it's okay to want to run away.

despite the slightly emo feel this post's title may have, i promise it isn't going to be a whine fest.  in fact, it's going to be the opposite of a whine fest.  i'm not exactly sure what that term would be, but whatever it is, it's this.

these past two-ish weeks have been all kinds of crazy busy with everything due all at the same time and not enough waking hours to complete it all (hence the reason i stayed up working all night thursday night...well at least until 4am when the royal wedding coverage started which forced me to stop doing homework and start wishing i was a princess).  anyways, it's been a hectic and stressful last couple of days, but i can FINALLY breathe.

the last month projects - DONE!

that's right, 3rd semester of graduate school. we are so dunzo. don't call, text, tweet, facebook, linkedin (i don't even understand what that is but i still get invites to "link" with people...something i don't think i want to do ever because it sounds a tad strange), myspace (do people even still use that?), etc. me.  for realz.  this is one of those breakups where it's good riddance. i will burn your pictures (or books - gasp! i know, the librarian shouldn't burn books), stop factoring your importance into my decisions, and truly feel better because i am no longer tied to you (at least not until august when i start writing that pesky little master's paper thingamajig).

naturally, as assignments pile up and the stress gets to the pimple-breakout stage, it's easy to think about running away from graduate school and becoming a bartender (which after my librarian days are up, i think i'll try).  but then i go to the public library and i realize why i can't give up.  i just like it that much.  if you don't get that feeling or you don't think you've ever met a librarian that actually feels that way, you've obviously never been to my library.  you lose in the game of library love.

despite this, i still think it's okay to want to run away.  i never ran away as a child because let's be honest, i was terrified of the dark (still true), i don't think i'd survive very long in the wild (duh), and i don't believe in sweating so i wouldn't walk very far before i threw in the towel (true forever).  i have this vivid memory of my sister running away one time to the stop sign down the road.  i remember being petrified, although to be honest this entire memory could be distorted due to the fact that i was probably 7ish and i suffered (and continue to suffer) from an overactive imagination.  this is what i remember thinking: i didn't know how she was going to make it on her own.  she was all of 9 and woodmere loop was a loooong loop.  yikes!  i'm pretty sure she just packed socks and panties and i remember wanting to sneak her food in the garage.  i don't think she even made it half an hour sitting at that stop sign before she realized whatever chore she had, punishment she was given, or tv show she couldn't watch didn't cancel out the importance of a toilet and flintstones vitamins.  who knows what parts of that occurred in real life or as a chapter in the book i will one day publish about two sisters and their adventures around the country, but that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

and it's not just people that think about running away.  my mom recently sent me a video of ali trying to do it.  granted she and jennifer were actually playing with a ball in the ocean, but it really looks like she's swimming out to sea (she should really be more careful because she can't possibly know about all the creepy ocean creatures that will bite her toes in that murky water).  if dogs want to run away sometimes and so do their human counterparts, we must all be onto something.   if i had run away from grad school i'd not only have a lot of classes to retake, but i'd also owe my parents a lot of money.  i think we should copy ali (in the video below) and even if we think it'll be better out in that big scary ocean, turn around and come back.  it's so much better when you do!

sprinklers will never stop being fun.

sometimes i like to pretend i'm sixty (ahh the horror!) and think back to the good old days where the most important thing to worry about was finding your flashlight before the epic flashlight tag battle took place once the sun peaced out for the day.  my sister and i have lived in some pretty fun neighborhoods throughout the years, playing street hockey (usually i watched because i hate sweating), flashlight tag, and all kinds of water games: going to the pool, the slip-n-slide, and of course, just running through the sprinkler.  sometimes my dad would even come outside and squirt us with the hose.  it sounds simple (and maybe a tad cruel now that i think about it), but we LOVED it.  

i think back to these kinds of things when graduate school is trying to suck my soul out...when life didn't require 74 sticky notes to keep it all together.  while i don't have any of my sprinkler/slip-n-slide home videos with me (they're safe at my parents' house), rest assured there are tons. for those of you that have not seen the video drawer organized numerically and cross-referenced with an alphabetized list (i come by my talents naturally), every single part of my childhood is filmed, complete with me smashing my mom's favorite christmas ball (circa age 1) and standing in the corner laughing because my cousin couldn't walk without falling (circa age 3).  the events got even more interesting as i got older and trust me, we have them all. 

