid in the school on their side.

One time a little girl in our group went to bed one night and didn't wake up the next day. She lived across the street from me and her mother while napping dropped a cigarette in the couch and caused a fire that took my friend's life. Nothing was the same for a long time after that. My grades dropped and I wasn't allowed to go out and play until I brought them up. It took a long time for things to get back to normal for me and by the time they did everyone was split up and going to middle school and I had to start all over.

I hate the word puberty. I always have hated it. Ew, puberty! It sounds so stupid, like the word goober, and it makes me think of pubes, which I thought were pretty gross when I hit puberty, hard, at age nine.

Nine! Can you believe it? There I was, all unassuming being tucked into bed at night (something I've never grown out of!), when my mom said, "Honey, didn't you take a bath?" and of course I had. It's always dinner, playtime, bathtime, then bedtime. Routines. I knew this by now. After all, I wasn't stupid!

She said I still smelled stinky though, and then suddenly said, "Oh!" and became quiet and mysterious. The next day she came home from the grocery store with a few presents for me. We had the talk about deodorant and training bras and underarm shaving and I felt like a hairy, smelly freak with acne and bad hair. At nine! I was still a little girl, learning that Santa Claus wasn't real and all that!

When I snagged the cute undies though, with the tennis rackets in the middle, I felt very special, like a grown up at a sophisticated party, but I was the only one there my age. All my friends were at a different party and I wasn't allowed to go back. It's no fun being the first one. There were no bragging rights, being the only person my age on the guest list in my class.

I won't even discuss the other thing, but I was eleven when I first got that and it was like being nine all over again. Even worse, because I felt even freakier and like I had something to hide from the world. Suddenly I had to carry a purse. It was so stupid. They didn't even set up the girl's room at school up for disposal. I was late to class all the time waiting for the other girls to leave the restroom. It was all very embarrassing.

Inside, despite all the self-consciousness, I was still very much a child and my life was suddenly completely out of control. Then finally I was thirteen and the queen of my own throne. My body finally fit in with everyone else's. I knew how to dress it, to make it pretty, to control it, to respect it, and to make it do cool things like cartwheels, splits, tap shuffle ball changes, and leap grande jetés. I began to respect it and all its parts that worked together to help me express myself. Soon, I wasn't alone anymore at the party. Suddenly all my friends came to the party too and there we were, tap dancing together on stage during my last dance recital at age fifteen.

I changed my LJ layout again. It's no longer butterflies or paisley print or anything. In fact, there are no background images at all. It's very arousing. I stole it from thefulcrum.

Hanging out at AACC today and tomorrow, then a party tomorrow night that will culminate in going to Billy V's to see The State of You, and then dinner with the Miloros on Sunday.

I get my dress today! It's in transit in Baltimore, and then when it's delivered I'll go over Greg's childhood home in Glen Burnie to pick it up. So exciting! I hope it fits!!!

edit:I was looking up my transcript on ALTSYS and I'm excited that all of the classes I want to take seem to transfer over so when I transfer to UMBC I'll be a junior. Even better, some of the courses I've taken aren't considered introductory courses, but are in the higher 300s on their course level. That makes me feel kind of smart. :D Here's my curriculum. *drool*

This weekend was amazing. After a hard week of school and work, a very sleep deprived me spent lots of time sleeping in.

on Friday, I brought my mom into work and introduced her to some of my coworkers. This was exciting because my mom was impressed. She didn't know that I worked in such a nifty building in Annapolis or that my coworkers were so friendly. It was nice to make my mom proud.

Friday night, Greg and I got some healthy snacks for dinner and then went grocery shopping. We have all kinds of veggies, fruits, and frozen snacks now. We also have a fridge full of delicious frosty Mountain Dew soda cans for Greg and some chilled skim milk for me. I'm trying to go back to eating better because I've gained all my tummy inches back and my tummy is spilling out of everything. Oops.

I spent most of Saturday doing up notecards for my second Psychology paper. I know. I have two Psychology papers due on the 13th. I also have a big Statistics Challenge set due that day.

Since Greg's birthday is on Monday, we went out to the Annapolis Harbor to celebrate on Saturday night. Starving, we stomped into Friday's and had a five minute wait for a table. I had a gourmet five-cheese penne pasta with grilled chicken and Greg had a burger. The stars of our evening were our slushy drinks and the Brownie Obsession. I freakin' love Friday's!!!!

We went to Barnes and Noble. I bought him some things and myself a book as well. I'm currently reading Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible by Jonathan Goldstein:



I fell asleep on the way home and I slept until noon today, heh.

Today I did something I never do: blew off school to spend with my family (we have a bunch of April birthdays). There were beef ribs, mashed potatoes with onions and cheese, pita chips, fruit tray, two kinds of cake, and all the root beer I could drink. Almost all of my cousins were there, some even from out of town, and half my aunts and uncles were there, and my grandmom even came. I spent most of the day sitting around the fire pit, skipping rocks, playing with my eight-year old cousin Tony, and mocking that awful movie Australia with everyone else. My family is amazing and generous and full of people who are much funnier, smarter, and sweeter and more positive than I could ever hope to be and I always feel better after I get to see them!

My favorite part was at the end of the party when for some reason all the girls were showing each other their panties. The joke was that my Aunt Lisa, my Aunt Doris, and I were all wearing the same color outfit and we wanted to see if our panties matched. Then everyone started flashing their panties and we laughed really hard. I love how laid back and funny and weird we are without even being drunk!

Then I came home and bought this dress:



And now I'm going to go seduce a 25 year old for probably the last time in my life.

Oh my god that's kind of a weird and morbid thought! hahahah.