When Mercury is in retrograde

Hi blogginos.

It's been a while since I've written an honest-to-goodness post. Things have been a little nuts around here. I know, you're probably sitting there, like:

But for reals. It's been like this:

So what's my deal? 

The planet Mercury.

See,  Mercury is in retrograde. Basically that means everything here on Earth is jacked. When Mercury's doin' it's own thing, spinnin' whichever way it feels it wants to, the Earth gets this funny feeling until all is right again in the universe. I'm* affected in such a way that it makes me act a little "off." (*I'm not the only one. The whole world is-- electronics, people, animals, you name it.)

So my normally organized desk, looks like this:

And more amazingly, I was able to FOCUS on homework and complete my final project in two days.

In my daily life, things have been quite stressful. My boss is retiring and lots of stuff is happening to wrap up the loose ends she might leave behind. I've been trying to stay organized while she's sorting things but let's face it-- it's a hectic time when someone leaves. All things considered, I've been feeling pretty proud of myself handling the stress levels so well up until about a week ago. That's when I finally noticed for myself that I might be a little out of control.

It all started when my coworker came into my office...

Unfortunately that last part isn't exaggerated.

I really did wave a box half my size over my head and throw it at him.

Soooo... moral of the story: Watch your back. Mercury's gonna be doing its own thing for about a month.

Someone Finally Admitted It

You guys, I'm kind of in shock right now.

Remember the little bits of things I've told you about grad school this year? No? Well, basically, my last two years have been like this:

But then, when I figured out that I would have enough classes and credits to graduate in December 2011 (back in late winter/early spring of 2011), I realized that I just had to suffer through 2011. To hell with whatever happens in 2011-- I'll be free by the start of 2012!!

So all year, I've been like

I applied for graduation and I've been getting lots of paperwork from UM about when to walk, cap and gown, etc., but then I was looking at my own paperwork and it occurred to me that I might be missing a class.

I emailed the office to see if they could check their records and got the reply that, 

I emailed back to ask what the official policies were for transferring between programs-- I had been in one and swapped to another. Technically, I have the magic number of credits needed, but New Program won't accept one of Old Program's classes. 

I emailed the office and got back another reply.

"Hope that helps!"

Wait...

What?

What does that have to do with a request for a copy of the policy? What does that have to do with any policy? Timeline for WHAT???

Needless to say, it didn't help.

I looked into an appeal on allowing that one course but no such luck. Why should such luck begin now, anyway? So, fine. All I need to take is an elective. It's not the biggest deal and shouldn't be too terrible, right?

Yesterday was the first day to register for next semester. I popped online, found my class-- 

Finally!!! Someone ADMITTED that grad school means nothing! They're even ADMITTING that despite this amazing Masters degree, I HAVE NO FUTURE!!!

And the most amazing part??

I HAVE NO FUTURE THROUGH 2099!!!


Here's hoping I can live to 117 so I can have a life.

Although...

I do feel a little better about where I am in life, knowing that it was all an inevitable series of happenings orchestrated by the Ultimately Malicious.

It was the busiest summer this year.

In lieu of writing a gripping yarn about what I did this summer, I thought you would prefer an incredible montage of "snapshots" from the summer. 

This is exactly how it happened... more or less.

Monica's boyfriend got her the new iPad for her birthday.

I have no idea how to draw countless hours on the internet scouring reviews.

After reading every review out there and putting my hands on every kind of tablet on the market, I decided the best thing for me was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. 

* Actual pick-up line that was actually used on me once.

Turns out, I can doodle and I can make Blogger posts, but Blogger won't upload pictures from the tablet. That's insanely inconvenient.

But what isn't inconvenient is ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE!!

A lot has happened since I got Sam. I've only been on Lappy about 5 times in the last two months, most of them in the last week, but we're all still friends here. I didn't get Sam with the intention of replacing Lappy. It kind of worked out that way but some things are just easier to do on a computer with a keyboard.

So what all has happened, you ask? What hasn't!

Back to the snapshots of summer:

1) NKOTBSB concert with Tiffany and Angie

2) The Getty Villa in Malibu was awesome.

