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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Graduation and Beyond...

So, here I am, three months before graduation...and when I think about it, I kind of get scared. I have waited to get out of college really since I started. I have longed to walk across a stage in effort to grab my diploma that will symbolize all the stress, all the late nights, and all the studying and time consumption that has constituted my life for the last four years.
I'm don't feel overwhelmingly frightened, but I do feel like, "Ok, now that I've got my degree, what now?"
I know I will start looking for a job within my field, but it's the fact that I will actually be starting my career that has me stop in my tracks when I think about it.
I'm definitely ready to take the next step in my life, and I look forward to each step the future will bring, especially having a place of my own. Even Sean said, "You'll actually have to do laundry." Well, he has no room to talk, he doesn't do laundry, either. :)
But I definitely recognize that this is a turning point in my life and I am optimistic for the change, but at the same time...I am curious about the unknown.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Two Books in Two Months




I have recently finished two books in the last two months, Confessions of a Shopaholic and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

A Year Almost Gone

After getting off work today, an extremely cold day, by the way (30 degrees when I left the house and 42 degrees when I left work), I noticed that the day was beautiful. I mean, a sun-shining, icy-cold day kind of beautiful. I drove home, and my house sits on a hill, so when I arrived I was able to see the blue and purple mountains in the distance through brown barren trees. I love winter. There is just something cozy about piling a bunch of clothes on, and then still having to put a coat on over all that. Don't get me wrong, I love warm temperatures, too. I just believe there is a season for everything, and right now, it's the season for winter.

That's why I feel hestitant to let the New Year roll in (and that's beside the fact that I won't even be in the country for the first 10 days). I mean, yes, this year has been....different for me. It has been frustrating and disappointing in more ways than one. I have been impatient with school and my job, and not to mention worrying about minor health issues. Yet, I was still able to fall more in love with my boyfriend of more than three years. :)

However, I just feel like I didn't get enough of the Christmas holiday, and it was over and gone like a speeding train disappearing into the night. I love Christmas. I mean, I really, really love Christmas. I had a small tree up in my house in September, and I had to sneak it in while my mom was at work. I just feel like it came up on me too fast, and was gone before I could really enjoy it. This whole month has had its stresses, but overall, I really loved it. The funny thing is, I wish I would have enjoyed it more at the time instead of looking back into the haze of my memories and feeling a sinking feeling in my stomach because those times have passed.

As much as a love Christmas, I almost equally hate the days that follow. When the joy of Christmastime is over, it feels like a huge balloon has popped. It feels like a room where the heat has been turned off and all that is left it the biting cold.

But I can only look forward now with optimism toward the New Year. I hope next year is a great year. I plan to graduate college in May, and then a whole new life for me will begin. I hope to encounter other new beginnings in my life as well, and those I won't mention here, not yet.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Tree History....

"Even before the arrival of Christianity, Germans decorated evergreen trees to brighten the dark, gloomy days of the winter solstice. The first "Christmas trees" appeared in Strasbourg in the 17th century and spread to Pennsylvania in the 1820s with the arrival of German immigrants. When Queen Victoria married Germany's Prince Albert in 1840, he brought the tradition to England. Eight years later, the first American newspaper ran a picture of the royal Christmas tree and Americans outside of Pennsylvania quickly followed suit."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1868506_1868508_1868530,00.html#ixzz0apqDMqU4

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Last Song and Scandalgate


Recently I have read two books and I recommend them both.

Bradley Square Christmas Bear


Bradley Square Christmas Bear

This bear has been in the Bradley Square Mall during the holidays ever since I can remember.

The bear is probably as old as the mall itself.

I know it doesn't look like it now, but this bear used to be the focal point of Christmas decorations in our hometown mall.

It used to sit amongst giant-sized toy building blocks, the biggest rocking-horse I've ever seen, and many other welcomed decorations.

The bear was snow-white, and donned with his most special tinsel-gold bowtie. He sang to the passerby's as his mouth moved to the words, and turned his head to watch shoppers exitedly prance by, gift bags in tote.

Now the Bradley Square Christmas Bear is a dilapidated version of itself, a shade of dirty snow, and a mouth no longer capable of singing his favorite Christmas carols.

His head never moves to watch families go by, and his back looks as if it has been pried open many times for failed repairs.

Yet, still, when I see him, I remember all those years long ago when I saw Mr. Bradley Square Christmas Bear watching me hold my parents' hands, my dreams full of candy and presents evident in my eyes.

And when I see him on days like today, I am instantly a child again, with visions of Christmas day dancing in my head.

Clement C. Moore


I know this is really random, but I have learned a lot in the past few days about Clement C. Moore and the history of "The Night Before Christmas".
According to legend, Clement C. Moore wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas", which is now known as "The Night Before Christmas", for his family on Christmas Eve of 1822. Moore did not even want the poem to be published, but a friend of the family found out about the poem from Moore's children and submited it to the editor of the Troy (New York) Sentinel, where it was published first on December 23, 1823.
Did you also know that the story of Santa entering through the chimney came soley from "The Night Before Christmas"? The main enterance we all know of today hadn't even been heard of before this poem.
Moore was the first to actually give names to Santa's reindeer. He is also credited with creating the modern image of Santa Claus as a jolly, fat man in a furry red suit.
I did not realize how essential this man is to our Christmas traditions.
Even now, almost two hundred years later, it is the most-published, most-read, most-memorized and most-collected book in all of Christmas literature.