anyways, since i don't have a sprinkler video from my childhood to share to remind us all of the good in life, here's a recent one of my sister's dog being introduced to the joys of the sprinkler.  she might look a little confused through parts, but we all know that doggie brain of hers is just screaming "HOW HAVE I NOT KNOWN ABOUT THIS BEFORE?! THIS IS SO FUN!"  when life gets you down, just watch this video and remember the simple joys in life...and that sprinklers will never stop being fun. ever.

sometimes a girl deserves to pamper herself

by all rational accounts, i should be completely consumed by my research methods test that will be occurring, whether i'm prepared or not, in roughly 32 hours.  eh, call it the 3rd semester grad student blues or call it flying by the seat of my pants, but either way i am truly underwhelmed.  i mean, yes, i will in fact study tomorrow as i have been for quite a few hours today.  but you know what?  in the end i'm banking on the fact that for 24 years i have yet to fail a test (excluding the one bubble test in 2nd grade when i skipped a line on roughly the 6th question therefore making the remainder of my answers wrong, and also that daily edit grammar quiz in 5th grade...because it was stupid) and i don't think i'll be starting now.  i mean, maybe that's overly confident, but i just have this feeling.  i'll let you know how it plays out.

anyways, because i'm feeling rather apathetic towards the whole studying thing, i've decided to list 5 things related to pampering that i love (some of which i realized today, others of which i've known but wanted to add to the list anyways):

3 of the 5! sorry, no haircut picture...too creepy, even for me.

1.  it is amazing how changing your nail polish from a dark, moody purple to an eye-popping neon pink will improve your mood.  it's almost an instant fix.

2.  it is much easier to throw your recently showered hair into a braid and just go with it.  i mean, let's get real.  what are the chances that you're going to meet your husband in LIBRARY SCHOOL?  yeah, exactly.

3.  cooling eye masks are god's gift to stressed graduate students.  they should be used daily, potentially multiple times a day depending on the time in the semester (ex: finals=3 times a day).  

4.  self-tanner WITH GLITTER is the bee's knees.  i mean, not only does it give you that instant satisfaction because you are no longer vampire-pale, but it adds a little shimmer to your life.  and who doesn't need shimmer?  it's the easiest way to instantly become part of the cullen family, minus the icky pale factor and the drinking of blood.

5.  a haircut can truly, and i mean truly, transform a person.  considering that i haven't cut my hair in like 9 months (sorry horselike mane, but there really is no need when i slap you in a ponytail or braid every day), i didn't learn this from my own haircut.  but let's just say the haircut i recently saw made me stop and stare as if seeing jonathan taylor thomas through my lovesick six year old eyes.  it is amazing how with a few clips of the scissors, a rebel-without-a-cause can be transformed into a take-him-to-grandma's-for-christmas-dinner type man.  well done, anonymous hairstylist, well done.  women everywhere are thanking you for uncovering that masterpiece of a man.   

thank goodness it's earth day

just like many children, i had chores to do each weekend.  my mom's three "children" (me, my sister, and my dad) rotated our chores between vacuuming, dusting, and bathrooms.  to be honest, i was bad at all of them.

for the bathrooms, it wasn't uncommon if i flushed the toilets, swished some water in the sink, and called it a day.  i was also notorious for dusting around everything on the furniture, yet never actually pausing to pick anything up to dust under it.  heaven forbid i actually dust the items on top of the furniture.  that was completely out of the question because it would have taken hours in my room alone thanks to the gazillion disney figurines i insisted on displaying on each piece of furniture in my room.  i actually did a decent job vacuuming, but that was the least fun for my parents because they had to listen to me complain about how heavy the vacuum was.  i swear it was the heaviest vacuum known to man.

despite my lack of cleaning talent, my parents insisted that i help (something i didn't want to do in the first place) because "that's what you did in a family."  while i still believe we should have gotten a maid, as long as i helped with the weekend chores, my parents were fairly lenient about the state of my room.  that's not to say they didn't expect me to keep it picked up, but let's just say it never looked like my sister's.  she was the queen of clean rooms (and tucked in tshirts, perfect parts in her hair, matching socks...all the things i didn't/couldn't do).  my room was similar to what pig-pen's room might have looked like (if you don't know who pig-pen is, check out the wikipedia article...and yes, i know wikipedia isn't always right, but it gets the job done for me).

