It snowed

Isn't that nice?

Liz also played with pony today. While she was in the bathroom, I received this in a text message:

Happy Hump Day.

{Maybe tomorrow you'll get a snow day!}

Word Vomit {And Some Other Events From Today}

It seems that every time I open my mouth, I spew something negative or some complaint. Because those are the first things that come to my mind. It is much more work to come up with something positive, or something pleasant {partly because when I do, no one else is quite as excited as I am}. This happened quite a few times today, and I realized it. I think it has something to do with the time of month, the physical and emotional state of myself, and the fullness of my agenda. Regardless, it is not necessary.

Today, college bound was cancelled, so Chuck and I wandered throughout the woods for a couple of hours, and took some nice photos. Had a bit of bonding time. It was fun {although a tad uncomfortable at times. He's a very affectionate person}.

Creeped on the roommate from afar.

did some off-roading

Walked around the pond

Looked for trolls under a bridge.

Tried to take pictures of ourselves.

A Girl's Day Redemption

After a day that started bad and became progressively worse, the only thing that could have saved it was a long awaited girls day, including a visit from one of my best friends.

She bought me a delicious lunch at the Cheesecake Factory {I gave up extraneous spending for lent} 

And we ate delicious strawberry cheesecake

She's so pretty

She dragged me into victoria's secret and told me all the things she'll buy for me when I get married. {Nate, avert your eyes}

She almost fell down the escalator. Thank God she didn't, it might end a real love affair.

We went ring shopping for the wedding we aren't having.

And she put her name on all sorts of mailing lists

I want this one.

We did a lot of window shopping which required a LOT of self control

smelled just about every scent in Yankee Candle

And she texted her most recent love interest.

Definitely a top notch afternoon.

Boris enjoyed himself, too.

A Latina Evening

Well first thing's first. Let me introduce you to the new love of my life. Boris Jasper Karloff.

Boris is my brand new {used} camera, and I'm infatuated with him. But we have some adjusting to do, considering my treatment of electronics in the past. I'm very happy to have him though.

Today was so wonderful! Aside from receiving Boris in the mail {and at least three days early, at that!} I went on a coffee date with my friend Eli to this adorable little café in Salem called Gulu Gulu, where there were little sofas and artwork everywhere, and where the waitress called me sunshine {so presh}. And then we ventured into a comic book store {sorry, graphic novel store} where we refrained from mocking the customers, and stood in awe that someone would pay $1,500 dollars for a comic book. 

Then, we went dancin! Me, the girls and Eli took an adventure into the depths of cambridge to visit this great little 18+ club and danced the night away! I didn't dare take boris with me there, but I did get some before shots!

Sarah prepped by curling her hair, although little beknownst to her, the rain would destroy those shiny locks before she set foot in the building!

Whilst Eli acted as the magic mirror {not really}

Lookin' old enough to go out clubbin? Nah.

After dancing once with a random Latino stranger, a couple of times with good ole Eli, and a couple of times with Sarah and Laura, we hit the road and hit up Sonic!

Sonic is a whole new world! They bring you food to your car! It was sweet! And now it's quarter past two, and I'm sitting here on my bed, very much contented and watching Harry Potta'.

Plans for this weekend include: nuttin' that could top tonight!

<3

Taking a step back from the heavy stuff and a step toward the... hilarious stuff, I had a conversation with nate today that went something like the following.

Nate: My belly is big with laughter!... That's why santa's so big! It's not because he's fat but because he's so jolly!
Me: So I should walk up to some morbidly obese person and say "wow, you must be hilarious"?
Nate: No, because some people are just bloated with sadness.

A good beginning to the end of the week.

In Memory

This post may be extraneous, and seem a little self righteous. I'm not sure how to process this information right now.

