i'm sick. again. with some nasty, crappy feeling, congested and sore everywhere, virus. and here i am at work staring at my screen and praying for the day to end.

i really miss the days in grammar and high school where you really could put your health before everything else, and take a day off once in a while. your teachers and classmates (well, some of them) actually cared that you were sick and encouraged you to take care of yourself.

enter job world, where nobody cares and where you really can't take the day off just for the sake of resting and recovering. this sucks man.

and i lost my cell phone on top of everything else. i'm pretty sure i forgot it in the car this morning, but there is a definitive possibility that i left it on the train, in which case i'm screwed.

bah humbug.

edit: so it appears that all i do lately is complain - apologies! things aren't all that bad - cat is well, ryan got his certification and all that, and money isn't beating me to a pulp. sorry to sound like such a jerk, i guess i just get the urge to post when things are sucking.

please, just this once, somebody call me back!!! i'm a good kid, i swear!

every single time a job appears on Oxfam America's website that i am even vaguely qualified for, t apply for it. today i will be applying for two more. and they never return my emails.

i am such a masochist.

its hard though, since the oxfam office building is on my way to work,and literally dominates the skyline around here. it taunts me, and drives me to keep trying. damn oxfam.



and notably: hugs for megan! hope you're doing ok. : )

( so my last cat post for a bit, i promise! )

in other news, being bothered on the weekend (especially at 8:00am on a Sunday morning!) by my company's alarm company with the cheerful message "We have dispatched the police in response to your alarm, will you be meeting them at your location?" is getting reeeeeaaaaaaallly old.

so i figured i'd post some recent (and humorous) pictures of loki as of late - she's turning out to be a pretty funny cat. and i promised megan i'd post the cat vs. swan one - so here goes! (excuse the poor quality - I have a terrible camera!)


( cut for much kitten-age )

s'all for now. : ) stay tuned for new cat pictures - loki and her new BFF: the humidifier!

i want to go back to school so bad its not even funny.

sigh.

so, this month i thought that i would finally be in order for money - i was all set for rent and i had paid all my bills.

then, through sheer stupidity i didn't use my parking brake on wednesday and my car was towed. and it took a lot of money to get it back. and now i'm short for the rent.

story of my life, man.

dear 2007,

i hate to say it man, but boy am i glad to see you go. you started with so much promise - i had an amazing fall semester class-wise and was planning on hitting it out of the park for my last months at uri. i had submitted all my grad school applications and was naively awaiting my responses. things were good with my family and friends, and while i was nostalgic about leaving uri i was excited about moving on in the field that i loved, with two solid research papers under my belt.

fast forward six months - i had been soundly rejected from all four schools, getting a friendly "you're awesome, but you need more experience before we can accept you" letter from each. following that, the semester fell apart - i was so preoccupied with figuring out what the hell i was going to do with myself that my grades slipped and my second senior thesis fell by the wayside. i even "graduated" two credits shy of what i needed, and owing $1000 to uri due to a scholarship gone wrong.

so i graduated and jumped on the first job i thought might work out, and moved to boston with ryan. the job didn't work out, and in desperation i spent 5 awful months working 12 hours/day working at a bakery, and getting rejected on a weekly basis from places like oxfam and doctors without borders.

so now it's a year later. fortunately i have a much better job than the bakery, but it's no where near what i want to be doing. i'm writing for a nonprofit newsletter, but that's not enough for me right now. ryan still has yet to move in - the mass. teaching certification system has taken forever and a day. i still owe uri $1000 and two credits - i just can't manage to get my head above water money-wise. and all my friends are two hours away - making it harder to stay in the loop and leaving me generally lonely.