Hercules and me! 

3) I went to San Francisco

Ok, so this one MIGHT be Photoshopped...

4) Foster the People concert with Sara

First we were like this:

Then this drunk lady dove in and grabbed Sara's wrist and the wrist of some dude and this happened:

Sara couldn't escape.

5) Our intern Steve (from New York but goes to school in Kansas) was talking about heading back to college with our former high school intern Jesse (a 2011 graduate.) This was awesome, but neither of them look anything like this.

Jesse's not mean. That's his thinking face.

(Also, Jesse has lots of hair and Steve has hair and a goatee.)

Publish Post

6) I doodled this on a train.

7) I went to Warped Tour and saw these guys again.

Yeah, they did the same crazy stuff, but this time it was endearing.

8) I discovered Netflix after years of thinking it would be wasted on me. I was able to confirm that my attention span for movies is almost nonexistent, but TV shows? YAAAAYYYY!!!! I've also learned that I've become a serious binge TV-watcher.

That's BBC's Robin Hood. AWESOME show.

9) Speaking of TV shows, my tablet is named for my favorite TV character: Sam Winchester (from Supernatural). I also tend to name things like a 3-year-old (eg. Coby the Cobalt, Lappy the Laptop) so Sammy the Samsung wasn't much of a stretch.

The Nerak emailed me this picture to be my first wallpaper. 

"Real" Sam has luscious, luscious hair.

10) I also became obsessed with Cracked.com and started spending an unhealthy amount of hours reading articles. Hey, I'm learning things here!

Now, I know how utterly geeked you are that I've started blogging again. For your benefit, I'm including a diagram of how to do The Happy Dance. Basically, you move your hands up and down in front of (but not touching) your stomach, like a spastic robot. Hands must be flat with palms toward your body. You can make your own techno music if you want but it isn't necessary. Also, every five hand wiggles or so, tilt your shoulders the opposite way (ie. toward the right or left.)

I even included an overhead shot. 

You're welcome.

NKOTBSB

Back in June I went to my fourth New Kids on the Block concert. To say that I loved the NKOTB as a kid would be a pretty tremendous understatement-- I had everything from tacky rings to bedding, dolls to clothes-- but back in those days, there was no internet to click and buy a ticket. My parents were never going to stand in line outside for hours/days on end to get me tickets to see them and when the guys split up in '94, I knew I would never get to see them play live.

When I was in college at MSU in 2003, my friend Tiffany and I attempted our own New Kids revival. It took a while but in 2008 the NKOTB announced their comeback. Tiffany had our tickets about .32 seconds after they went on sale. We went to a show in October (the greatest day of my life), then one in April, and I went with Jamie in June. It was bit excessive - even for me-- but each show was super different.

Over this past winter, the NKOTB had a new announcement: an upcoming tour with the Backstreet Boys! Incredible!!! Needless to say, our ever-vigilant Tiffany had the tickets right away again. Things were going to be epic.

Our friend Angie came with us-- she was at the October show with us in 2008. Angie and I have a little tension in our friendship because we're both totally in love with Joey McIntyre, but fortunately this time around she was distracted by the BSB so it all worked out in my favor.

We got to the venue and had to do the obligatory chick thing and take 800 pictures of ourselves. (We also stopped at the restroom and laughed our butts off because the Men's Rooms were converted into Ladies' Rooms on account of no respectable guy going to an NKOTBSB concert.)

Although the concert was beyond amazing, my favorite thing of the night happened before the music started.

We got to our seats and tried (unsuccessfully) to take pictures of ourselves when the lady behind us offered to take our picture. We turned around, she took our picture with the stage behind us, and then we sat down. Tiffany-- precious, precious Tiffany...-- started looking through the pictures on her camera and stopped at one we had taken just inside the door when we got there. Angie and I were standing like normal people, and Tiffany was bent to the side like she just jumped in the picture at the last minute.

It looked kinda like this:

Then this happened:

PS: The night before the concert, the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup. It was super awesome to see the boys come out in their jerseys.