no time for sleep

i feel like i'm wearing a zombie costume a week before halloween.  and it's not because i'd ever be a zombie.  don't be ridiculous.  i always aim to be something cute.  like a poodle skirt girl.  or tinker bell.  and just for the record, i choose to not include the year i wanted to be a military person so i wore my dad's BDUs and thought i was the bee's knees.  trust me, i wasn't.  i was just awkward and it was hard for people to see me in the night.  not cool.

[side note: if you don't know what BDUs are and you're having trouble figuring out how awkward i was, check out the wikipedia article here.  if you really know me, you'll understand why this doesn't fit my personality at all.]    

but back to sleep, or lack of sleep really.  when life is going at downhill-roller-coaster-speed, there's not much time for sleep.  as you can see, there is always time for blogging though.  thank god for that, right?

anyways, why is there no time for sleep?  well for starters, for 72ish hours this past weekend (friday-sunday, don't bother me about math) my wonderful mother and i adventured all over charleston, south carolina searching for the perfect place for me to make my new home.  and when i say all over charleston, i mean it.  i'm pretty sure i have been on every.single.road in west ashley and johns island, in addition to those on james island and downtown.  and yes, we adventured north into north charleston and accidentally over the bridge into mt. pleasant on our hunt.  it was a nonstop, little-sleeping crazy weekend full of hide-and-go-seek apartment style.

well it turns out that place is STILL hiding from me, but in the mean time i've at least found something ... and no, it's not a cardboard box.

although if we're being honest, it's about as big as one.  so for all you future visitors (and please come play -- we can go to the beach HOORAY), make sure you bring a sleeping bag (because that's about all there is room for...and even that will be on the "kitchen" floor) or plan to stay in one of the many nearby hotels.

and also, feel free to donate to the "get megan a bigger apartment" fund that i'm setting up asap.  but hey, at least i'll be able to get some sleep in my new box...which is more than i can say for the past days of chaos.  

don't judge a book by its cover. for realz.

in order to prepare (if that's possible?) for my upcoming job, i've decided to take a hiatus from reading all of candace bushnell's books (if you don't know her stuff, you should -- http://www.candacebushnell.com/) and focus on things i might be able to recommend to kids.

not that sex and the city and lipstick jungle aren't worthy of recommendations ... because they so are.  but maybe just not to tweens.  and just for the record, i'm not thinking of that as censorship.  i'm just thinking of it as responsible librarianship.  and while i'm being honest about what i think, i'm not so sure some of the things in those books are completely appropriate for adults, but whatever. still good.

don't judge me because i haven't read some of
the INSANELY popular ones. better late than never, right?

anyways, i went to the bookstore (i know ... not the library. but i didn't want to wait for the books because i'm the world's most impatient library patron) and picked up some books that were on a middle grades list ... and some others just because i thought they should be on the list, even if they weren't.  and after reading the backs of the books and realizing they were more often than not FAR from my genre of choice, i decided i needed a solid princess diaries type book.  essentially, fancy nancy in middle school.  

after reading the back of the books and scrutinizing the covers (shameful, i know), i settled on a megan-type book about a girl who wants to fit in and has two gorgeous and famous parents.  i thought it was a slam dunk book (which basically means an easy read about an ugly duckling who eventually becomes sassy and beautiful just like her rockstar parents).  

OMG PEOPLE I WAS SO WRONG.

now that's not to say it wasn't a good book.  it was.  i read it almost straight through because it was so gripping, but holy cow was i off base.  and if you don't want it spoiled, stop reading here.

the stars and happy writing on
the cover?  TRICKS.

okay you've continued reading, so i'm about to spoil.  so the girl i thought was an ugly duckling?  well, she does have famous, beautiful parents that make her feel slightly inadequate, and when she moves to a new school she has all the same insecurities that new kids have.  as she's struggling to fit in with the popular crowd that likes her for her parents' fame, her mom gets cancer (and dies), her dad relapses with his alcoholism and causes a terrible wreck which sends him to jail and then alcohol rehab, and hannah (the main character) ... well she decides she's not pretty enough or skinny enough to be in the popular crowd AND deal with all this crap from life so she starts throwing up.  

and i'm not just saying it's alluded to in the book.  full out details on her binge eating and purging are all over those pages.  which of course makes it real and carries such a huge impact upon the reader, but WOW.  not princess diaries chick lit like i was expecting.  

but again -- it was a good book.  maybe a little graphic and detailed for someone with as weak a stomach as myself, but hannah's struggle with fitting in and dealing with all that stuff at once?  that's real life, folks.  

albeit she was dealing with EVERYTHING at once, but still ... the girl was able to be real about her "issues" (as she called them), learn to be happy again and love herself, and of course ... snag a true winner of a boyfriend in the end.

[side note: while some books tend to gloss over the details, this doesn't leave much to the imagination.  and as startling as that was, from someone with no background on how haunting bulimia and alcoholism can be, this stuff seemed legit.  there wasn't a complete rainbows-and-sunflower ending (although she did snag that boyfriend), but the struggle wasn't forgotten, instead being stated that she was going to slip and it was going to be hard -- but she would be able to learn to cope.] 

so all in all, am i glad i read it?  definitely.  but was there anything in the entire story i expected?  only the boyfriend.  

so be careful, kids.  don't judge a book by its cover (or its title for that matter).  but if you do, like i did, read it with an open mind.  and try your hardest to find the good.         

