summer update

HOW IS IT ALREADY JUNE 24th??  i mean, seriously.  where has the summer gone?

i know it's not exactly normal to start off a post in an all-caps-yelling-style, but for realz.  i feel like it was just the spring and my nose was constantly red and dripping.  now instead of my nose being red and dripping, my cheeks are red from the blasted heat and my body is dripping from sweat at all hours.  cute, right?

welcome to north carolina, where comfortable body temperatures come to die.

however, this summer has already been a summer of firsts for a few things in the life of megan and i want to share them with you.  for better or worse, here they are.

1.  the full-time job:  so i've had a full-time job since october, but this is the first summer that i've had one of these things.  working full days during the summer months has its tough moments, but when it's daylight outside until late AND i get that full-time paycheck in my account every two weeks, the tough moments have a way of not seeming so bad.

2.  no camp cheerio:  this is the first summer (minus the summer when i was 16 and i was on a mission trip ... regardless of what any of my friends may tell you) that i won't be going up to camp cheerio, even if for a brief visit.  i'm not sure how i feel about it i know exactly how i feel about it: it makes my heart hurt, but i make sure to live vicariously through the wonderful pictures posted on facebook.  thank god for social media.

3.  ballet class:  i took photography last summer and had quite a ball learning something new.  this summer i've enrolled in ballet!  while it's beginning ballet, it's actually quite advanced for someone that is as clumsy as i am.  however, every thursday i go and point my feet in unnatural ways and turn out my hips until i'm afraid they'll pop out leaving me disfigured.  and while i've been so sore (and confused) i've shed some tears, i do love it.  even if i don't get it.  and even if i fall over sometimes.  there's just something cool about learning something that some of my friends do so effortlessly, in addition to doing something that's graceful, elegant, and structured (three things i am not).  more power to those of you who beast the art of ballet.

4.  durham bulls:  if anyone were to ask, i would have told them i love the durham bulls baseball team.  however, it's a little known fact that until tonight, i hadn't actually ever gone to a game.  i love baseball so i knew i would love it, but this fact was finally confirmed tonight.  complete with reuniting with a few old camp friends, my introduction to the bulls was superb!


anyways, those were just four of my firsts.  i hope your summer has been a summer of wonderful firsts as well!  if not, don't worry. there are a quite a few so-humid-you-could-die days left in north carolina's extended summer.  go out and do something you've never done before.  you'll be glad you did.

there's something special about going to the movies

on the way to the hunger games midnight showing last night, i kept rambling on about not having a passion.  it tripped me up so badly in interviews when i was asked, 'what can you tell me about yourself?' because i'm pretty much what you see on my resume.  besides some awkward and/or inappropriate stories to share with prospective bosses (which for the record, i have no prospective bosses now as i'm loving my new job to a ridiculous degree), i've got nothing.

zilch. a goose egg. love. ... however you say it, i essentially don't have anything that i really enjoy in the way you are supposed to love something when asked what you do for fun.

and okay, i do love reality television. and i do love gossip magazines (and gossiping for that matter). and don't even get me started on how much i love painting my nails.  but none of those do anything for making me appear like a self-sufficient, mature adult.  which i am ... for the most part.

i semi-started my passion quest last summer when i took a photography class and bought one of those snazzy (aka expensive) cameras, but that fizzled out as i got busy.  i'm hoping time presents itself to enjoy that again, but it wasn't something that stuck.  i also started sewing and enjoyed that for quite a while, but i have yet to complete a skirt i started last july because i can't figure out the darned elastic.

but there's got to be something i enjoy.  there just has to be.  i've got to be able to say something other than sleep when people ask what i do for fun.  which if we're honest, sleep truly is my favorite thing, but since i'm not a hibernating bear that's not seen as a socially acceptable hobbie past those late night college days.

which brings me to my real point for this post (which we all know i never get to until the end anyways):  i really enjoy going to the movies.

not just watching movies (although i do love that), but going there.  i'm a sucker for the whole experience from the big screen, semi-sticky floors, and tearing of the tickets (and the inevitable 'WHERE IS MY STUB?!' panic when i have to go to the bathroom), to the delicious popcorn smells and crunching that waft down from the end of the aisle when someone brings back an [overpriced] enjoyable treat.

and seeing the hunger games premiere at midnight (in imax ... HOLY OVERWHELMING SCREEN SIZE) was quite the treat.  all of those movie loving elements were there, but add to that the costumes and squeals from the expectant and giddy crowd and you've got yourself an event.

i'm not saying that going to the movies will be the next thing on my passion quest list because after all, movies are expensive.  but let's just say that regardless of the price, there is truly something special about going to the movies.  it's more than just a visual story you subject yourself to for a couple of hours ... it's an experience.  and a beautiful one at that.

slow down life!

in the words of my father, HOLY COW.  life has all of a sudden started snowballing at warp speed and everything is happening really quickly.  which isn't necessarily a bad thing since typically, when given the time, i figure out how to get out of things i've committed to.  not always (eh...maybe?), but it's not completely atypical for me to panic after thinking about things for a while.  i just scare easily i guess.  

i think i'll blame that character flaw on being a scorpio, but in actuality i have no idea if that's ever even attributed to scorpios.  but whatever ... if you want to take the time to look it up and share, please do.  otherwise, i scare easily because i'm a scorpio.

goodbye notes from elementary school friends.
so precious.

anyways, within the past 10 days i've been offered two jobs that happened to be down the road from one another (only one of which i could accept, obviously), had my lessons observed for certification purposes, set up apartment searches in my new town (ahhh NEW TOWN), finished my thesis research, and officially finished my school library internship.

close up of one of the notes.
too cute.

in the next 10 days i'll have picked an apartment (or a cardboard box), taken (and passed?) my comprehensive exam, and submitted my first draft of my thesis.  or at least that's the plan.  

as an unashamed planner extraordinaire, this all seems so fast.  and maybe that's how big girl jobs happen.  maybe you don't find out 6 months ahead of time with plenty of idle time to relax.  or maybe you do and my snowball just started rolling early.

and obviously i was searching for jobs to get everything started quickly, but i guess i just didn't think i'd be able to find one so really it was just practice looking through sites.  but now that i've started crossing that bridge into adulthood, my life is going into autopilot in order to get everything done that i have to get done in the next month ... because you know, in order to keep the job i was offered i do have to graduate and get certified, and obviously that requires the successful completion of comp exams and thesis research (both of which completely underwhelm me).  

hunky, right?
photo credit:
http://wallpapersunlimited.blogspot.com/2009/11/
aladdin-wallpapers.html

and the packing up my apartment thing also needs to be thrown in the planning scheme ... which is a migraine waiting to happen.

but instead of freaking out, which i'd really really like to do, i'm going to go watch aladdin.  because the disney channel is playing it right now.  and aladdin is my cartoon crush, street rat or not.