It’s been one hell of a year. But in the end, I have to say, a really good year. One glaringly significant event stands out, but looking beyond that I have some pretty good memories from 2008. I visited Minneapolis, New York City and the Caribbean. I successfully completed three semesters of graduate school. I spent a lot of time with my family and friends, which really, that’s the biggest blessing of all. I helped elect a new president who will hopefully do a lot of good for this country. And I turned 28, an age which I believe will serve me well.

I quickly pulled together a little photo collage of the year - one photo from each month. This is just a snapshot of the many things I did and enjoyed in 2008.

It was about the middle of the year that I experienced the worst heartbreak of my life so far. When my relationship with Brad ended, I was miserable and depressed for months. I hate remembering that feeling, but I know the experience made me stronger. It has been five months now, and I can honestly say that I am happier and that I feel better than I have in a very long time. Sometimes it seems so recent that I was curled in a ball on the laundry room floor, alone, unable to control my sobbing. But five months is a long time and I’ve come a long way.

This last month has been the perfect way to end this year. I spent my birthday with a large group of friends and family; I spent the holidays surrounded by so many of the people I hold dear; I’ve been having fun with someone new; and I’m spending tonight, the last night of the year, wearing pajamas, drinking champagne and hanging out with two of my sisters.

Despite learning the hard way what heartbreak feels like, I have to say…

It’s been a damn good year!

I hope you all can say the same, and I wish everyone a wonderful new year!

Remember how I had that really hard semester? The one that I just finished?

Well I got my grades yesterday for both classes. Two A’s mother effers! I have been in grad school for four semesters and in the first three I always got one A and one A-. This is the first time I’ve gotten two full-on A’s. And it was in what I justifiably deemed my hardest semester yet.

I was so happy. I turned in two papers at the end of the semester, one for each class, and held my breath. They were both heavily-researched and well-written (in my opinion), but I was dealing with two pretty tough professors so I had no idea what to expect.

In grad school your GPA doesn’t mean a whole lot. What matters is that you pass. So the elation over the grades is not about beefing up my transcripts - it just feels like validation for all the time and effort I put into those classes. Also, I know some people who are in a different master’s program at a different university, and they said that it’s uncommon not to get an A. In other words, the classes are relatively easy. (As a comparison, I had to turn in a 20-25 page final paper for each class while they had to turn in a 6-8 page final paper.) I don’t mean to suggest that my program is any better because it’s maybe more challenging, but it is certainly true that I had to earn those A’s.

I’m starting to sound like a braggart, but it’s just because I’m still riding the high of being SO FRICKIN’ DONE with this semester. Good grades were the icing on the cake, if you will. Mmm… cake.

I just want to go on record and say that I’m really happy right now. In this very moment, I feel really damn good. Remember how miserable I was four months ago? That sure was a fun time around here. I wondered when I’d ever feel happy again without having to try so hard. I’ve felt good for awhile, but sitting here right now I am so thankful for this crazy excitement tingling in my stomach. For this smile that I can’t wipe off my face. I know this giddy feeling can’t last forever, but it’s here now, and I’m loving it. Here are a few reasons I’m so happy:

• Today is the last day of my hardest semester yet. In August I thought about dropping a class because I wasn’t sure I could get through two difficult classes, especially given the circumstances at the time. But now I’m almost done, and I think I even kicked a little ass. By 5:30 tonight I will officially be done with this damn semester.
• I have been spending a lot of time with my friends. Part of the reason I moved back to GR was to be close to all these people, but I worried we’d all be too busy to hang out much. However, I think we’ve done a pretty good job. Especially lately. On Saturday everyone came out to celebrate my birthday; Sunday we had book club; last night we had a pizza and movie night; and this Sunday we’re having a dinner party.
• Tonight I have a date. And I am really excited. That is all.

In my excitement to plan my Single and Lovin’ It birthday celebration on Saturday, I neglected to make plans for tonight, my actual birthday. Luckily my grandparents called and want to take me to dinner. Sounds good to me! Then maybe a drink with my sister.

Despite only getting a short two hour nap last night, I’m feeling pretty good today. All the happy birthday wishes are pouring in, which I love about birthdays. Everyone comes out of the woodwork. Thanks for that by the way.