anyways, as i got older and my cleanliness didn't seem to be improving, my dad began shutting my door every time he walked by my room.  he always said that if he shut my door, he didn't see how terrible it looked so he didn't get angry and punish me.  he assured me this was for the best.  naturally, i just accepted always having a closed door and didn't think much about it.  i didn't get yelled at as much and i also didn't have to pick up my room all the time -- it was a win win for me.

however, today i realized that my very own apartment had gotten to the point that i wanted my dad to come close the door on all of the rooms within it.  that's right, i wanted to pull something from my dad's bag of tricks so that i wouldn't get so angry...with myself.  how's that for strange?  i wanted to close the door into the living room, i wanted to shut the bathroom door, and i wanted to shut/lock/seal the door on my bedroom.  everywhere i looked was a disaster.  it got to the point that i couldn't even begin to tackle the five thousand projects i have because i couldn't find table space OR floor space to work in.

so i took a break from procrastinating on my research proposal (oh the irony of taking a break from procrastination!), channeled my inner clean freak, and set to work.  i scrubbed floors and baseboards, swiffered my heart out, vacuumed for what seemed like hours, and in honor of easter, found all those little dust bunnies on and under my furniture (and yes, i even lifted things up during the dusting process!).

oh, there's the floor! (and no, i'm not 12. i just like pink.)

the bathroom, particularly the sink, was so disgusting i had to let the cleaner soak into the nasty scum buildup in hopes that i would eventually be able to scrub it off.  i ended up spraying unprecedented amounts of cleaner all over my house which i can't believe is good for the environment (or my nose as i'm afraid it's close to bleeding from the bleach).

but you know what?  it's earth day today. there are people everywhere doing really wonderful things for our planet and for that, i'm very thankful.  i hope somewhere someone plants a tree for me.  goodness knows the planet needs it after i just released enough chemicals into the air for another ozone hole.  if there's one spotted over my apartment, i take full responsibility for it.

rss, following, alerts ... oh my!

i learn something new every day, but i’m coming clean: i don’t always blog about it.  i promise i’m not just picking favorites, but really, some days i only learn that i shouldn’t put mascara on before i’m really awake in the morning or i end up looking like a raccoon.  no one really wants to read about those types of things, do they? if you're being honest, you probably didn’t want to read about it 4 seconds ago, much less read through an entire post only to find out it's devoted to raccoon lookalike contests and i really have nothing else to say. 

since my learning is sporadic, i’ve attempted to put an option on the blog (on the right side towards the bottom) so that you no longer have to check 8 times a day.  and yes, i know you check that much so don't lie.  i don't judge you for it. 

anyways, not only have i recently learned about these things called rss feeds, but it turns out it’s possible for me to have something like that on here (thanks, beth!).  apparently i can even find these feed things on other blogs so i can streamline my stalking.  i might not know the technical terms for all this stuff and i might not have even done it right on here, but whatever. it's the effort that counts, right? 

[side note: because i don't really understand a lot about the rss/following/alert side of life, i'm also going to put the email option up and try that on for size.  while i'm far from the most technically savvy person in the world, i know other people (like my dear mommy) like to keep it simple and i have a feeling she'll prefer the email option ... especially if it means i'll stop calling and bugging her to check my blog every time i post.  really, if you think about it, she should be flattered that she gets a personal call.  who needs an alert when you have me?]

time really gets away from me sometimes since my professors give me about a billion projects and no matter how stressed i am, a girl has got to reward herself every now and then with a season of sex and the city.  assuming that you are as busy as i am (which come on, if i have time to watch entire seasons of the nyc escapades of carrie, miranda, charlotte, and samantha, i can’t be that busy), now it's easier to learn when i’m learning.  hot diggity!

