Personal Update

This post is a personal update, if you couldn't tell from the title. *aside: my computer has started making noises like it's propelling into space again. I want a new one now!* I'm currently drinking coffee, in my sweatpants, at 10:10 pm, pretending I'm in Starbucks, or the Lowry Cafe. I do prefer coffee shops over my bedroom, but hey, when you're in the midst of a hurricane and coffee shops are closed, what's a girl to do?

I feel like I'm coming down with my mom's cold (which I think sounds like consumption; tuberculosis to those from this century), so I took a benadryl and am drinking that hot beverage. This past week has been tiring! Besides my normal working and classes, Bron was on her way home and stopped in town for the week! I was very excited to be reunited with my roomie, so we hung out most days (along with Katie and Joe, a little Reed House reunion), and I woke up tired most mornings. Needless to say, I understand why adults don't hang out too much. They get worn out!

This past weekend was family weekend, so the four of us went down to Wooster to be with our "families." It was a lot of fun to go to a football game and be a part of the band again, even if it was like 40 degrees and a little damp. Saturday was the Halloween Get Hep dance, and Adam came with me! We dressed up as a nurse and a hospital patient. I think our costumes were a hit! I was really excited that he came with me. Even if he didn't have that much fun, it's the thought that counts. He even slow danced with me!

A couple weeks ago, I accompanied Adam and his parents on a little birthday trip to LAS VEGAS!! This was my first time being west of the Mississippi (river, that is), and my first time flying in about 15 years. On the flight there, I passed out during the landing. I think it was caused by the pain in my ear, since it was almost unbearable. On the flight back I had no problems whatsoever! Random fainting! Vegas was not what I expected it to be. When I think of Vegas, I think of glamor and fancy things. What it really is, is drunk people and girls dressed skankily, everyone smoking cigarettes, and illegals working on the streets for some tips. It is an experience! The weird part was being able to smoke indoors, and carry around open containers of alcohol outside. Just plain weird. But I guess it's some people's paradise. I ended up losing $200 to stupid slots, and stopped my spending there. We went to a night club, saw Elton John live, saw a topless show, and rode a gondola in the Venetian. It was a really fun trip, and I wouldn't mind going back again!

Our gondola singer! She had a beautiful voice!

Riding on the gondola!

Well, that's about it for my personal update. My hospital job is going very well, and my Victoria's Secret job is finally picking up again (the new manager thought I didn't know how to run the cash register, or do floor sets. What did she think I was doing the past 2 years?!)

Until next post, I'll be riding out hurricane Sandy!

Katie’s Summer Ambitions 2010

       I was going through my old files and I found this list:

   Be able to touch my toes

       Learn to play guitar

       Be more athletic

       Drink more water

       Go camping on Kelley’s Island

       Get a tan

       Read a lot of books

       Keep up on my Spanish

       Find something to write about for Jr. IS

       Go lindy hopping

       Hang out in Cleveland

I think I have achieved like 5 of those things. You can try to figure out which 5. It won't be hard :) 

Writing

Every now and then (today included) I get this really big urge to write. Like physically hold a pen in my hand and just write. With the age of technology, I'm finding it harder to do that easily. I've decided that I want to get a journal that I can carry around with me in my school and work bags so I can write down all of my ideas. I don't usually have profound thoughts, but I just really like writing. Sometimes I even write out song lyrics because I like the feeling of the pen moving over the paper. I prefer to write notes over typing them. During my whole Independent Study process, I took handwritten notes on all of the articles that I used in my literature review (over 40). When I was younger, I wrote short stories all of the time, and I was on the Power of the Pen writing team in middle school (I made it to Regionals during my second year!).

I've found that writing things down helps me remember, which is why I like to take physical notes. For example, when I was at Starbucks today (when I had the urge to write), I wrote down notes for this blog post, and most of them are coming right back to me.

At one point in time, to satiate my urges to write, I signed up for a kind of freelance internet article writing site. Problem is, it's mostly "How To" articles about random things out of left field that you would never want to know how to do, and you only get to the good projects once you've written a crap ton of those crappy "how to" ones. I've since strayed from the site, but I've considered going back every now and then. I'm constantly looking for little things to write, and sometimes this blog helps me, but I'm never quite satisfied.

Not only do I like to write, but I LOVE to edit. I consider myself a grammar nerd, though I've lost a lot of it. I always offer to edit my friends' papers, must be hard copies and using a pink pen. I can't edit on computers. Now that I'm out of college, I don't really have anything to edit. I had a random thought a few weeks ago about if my career in speech therapy never works out, how I wouldn't mind being an editor of some sort. I really would like to get back into the good grammar person that I was, so I might take on the form of a nerd and pursue some books on editing and good writing. But I think the SLP job is a really good fit for me. The science and logistics of language just amaze me, and writing and reading sometimes cross into the job description of therapists. I think I'm set.

Do you want to know how big of a dork I am? I REALLY like pens (I know, it looks kind of like penis). I have SO MANY. When I was school shopping this semester, I seriously stared at all of the pens in the pen section for about a half hour, trying to decide which ones I wanted. They have to come in a pack with at least some fun colors, they MUST write very smoothly, and they have to be comfy! I think I have a problem.

*Side note* Tumblr is down. Everyone is about to freak the shit out. *End side note*

Here ends my post on writing. If you ever have anything that you want me to edit, please let me know. I'm bored and would love to do it. If you have any suggestions on something I can write, or a freelance company I could hook up with, also let me know!

Until next time!

Our 7th grade Power of the Pen team (Jason, Katie, and myself), and our two coaches. I had really good hairstyles.