This is actually going to be a really good week. I kick if off with this birthday, then I get to go to my final classes on Tuesday and Thursday and finish out the semester (I am giddy about this!). Wednesday I’m hanging out with some friends, Saturday I have a family christmas party, and Sunday I have a casual dinner party. And I can actually enjoy all these things because: LAST WEEK OF CLASSES!! (At least until January.)

Oh and one more thing. I have a date Thursday night with a guy I think could be really cool. So far things look really good, but Thursday will be our first time meeting. I hope email/chat/text chemistry translates into real live chemistry.

I hate having a winter birthday.

For about a month I have been planning a big birthday dinner with friends and family for this weekend. I invited close to 30 people, selected a delicious restaurant, made a reservation and grew increasingly excited as the “yes” responses poured in. As it stands, there will be 19 people gathered around a huge table to celebrate my birthday with me on Saturday night.

I did something similar last year with a much smaller group, but this year I decided to have a Single and Lovin’ It Birthday Dinner and surround myself with all the many people whom I love. This is the worst weekend for a birthday celebration because it’s serious crunch time with the homework right now as everything is due next week Tuesday. But I wasn’t about to miss having a kickass 28th birthday party just because of some silly assignments.

However, it looks like something else threatens to stand in my way. The mother effing weather. This morning several people casually mentioned the huge snow storm that we’re supposed to get today and tomorrow. As in nonstop snow and ice for the next couple days on top of the several inches that fell last night. This does not bode well for my guest list.

I have people coming from other parts of the state to celebrate with me. I even wonder if those in other parts of the city will want to make the drive. I wouldn’t blame anyone at all if they had to cancel due to weather - I definitely prefer my friends alive and safe. So I won’t be mad at them. But I’m fucking pissed at the snow.

I hate the snow. HATE! THE! SNOW! Hate it hate it hate it. I really hate snow. A lot. I mean I seriously, really, very much hate it. Snow, you better not ruin this for me you little bastard. I swear I will hunt you down and make you regret the day you were born.

I hate research. Hate it. A classmate and I just spent two hours doing research for a paper and we walked away with basically nothing useful. This damn paper is due in 10 days, and so far we have zero pages written. We don’t even have any real research done. We haven’t even been able to really define the fucking problem we’re researching!

We sent a desperate email to the professor, but it’s Thanksgiving weekend. I doubt we’re getting any help until Monday at the earliest. I’m actually starting to get really worried about this. I really hope we can finish in time.

Apparently you guys didn’t find my “friend in common” thing very strange. Which, I guess in this small world it’s really not that weird. And really, it’s not so much the coincidence that I find so odd, it’s the way it made me feel when I discovered we were talking about the same Brad. It felt very revealing - I think your past relationships can say a lot about you. I even said to him, my date, that despite all our previous conversations, I felt like he knew more about me after the Brad realization than any time before. Which really wasn’t a bad thing, it just felt… bewildering. I’ve been bewildered a lot lately (I think I used that word to describe my reaction to seeing Brad on match).

Aside from dating, I’ve been doing A LOT of homework lately. But I’m actually starting to make progress. I can’t believe how few days are left before it all needs to be done, but at least I’m not at step one anymore.

Guess where I am.
On campus, in the computer lab.

Guess where I just came from.
The library.

Guess what I’m doing.
Researching and writing.

Guess how much I love it.
Not at all.

Guess what I’m doing to distract myself.
Blogging, gmail chatting, researching restaurants for my birthday dinner, checking email.

Guess how mad I am at myself for my horrible homework habits.
VERY!

The Rockettes show was… wow. Pretty cheesy. At one point I leaned over to Erica and said, “This is a little more cheesy than I bargained for.” It was the point when there were about 15 people in giant teddy bear costumes dancing around the stage. Yeah. The Rockettes themselves were pretty impressive - it was everything else that made me barf. Like the 30 dancing Santas. Gross. We had fun though.

At least it was a good break from all this other stuff on my mind. Mostly it’s the daunting task of researching and writing that is occupying my thoughts lately. But other stuff too. I am having fun right now, but I always feel like it’s not enough. Maybe it’s because there is so much I want to do, but I never feel like I have time. I don’t like being a super-busy person with plans every night that keep me out late. I like to balance busyness and relaxation. So if I start to get too busy, I cut things out in order to have time to just sit and read or watch tv. I need that down time.