Tonight I got the news that an old friend from high school took his own life. This is shocking, disturbing, upsetting news. The memories I have of him are the butterflies in my stomach from the time I had a crush on him. Slipping in the baby powder his Pig Pen costume had left all over the stage. Leaping into his arms because I was a Silly Girl and he was Gaston. So many of my high school stories star him, not because we were particularly close--we weren't-- but because we were actively involved in the same things. The Spring Musical every year, the One Acts; he was in Jazz Band with my ex, he was on the soccer team (which was not my high schools pride and joy).
It's hard to believe that this would happen. Suicide is such a horrible thing, and such a difficult thing to deal with. For me, I'm having trouble compartmentalizing this information. We weren't close; we weren't even friends, but I do have a good deal of memories involving him. I filled pages of my diary when thinking of him. So I don't have the tears to cry, although it breaks my heart; but I also don't have the ability to brush it off because "I didn't know him". It's just a really horrible thing that happened, and I wish that something could have changed it.
It is said that suicide is the most selfish thing you could do. You take your own life with disregard to your family and friends, and all the people who know you. But I also recognize that when you're in that state of mind, it seems you have no friends, your family doesn't care about you, and the people who know you don't particularly care for you. It seems like this depression is weighing too heavy for you to be able to lift yourself up and you don't know how to get help. I don't know how he was feeling. I don't know what drove him to the breaking point or how he fell so hard, but I do know that he will be dearly missed, and I wish that something could have changed it.

He was a really funny guy, with a good heart. He was an athlete. He was a brother and a son, probably a nephew and a cousin. He had been a boyfriend, an important person to many. It's really a tragic loss.
Please be praying for him family and friends. I can't even imagine what they must be going through right now.

It's Been A While

It's been a little over a week since I last posted. I hope you've all felt my absence and have been wondering "where in the world is Melissa Sandiego?" Just kidding. But to recap, I'll fill you in on whats been going down in the wonderful world of myself.

Last weekend consisted almost entirely of a retreat with my Dominican Republic team. We spent the weekend getting to know each other and familiarizing ourselves with our mission, and I can honestly say that I feel so much closer to all the members of my team, and am so looking forward to the time we'll spend together in just a few short weeks. This retreat was followed by a sunday excursion with my mom to Gloucester. She went to church with me and took me to lunch at the tiniest and most adorable diner, that served marvelous fresh seafood. Last weekend was so revitalizing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the week put a bit of a damper on the wonderfulness of this weekend. Two exams, an anniversary of a death, a cracked Macbook screen, and a lonely holiday left me feeling pretty rung out through to early saturday morning. Yesterday, however, I got out of bed around 11:30 and get ready for the day, which I spent with my beautiful roommate and her best friend, trolling around North Shore Mall in preparation for Gordon Globes {which, to my relief, I was unable to attend}. I spent the evening in Beverly taking care of the two and three year old that I regularly babysit, getting pelted with tiny {and thankfully, rather painless} toys, and the reading Chamber of Secrets quietly until my employers returned, and I was delivered to my dorm safe and sound at an early 11:00pm.

Liz and Amanda, along with a couple of Liz's friends took an after-Globes excursion to Denny's and returned around 2 O'Clock am. I woke up very warm and very confused. I thought that I had heard Liz tell me that I needed to get up, and because I didn't realize it was still the very wee hours of morning, I murmured "five more minutes" into my pillow and went back to sleep, waking around 6 with a horrible nightmare that forced me to experience, subconsciously, the possession of a small child {which I suspect was influence by the viewing and discussion of Nikki Minaj's performance at the Grammy's. I wouldn't recommend anyone who is particularly fond of their soul watch that}. Then, I got myself out of bed at 9:30 and went to church, which, while I do love my church, wasn't as great as last week. After church, I spent a few hours with Chuck and his friend Ginger, talking about the sermon and talking about life, and I now feel prepared to face the week {with the exception of a bit of homework that I still need to complete}.

I now have only 19 days until we take off for Central America!