2008, on the other hand, seems to be looking up. ryan passed the last part of his tests - so he can start looking for teaching jobs up here. i really do like my job, and as i get better at it i enjoy it more. and i may be getting a raise in a month or so, which will really help with money. i'm visiting ri more, and loki is great company when i'm alone. i'm saving up for a class at tufts this summer, and hopefully from there i can look at starting my master's in a couple years (which is ok, i keep telling myself - most grad students are in their mid- to late twenties). and through all this nonsense i've been keeping up with the field of development, so i feel like i haven't lost anything since last spring.

so, 2007 - i at least learned a lot with you. all that nonsense about a degree being a portal to better jobs is a bit of am myth, to some degree. there's still a lot of work ahead. and it's hard living alone, but i can make a difference if i put in the effort. and i'll keep applying to oxfam until i'm blue in the face - if only they knew what they were missing!! and once i have the money i'm going to go back to learning arabic - after a year and a half of classes i think that something like the rosetta stone could really help me polish my grammar and vocabulary. and i could really stand to learn french too...but one thing at a time.

and i'm ready to take all this head on in 2008.

ok, so i know i haven't posted in a while - a lot has been going on! but i have a story that is just too funny not to share.

so my kitten loki loves to play with water. leave a glass of water anywhere in the apartment and she is there withing a matter of minutes, delicately dipping her paw in and then splashing around. it's pretty cute, as long as you remember to hold onto glasses you don't want her playing in.

recently, however, she has discovered the toilet and the tub. she really likes to splash in the toilet, but now i try to keep the lid down. since then she has moved onto the tub. i don't know what she does in there - just that if i can't find her, i can just stick my head behind the curtain and she'll be sitting there staring up at me. who knows what nonsense she's up to in there.

up until now, however, i don't think she knew what the tub was for. this morning, i take a shower and the drain is realllly slow, so the tub is half-filled up by the time i'm done. i leave the bathroom and there's loki waiting for me. usually she follows me into my room, but this time she runs into the bathroom - i think because her litter box is in there. i'm barely in my room when i hear a big splash. yup. without looking, she hopped into the bathtub and then completely flipped out trying to climb back out. by the time she got out she was completely soaked and PISSED OFF. took me forever to catch her to dry her off....i think she blames me.

all in all, it was hi-larious. sorry loki, but it was. hopefully now she'll just stick to playing in her water bowl and my drinks.

so i basically feel like i've fallen off the face of the planet. this week i've been working 10-12 hour shifts, coming home, showering, then sleeping. which sucks, so i'm really looking forward to my day off tomorrow!

ryan didn't get the job in burlington that he had interviewed for...so he's back working for adecco in lincoln. boooo. which is good, we need the money, but it still kind of sucks to be alone so much of the time. i'm going home on sunday, though, and i'm really excited. : D

so that's all really...just felt like posting something to prove that i'm still alive.

so gerren's friend joe invited ryan, gerren, and i to a house party in foxboro last night. we went, figuring it would be an inexpensive way to get out of the house for the night. hanging out with gerren, joe, and their friends toward the end of the night was fun...but the party itself turned out to be a birthday party for a guy we didn't know...so that was a bit awkward. ah well - it was good to get out!

now gerren and joe are here to hang out for the night, then i go back to work tomorrow. booo. on the plus side, the second annual epic laura/ryan birthday party is next weekend...woooo!


in other news, i am trying to befriend the swan. so far, he just eats my cheerios and attacks the other ducks.
: (

too.....early......

so i really intend on updating more than i do. : P but, now that school is done and whatnot, and i'm not writing constantly for the sake of academic survival, i feel like i'll be updating more. i hope.

so lots of crazy things have happened in the last couple months.
1. My life is dominated by ducks.
2. I manage a gourmet muffin-bakery.
3. I am a volunteer staff writer at the International Institute for Justice and Development.

let me expand.

the apartment i currently live in (sometimes with ryan!), which is quite cool, is part of a complex called "Parkview". appropriately, there is a huge park right outside my door, filled with various types of waterfowl.

( cut for extreme duck-ness )


secondly, i make muffins. well, correction - i manage people who make muffins. granted, this is not really, well, at all, what i thought i'd be doing with my two degrees. but! it seems as though in order to get into grad school or to get a job in the development field, i need experience. and since you need experience to get a paid job, well, i don't have one. thus, the muffin job. which leads me to my third point.

since i can't get paid to do development work....i'm doing it for free! well, actually, i'm really excited about this. i am currently a volunteer staff writer at the international institute for justice and development, based in boston. basically, i write news summaries and editorial pieces on major issues occuring in sub-saharan africa. which is really cool, and i'm quite thrilled to have been accepted for this position. my first one was the cabinet selections made by nigeria's new president, yar a'dua. so yay for that. hopefully with this job i can build up the kind of experience needed to get a paying position, and eventually get into a master's program. (especially since i live five minutes from tufts!