But right now I have two huge school projects hanging over me, I have about 12 friends I keep saying I will hang out with but never do, I have family things I want to go to, I have other people I want to see, and I have about 73 thousand projects I want to start or finish. I realize everyone has this problem, it’s just life, but I feel particularily frustrated by it right now. I know the things I want to do, but they never seem to match up with the things I have to do.

I had such a good time Friday through Wednesday, but the last couple days I’ve just been in a bad mood. I feel like kicking the crap out of something. I wonder if Robin would let me hang a punching bag in our dining room.

Wow I need to just be fired from nablopomo. I missed it again yesterday, and like last time, it didn’t even occur to me once throughout the whole day. The last two years I was so energized about writing every day, and this year it’s like I completely forget it’s even November. I’m not sure what the difference is.

I had a decent weekend. Friday night was very fun (if you want details, feel free to ask because that’s all I’m writing about it for now), and despite having to work, Saturday was okay too. I ended up giving up on the paper about two pages in and going to bed. I spent most of Sunday finishing it up and starting on the next one.

My dad called me Sunday afternoon and when I asked how he was doing, he said “Better than you it sounds like!” He thought I was getting a cold. I had to explain that no, I wasn’t getting sick. I had just been home alone and hadn’t talked to anyone all day so my voice was still warming up. At 3pm. Maybe next time I have a home-alone homework day I should sing scales in the morning so I don’t sound like a frog when someone finally calls.

And lastly, when I got into work this morning I had a new office! I had been working at a cubicle of sorts for over a year, begging them to move me into this vacant office. Finally all the red tape was cut and I’m officially in! It’s a shared office, but I have plenty of space. And the best part? Huge windows! I can see the sun! Okay so it’s snow today, not sun, but I can see daylight during the winter which is an amazing thing for me.

Holy crap am I exhausted. For some very worthwhile reasons, I only got three hours of sleep last night before I had to get up and work a Book Fair today. I dealt with children all day who wanted so badly to spin our prize wheel and win a stick-on mustache or a plastic grasshopper. It was tiring. I had dinner with my sister, and now I’m sitting here trying to write my eight-page paper. I’m doing it tonight so I can spend tomorrow doing research for the two big papers I have yet to write.

I’m so tired I feel heavy. I’m all slouched back with my head propped up to see the monitor, and I keep shutting my eyes just to tease myself about how wonderful it would be to sleep. I should just go to bed now, wake up refreshed and do everything tomorrow, but for some reason I feel this self-inflicted pressure to at least make significant progress on this paper tonight.

So now I must declare my blogging break over and get back to it.

The other night I was at an event also attended by the two professors that teach my current courses. I was talking with a group of people that included both of the professors, and I happened to mention that I had a class with each of them this semester. One of the professors looked at me and said, “You have her and I in the same semester? What were you thinking?”

I’d like to know myself. This has definitely been my most difficult semester so far. I’ve always had one difficult class and one not-so-difficult class in a semester, which made it much more tolerable. But this time they’re both hard. The professors expect a lot of us, and the assignments are almost more than I can handle while working full-time. I’ll be so glad when it’s December 10 and I am finally done with this semester. I have to do a lot before I get there though.

Class 1:
Read about 200 pages of material
Write two 2-page reflection papers
Do primary and secondary research for a paper
Write a 20+ page paper
Present my paper to the class

Class 2:
Read about 100 pages of material
Write an 8-page paper
Finish research for a big paper
Write a 25+ page paper
Present my paper to the class

I haven’t even really started on this stuff, which is scary since I have less than a month to get it all done. And I’m really bad about getting much done during the week. With work, actual class time and the other busyness of life, it’s hard to focus on homework. Which means I basically have four weekends to finish everything. Sounds like a lot, but I wish I had eight.

I was up late last night despite the fact that Tuesdays are the longest days ever, not to mention the added bonus that I have to do a presentation tonight in class. But it was worth it.

Today has actually gone by fast so far, which is new. My days usually drag until the evening when they fly by. Especially now that it gets dark at 5:30. It’s like I have no day at all, just perpetual night. Have I ever mentioned that I hate winter?