My Biggest Pet Peeve

Let's just make it an "about me" kind of week. Also, not my biggest pet peeve, but it's certainly up there.
It's that, when I'm walking anywhere, the crunchiest pinecones are out of the way, and therefore, in order to to step on them and delight myself in their wonderful...crunchiness {for lack of a synonym} I am required to make a complete fool of myself. I often do not have the presence of mind to avoid making a fool of myself, so many times, while I wander across the quad from class to class, you'll see me tripping over my feet in order to step on these wonderfully in-tact pinecones.

I'm not ashamed.

Who wants to know what sleeps with me at night?

If you don't, that's too bad because I'm going to tell you anyway. I'll file it under my about me section, I suppose.
In my bed with me when I sleep are the following things: two pillows (one for my head and one for me to snuggle with), my phone (generally by my headboard), and my laptop (next to my face).
I also have standard blankets and whatnot.

I sleep with my laptop next to my face because when I don't fall asleep with something on, I like to have it nearby, just in case I should wake up at four in the morning with some horrible revelation that something is in my room that wants to kill me, and I have to distract myself. So when that occurs, I can roll over, grab my headphones, and watch an episode of friends or burn notice and put myself right back to sleep.
{I am aware that there aren't usually things in my room that want to kill me. I'll let you know if I experience that. Knock on wood.}
However, when I wake up in the middle of the night with those terrible revelations and my laptop is dead, its a pretty awful thing.
Take last night, for instance. I woke up around four to find that the horrible nightmare that I had had {and can no longer remember} had terrified the pee out of me. I went to turn on David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, and the rest of the gang. However, after opening my laptop and frantically swiping my fingers across the track pad {aka mousepad thingy on a macbook}, I realized that it was dead!
Now usually, I sleep with the end of my charger near my bed, or in it. Always within reach. But it so happens that my charger is not working right now {because I'm fairly certain it has demons that make it not work when I can't afford to get a new one, and then work again after I've stressed a considerable amount}. So my computer was dead, my charger was broken, and my roommates breathing sounded an awful lot like a saw, or something else that implied my imminent demise.
I never claimed to be logical when it comes to darkness {I'm actually still quite terrified of it}.
So I forced myself to get up, telling myself that nothing would kill me, and went to get Liz's charger, which was just by the foot of my bed. It was all tangled in the legs of her chair, so I went to quietly lift her chair up, and what should happen but for a mountain of papers and notebooks to fall off of it in a noisy rocous that awoke the sleeping horrifying-noise-maker. I put the chair down, pretending nothing had happened, and got back into bed, forcing myself to think of happy things.
And today, when she asked my why I was standing in the middle of the room last night, I pretended that I don't remember doing that. Because my bedtime habits are really embarrassing, and I also don't want her thinking I only like her because her computer charger works and mine doesn't. Obvs.

Now, I have an hour and 36 alleged minutes of battery life left, and my wonderful roommate fell asleep with friends on the tv tonight, so I'm gonna put this baby to sleep, and let him rest in case of emergencies.

Goodnight!

Lociento

I'm sorry for this. I'm saying that in advance. But I haven't posted in a while because lately I've been in that place. You know, the discouraged, a little depressed, bummin, blue place where all you want to do is fantasize about what your life would be like if you were a different person, and then pretending that you actually could be that person, all the while being painstakingly aware that you can't. It blows over here, in this place.
So today, instead of accomplishing anything worthwhile, I read this book:

I started it at like, 2 this afternoon and finished at about 15 minutes ago, so please excuse me if I start to sound like a pretentious, upper class, cracked out white girl. {I frequently write in the voice of whatever I've just read}

But anyways, I spent the first half this book thinking about how I wish I was (insert adjective here) so that if I ever met this Babe Walker person, I could impress her. And then I spent the second half realizing that I would hate this woman if I ever met her in person. But that is beside the point. The thing is, lately I haven't been terribly happy with myself. At all, actually.