                                                                                                                                                     

houston, we have a winner.

in keeping with the latest charlie sheen inspired craze of "winning," i'd like to share with you my winning experience.  and shock of all shocks, it came in the KITCHEN.  i know, the very beast i complained about previously and will complain about in the future gave me a W just now.

inspired by a friend of mine who always bakes delicious cookies, i decided to yet again procrastinate my homework and try my hand at baking cupcakes.  even though my hamburger helper was a major bust last night (and again for lunch today when i tried it one more time in hopes that the fridge would have worked some magic), i was drawn back to the kitchen like a moth to a flame. or a ladybug to my window sill.  or edward to bella.  or me to justin bieber.

maybe i really am a masochist.  maybe i just like failing at things.  maybe i hate my homework so much that i'm willing to try anything.  or maybe, just maybe, i'm so stinking stubborn that i refuse to believe that an oven/stove can stop me.  whatever the motivation, i took to the kitchen and tried my hand at cupcakes.

i followed the recipe just as i should, put the 24 little experiments into the oven, and said a silent prayer to the cooking gods to please not set off my fire alarm.  the neighbors do that enough and as i was reminded by my cookie-baking-friend, it'd be the worst type of karma for me to set off the alarm tonight.

the icing step will come next. wish me luck!

when the timer on my microwave (my oven is lame and doesn't have a timer so i use my microwave's) went off 18ish minutes later, i hesitantly crept towards the kitchen, noting mainly that it wasn't filled with smoke and it didn't smell like ruined cake mix.  much to my delight, i opened the oven door and saw 24 beautiful little cupcakes looking back at me, begging to be taken out of the cooking machine.  i gladly obliged and only burned my hand briefly as i used a dish towel to pull them out instead of an oven mitt. apparently dish towels are not as thick.

i am happy to report that while i'm far from being rachel ray, i definitely won tonight.  the score might be stove - 1, megan - 0, but so far i'm one up on the oven.  i can't promise that the cupcakes taste good since as soon as i saw them i came to brag about it via blog, but hey - they look pretty and that has to count for something, right?  

 

public school failed me

when my family would pack up and move every three years, i always looked forward to the new school i would call home.  that's right, i had a crush on school.  i was bummed in june when the separation started and i was giddy with anticipation come september when i would be reunited with my one true love.  i passed the days eagerly completing the workbooks that my mom purchased, and i was baffled every time my sister would fuss about having to complete a page before going outside to play.  why would she not want to work in her workbook?!  weirdo.

very seldom was i disappointed with my classes, teachers, etc. throughout my public school education.  i was pretty much smitten from that first day of half-day kindergarten in charleston, sc.  this would also be the first year that i got into trouble at school, but to this day i stand firm in my belief that if the games had been interesting, i would have wanted to play.  they were dumb, so i refused.

also, on the chance that you may ever meet my parents and the conversation happens to center around the trouble i got into in school, i'd like the record to show that i refuse to count the tiny episode in preschool involving my shoe taking flight across the room, the next year when my aggression got the best of me and i hit my friend tricia, or 10th grade biology when i refused to dissect the frog and then accidentally spilled the frog supplies onto the floor as i was coming back into the classroom.

let's not get on a tangent though. this post has a purpose and that is to say that i truly believe public school failed me.  it has nothing to do with my knowledge of calculus, my exposure to shakespeare, or my "leadership skills" that were honed thanks to student council (which was a class in my high school - admittedly, a joke of a class, but still).  while i will forever be able to tell you the meanings of the variables in y=mx+b and name all of our country's presidents, in order, complete with a catchy little tune and an interesting fact about most (thank you, ap us history!), there are simple things that i can't do.

why could i place out of all of my college math courses, yet i have to call my mom every time i read a recipe?  it's not because i don't want to learn, but let's be honest - sometimes you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  why was i reading the grapes of wrath in ap english when i probably should have been learning about how to keep grapes from rotting in some type of cooking class?  case and point: hamburger helper is supposed to be easy.  why is mine currently glued to the bottom of my pan?  maybe instead of ap this and ap that and college credit this and college credit that, someone should have told me that i was going to have cook for myself and it'd be helpful to know what is under the hood of my car. 

i'm sure i learned something useful in high school.  maybe it's more important to know how to decorate for prom than it is to successfully balance a checkbook or a cook a meal that doesn't come in a lean cuisine box.  maybe reading those morning announcements will come in handy when i run for president and have to make all of those speeches.  you also might think all the experiments we did with bunsen burners would help me at the stove, or at least help me to remember to turn off the stove, but so far, no dice.

i eagerly await the day when something i learned in public school proves useful.  so far, after all those years in school, four years in college, and two years in graduate school, my money remains on the prom decorating skills.