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.

why must the cutest things hurt so badly?

seriously though, WHY do the cutest things hurt so badly?  and no, i'm not thinking any deeper than surface level for this.  feel free to read into whatever you want, but i'm talking superficial things.

mainly ... shoes. like the shoes pictured below.

look closely.  you'll probs see blood near the toes.
also, the cute pink bear in the corner of the picture
does nothing to ease the foot pain.

the cutest shoes are like tiny torture chambers begging to suck the soul out of your toes by the end of the day.  but why?  why must the shoes be designed with less toe room than necessary to not end up with squished toes?   and why must the straps be made of something as uncomfortable as steel, cracking your heel with every step?  what happened to cute, stylish (emphasis on the last word) shoes?  i don't know if anything happened to them, because to be honest, i don't know that they have ever existed.

and yes, i do have a pair or two cute-ish shoes (if you stretch the definition of cute) that aren't terribly uncomfortable, but they aren't heels.  and no, i don't think you have to wear heels, but i like to.  after all, if i ever get pulled over and a cop asks me to step out of the car, they only way he'll believe the height on my driver's license is with some stellar platforms.  

sidenote: if i've complained about torture shoes before, i obviously don't learn from my mistakes.

there is so much i don't know about greek mythology.

today i taught my first lesson. that's right ... a megan original, planned-created-and-implemented.  i was working with a 5th grade teacher to enhance what she's doing in her classroom on mythology.  i had planned for us to do some brainstorming and talking about myths, some connecting myths to our current lives a little bit, and then a smidge of reading a greek myth together.  from there, in the weeks to come, we'll work on a fun extension project where we'll get to showcase a myth (or create our own) ... all good stuff.

anyways, i spent hours familiarizing myself with both mythology and the specifics of greek mythology in hopes not to appear completely incompetent in front of those 5th graders.  i knew i wouldn't be able to talk around them the way i might be able to talk around kindergarteners by convincing them i knew what i was doing.  so countless internet and book searches later, i was as prepared as i was going to be.

i was going to connect mythology to the 5th graders by showing them characters from harry potter that derived their names (and sometimes their personalities) from greek mythology, and then throw in a few real life examples influenced by greek myths.  you know, it's all about authentic learning, right?

so here i am, armed and ready with my hermione granger, sirius black, and minerva mcgonagall pictures.  i also had pictures of nike and pandora jewelry in my bag of tricks.  and blow-my-mind there was one kid each time that knew exactly why it connected with greek (or roman in the case of minerva) mythology.

which of course is awesome.  to know they are so excited about learning different things and they have the chance to be exposed to this is inspiring.  i sure as heck had never read any of these greek myths (although somewhere along the line in my k-12 education i did learn about hercules, probs thanks to mr. disney).

and to be honest, in my 55ish minutes with these 5th graders today, i learned more about mythology than i did the weeks i spent planning and researching.

it is amazing what i don't know about greek mythology.  but it is even more amazing to me what these kids do know.  i can't remember exactly what i was like in 5th grade (except i know i liked to pass notes and that i failed a daily edit quiz), but i sure don't think i was excited about greek mythology.

but i'm excited about what i will learn now and it's all thanks to those kids this morning.

face lift!

no, not a face lift for me (RUDE).  for the blog.  as you can most likely see.

which really just goes to show you that i will do anything to put off my thesis.  ANYTHING.  including updated my blog template.

but whatever.  it's starting to look like fall every now and then and i couldn't be more excited.  maybe the fall blog will help bring the lovely fall weather.  a girl can dream, right?

for now, enjoy whatever part of fall makes you happy whether that be the break from suffocating temperatures, the ridiculousness that is football, the festivals and hayrides, or the pumpkin spice scents.

and if none of that makes you happy, be happy that my birthday comes in the fall.  YES.

my favorite animal is venison.

let's start our reunion with my excuse for my lazy blogging ways as of late.  it's not that i don't have things i want to share because trust me, i'm learning a TON. but those things are all internship related since that's what i do all day (when i'm not writing my thesis) and i aim to share things that are less internship-y and more oh-megan-y.

i mean, if you really want to learn all about my internship and/or thesis, i'll gladly send you the log i keep or the drafts i'm writing.  no takers?  i didn't think so.

so moving on, yesterday while i was having a delightful mini catch-up session with two delightful ladies at the library, they were mentioning a few different animals and sometimes their food names as well.  (ex: baby cow, veal ... i think that was one).  anyways, i was more of a spectator to this conversation because i don't make a lot of interesting eating choices.  and that's for real ... it's an exciting day if i get plain (and i mean PLAIN ... like with minimal-to-zero spices/vegetables -- and i WILL pick the chunk-like-vegetables out because that's nasty) sauce on my spaghetti.

anyways, venison got mentioned as the conversation continued and i happened to mention something that showed that i really didn't have a clue what venison was.  i don't think i specifically said "do venison run around" or something like that, but whatever the comment was it was obvious that i was clueless regarding the fact that venison was the animal in food form ... and not the animal as it ran around in the field.  who knew?!

luckily this was not my first (nor my last) time saying ridiculous things in front of these two wonderful people, but as i venture out into the world i have to remember to filter my sometimes unintelligent thoughts.

if nothing else, now every time i tell someone my favorite animal i can say venison and laugh about my oopsie. it turns out venison is the meat of deer.  and while i'm no vegetarian, i'd just like to leave you with this picture to think about the next time you enjoy your venison:

photo credit: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Bambi