Now, this sounds like a pity post, but really it's a post about what I'm thinking and whatnot, that I'm publishing because there are like, 2 people who read this {and they don't actually mention this to me EVER}, I'm feeling too ashamed to prayer-journal about it, and I don't keep a regular journal.

See, whenever I'm all down on myself, I've got the friends saying the standard "No, you're not super obnoxious" "No, you're not ugly" "No you're not boring" "No you're not..." Whatever insecurity I'm suffering at the moment. Generally something about my social ineptness {which is actually a word according to google chrome}. And they'll sound all genuine and whatnot but really, how many of us will say a kind word to someone just to make them stop complaining to us, so that we can get on with our lives? Not a selfish thing to do, just...what we do, right? And even if we do believe them, it lasts for a minute, an hour, a day, very rarely a week, and then we convince ourselves that a. they were lying, or b. they don't know what they're talking about. 

I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about, yes?

So really, it doesn't matter how many "your hair is so beautiful, you should leave it like that all the time"s that I get, I'm still going to hate my hair. And it doesn't matter how many "you're a great person, you should really be more sure of yourself"s I get, I still think I'm an awkward 12 year old looking girl with ugly purple wire glasses who couldn't possibly stand up beside the rest of the field hockey team and feel good about herself. It's a problem.

But sometimes I'll convince myself that I'm okay.

And that usually involves a lot of prayer and God and stuff, but lately, for some reason, I've been drowning in a huge puddle of doubts and confusion and basically my life seems like a big giant miserable blur. And to be completely honest, it freaks me out. 

So what I'm working on right now:

1} Not hating myself

2} Confronting this issue I'm having in regards to my faith.

There's a lot of work to do, and I don't have even the slightest clue as to where to begin. So, if you would, please please please pray for the pathetic girl whose blog you follow.

And thanks for reading this, if you got all the way through. Goodnight.

I do this a lot...

I publish a post and then realize I have something better to write about.

So a have a huge problem with naming things. As you may have noticed, I have a new name for this here blog, but I don't care for it, and I want to change it, but I don't have a clue what I'd like to rename it. I have trouble naming my playlists, my pinboards, my pets. {forget about my appliances, the only car I've ever named was my best friends car}.

Maybe I'm having an identity crisis.

Hello, Dear Ones

It's been a while, and since I know so many of you read this here blog regularly, you've missed me terribly. {Right teebs?}

Sorry for my absence, but this week has just about slaughtered my soul. In fact, I expect them to be selling  pounds of my spirit in the meat fridge at Shaw's in a couple of days. It's been that awful. Its been a week of fussy {and rather mean, really} children, and my own insecurities overwhelming me. It's been that kind of week.

So sorry for the negativity. Moving on.

So big news for this week:

My family got a new car! {What?! Yes! A NEW-to-us CAR!} It's a 2004 Dodge Stratus. The newest car that was sitting in our driveway a month ago was our wonderfully decrepit 1995 Ford Mustang, and while it looked like, well, a mustang, it drove similar to the 1988 Toyota Celica we also have sitting in our driveway. Needless to say, that does not drive well at all. So basically, I'm thrilled! A NEW CAR! That gets more than 18 miles to the gallon! In fact, 30! Hurrah!

Also good news, I called my mom this evening and moaned about my miserable week for a solid ten minutes and do you know what she said? "I'm sorry that this week's been so stressful for you."
Genuinely sorry.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not by any means derailing my mom's character, especially not on the web, but you must understand that being my mother, she doesn't accept my complaints and negativity very readily, and tends to combat it with tough love. So this was a surprising but very pleasant new reacting that I was not expecting at all. I enjoyed it. And it made me feel a lot better, believe it or not.


So that's my life for today. Someday I'll start writing about things that people actually want to hear about. Something applicable to life, or something. But since this is my blog, and there are only five of you followers right now, I'll write what I want. Have a wonderful evening!