so yes. that's where i am right now. oh, and incredibly broke. like, seriously. it sucks. between student loans and credit cards, i'm kind of swimming in debt. but, now that i have a steady paycheck, i'm really hoping that i can start to whittle away at my debt. here's hoping!

oh, and yes - i upgraded to a plus account. i know, that kind of makes me a corporate whore. but i really want to take more pictures and upload them (even if they're no good - lucky you!), and i think the scrapbook application will be the easiest way to do this, since i don't use photobucket. so we'll see...i can always un-upgrade.

so yeah...that's the scoop. there's more, but i figure if i don't say it all at once, maybe i'll actually keep writing. we'll see!


stay tuned. : )

it's the end of an era.

soooo....i'm done with college.

well, i'm done with finals. i still need to edit my econ thesis, but since we're moving out for the next three days i won't even look at it until sunday.

in the meantime, we're moving out. now, i love moving into places...you get to put everything where it belongs, everything is neat and clean (neat freak much?), and you get to organize everything...i really enjoy it. moving OUT on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. apartment is a disaster since the past couple of weeks have been so busy, and it's just going to be annoying. just finished the dishes and sweeping the kitchen...once megan gets back from her meeting we're going to get some boxes and whatnot and then really get down to business. booo.

also, whitehouse's office has not confirmed receiving my references and writing sample, and now I am worried.

if you're tired of hearing me gripe about school....don't read this entry.


boooo school. i am ready to be DONE!
i finished my 9/11 paper yesterday - it wasn't my best work but it's done, and i can't really care anymore. today i'm working on my ecn 305 fina, which i have to hand in by two, then i work at two til whenever. then....i'm done-ish, other than editing my senior thesis.

i is tired. can it be tomorrow yet?

i am so burnt out.

in the words of megan, my greatest wish is for it to be exactly one week from today. and to have an unlimited supply of ciders.

still have to write my 9/11 paper (though the research is finally done), write up my economic theory final, and work on the second draft of my senior thesis.

but in a week, i'll be done. i'll probably sleep for a week, and play video games for a week after that. : P


oy. i need to invent something to fast-forward time....

my honors project presentation should have been two hours ago.



boooooo.

applied for a really awesome job.

have a good shot at getting it.

won't find out until mid-may.



*crosses fingers*

hi livejournal

so i haven't posted in a while, and it's possible that i have been cheating on you with my mac.com account. but you knew i was never a one-website kind of girl anyway, so it's cool.

new things: got summarily rejected from everywhere, which apparently is a good thing, got accepted to the institute for human studies summer seminar, don't have a job yet, am kind of psyched about spending the summer at home, and am poised to get one final kick in the ass from this semester.

in short, this semester was awful. and i'm really not sure why. i think partially i'm just tired, but i also think it has lot to do with switching from celexa to prozac at the begining of the semester. from a looking-backward perspective, it is quite clear to me that my attention level, ability to focus and concentrate, and energy are nowhere near where they wwere when i was on the celexa - as in they all suck. kind of late to be coming to that realization, but better late than never i guess. in the meantime, though, i'll probably get a C+/B- in my intermediate micro class, a B in my economic theory class, a B in my honors seminar, and God-only-knows on my (unfinished) economics project. i've basically given up on my honors project, which leaves me three credits short and genrally pissed off, my econ project is still unfinished, and i have two other final papers to write. the best part is, i really don't care. i just can't bring myself to do the work, and i can't friggen tell why. this is not my work ethic - i've taken way more credits than this at one time and gotten straight A's. so i'm pissed but totally unmotivated to do anything about it. with deadlines approaching, this is a dangerous ethic.

honestly, i just want to graduate, get some bogus part-time job, and take the summer OFF. not do anything. eventually find a real job and a place to live and a future, but i just want to take a couple months off. my plan was to get certified to teach english in thailand, but i really can't afford it.

aaaaahhhh.....that was so emo. ha!

well, that's where I am now. i just hope that i'm able to get my shit together before it really is too late.

over and out