I think this is real life...

Last February, probably almost exactly a year ago, in fact, I was having one of my many personal crises. This one involved a ridiculous relationship and its even more ridiculous "ending". But that's another story....

After almost a year of self-indulgence, religious questioning, lonely spells, and major life changes, I decided the best way to make life worthwhile would be to fall back into the same pattern I've had since I was six years old: stay busy. When all else fails, stay so busy you can't think. (Actually, I'm pretty sure the thinking is generally just a product of too much time to think, and not enough to do. Are those the same thing?)

So I got a job. I'm now taking 14 credits, working at least 12 hours a week, and a member of three student organizations... although one of them tends to fall to the wayside in the wake of the rest of this sometimes. Today I left my dorm at 11:00 am, and besides a 10 minute stop to change for work, didn't get back until well after 11:00 pm. Yikes. Last semester, I spent most of my time in my room. Heck, last week I spent most of my time in my room. Anyway, in order to facilitate my writing, and encourage myself to actually write at all, I've decided to focus on lists. This could change at any moment, and I warn you now, they will not be concise lists. They will be in most cases detailed, and in many cases completely ridiculous. But I am a list-maker, and so I will make lists.

List #1: Things I love today
1. Having my own chips & salsa. I love living with my family, but having my own snacks kind of rules sometimes. It's just nice.
2. Copy Editing. Great "job", great people...sweetness.
3. When my roommate and I actually both clean at the same time. Neither of us are particularly tidy people, so this can pretty much make my day.
4. That "White Noise" app I just bought on itunes. I'm loving hearing a fan or raindrops on a car roof when I go to sleep. Or even a vacuum, if you like feeling at home.

List #2: Things I don't love today
1. Customized food orders. People...really? Just take off the onions yourself, for goodness sake.
2. Retainers. I haven't had braces on for five years, and it's starting to show. But the darn things are so uncomfortable.
3. My eating habits when I'm busy. Today, for example: two pop tarts, coffee, burger, salad, smooth & melty's, Hot Tamales, Tostitos, and salsa. I'm surprised I haven't died.
4. The fact that it's now almost 1am and I have way too much to do before tomorrow.
5. The fact that I have no idea what time I'm working tomorrow. Oops :)

Regardless, today was a crazy day--but a decent one. Hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same, maybe with a little less crazy. I am a lucky girl.

Right now I'm listening to a recording of my brother's a cappella group from high school. They did a cover of "Table for Two" by Caedmon's Call, which I guess is a Christian band. I've never really been into Contemporary Christian music, partially because my parents have always kind of looked down on it. We're definitely Christians, so it's not the meaning of the music, but the fact that a lot of it isn't all that great musically--it gets a free ride because of its content. In the past couple years, though, I've been listening to a lot of CCM. It's actually pretty good most of the time. Which leads me to my point: you really have to be open minded with music. I've gone from early 90's pop to alternative to classic rock to country to indie to musicals and everywhere in between. My basic criteria is that it makes me happy or it makes me think, and lyrics are very important. Currently I'm obsessed with the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack (although I hate the end of the movie), and Dave Matthews Band (I'm in college in VA, it's a given). So as someone whose favorite band went from NSYNC to AC/DC in about 2 years...keep an open mind, you might just find out your music collection was missing something awesome.