Also, my sleep has been so bad that my left eye is constantly blood shot. I couldn’t wear contacts for days, and now I still wake up with a bright red eyeball every morning. I have to Visine the hell out of it so nobody will be scared of me. Maybe it’s scratched or something, but it doesn’t hurt. It just feels like I want to rub my eyes a lot. You know, like when you’re tired? Which I am. Always.

Yesterday was incredibly long. I was running on only a few hours of sleep, my professor not only failed to let us out early but actually kept us five minutes late, I had a pounding headache all evening, and I had the beginnings of a cold. But I stayed up until all the Obamas left the stage. I knew that later the fatigue and the headache and the cold would mean very little, but seeing history happen in real time would mean a great deal.

There were a lot of really important things going on last night, and I, like so many others, was amazed and moved by the results. I’ll let better writers tell the big story, but there is something that stood out for me last night on a personal level.

Four years ago, around election time, I was hounding my sisters to exercise their right to vote. One of them was still too young, but the other two were pretty apathetic about the whole thing. I sent them information on the history of women’s suffrage, I pointed them to the places they could find out if they were registered and register if they weren’t, I talked to them about the issues, trying to get them interested and informed. In the end, I think only one of them voted, and with little enthusiasm at that.

But this year was completely different. My youngest sister voted for the first time, and she made a point to be informed. She described the experience as “exciting.” Another sister was even more excited and involved than I was. She volunteered for the Obama campaign, making cold calls, knocking on doors and driving people to the polls. She voted first thing in the morning, and she cried during Obama’s speech. My third sister happens to have a different opinion than me, but even she got out and voted this year. And the most incredible thing? She texted me last night to say, “I have to admit, I was grinning from ear to ear listening to our new president speak.”

I think those stories, especially when compared to the stories of four years ago, say a lot about this election and what it means. I’m really proud of my sisters.

Edit: Turns out none of my sisters voted in the last election, making this year even more amazing.

Edit (again): Turns out one of my sisters did vote, it just wasn’t the one I thought it was.

I have the coolest long-distance friends in the world. This time my good friend Jess made a two-hour drive (actually it was more than that because of road construction – I’m sorry friend!) to visit me on Saturday. She was staying over night, but she couldn’t even carry her overnight bag up to my apartment because she was lugging a giant tub full of my favorite things: candy, Pepsi and cereal.

Whenever I have an out-of-town guest, I feel the need to show them all that GR has to offer, but the truth is I’m a terrible host. Good thing Jess was totally cool with sitting around my apartment most of the time. We did go out for dinner Saturday night, but then jammied up and hunkered down (hi Jen – did I get that right?) to watch a movie at home. Sunday she got to meet the whole family when we went to breakfast for mom’s birthday. Then since it was an incredibly beautiful day, we went for a walk in the park and sweated our asses off because it was so hot. In October. I’m not complaining!

Some of my awesomest friends are people who live far away from me. I can think of at least seven people who I would love to convince to move closer to me. Several of them are single too (unlike ALL my friends here who FALLING IN LOVE ALL OVER THE PLACE!), so I know we could have a lot of fun doing single girl stuff together. Can you guys all move here please? Or maybe we could find a central place and relocate there together? How does Denver sound?

In addition to my visit from Jess, I had a very busy and very fun weekend. Friday night my sister Emily came down to have dinner, hang out and see a movie with me. Since she moved, we get very little Brownie time together (she and I are the Brownies because we have brown hair, Andrea and Kelli are the Blondies because, well, they have blond hair), so it was a nice evening. Soon after she left, Kelli came over and we stayed up talking until almost 3am. Saturday we both got up and met the whole family at an orchard to do the pumpkin/apple/donut/cider thing, then she and I went out for a drink. My baby sister is 21 as of a few weeks ago, so I did the big sister thing and bought her a beer. Then we stopped at the mall before getting home in time for Jess’ arrival.

After breakfast on Sunday, I strapped myself down at my desk and worked on homework for a couple hours. School is kind of kicking my ass this semester. I was planning to spend this Saturday doing hardcore research for two big papers I have to write, then I remembered I have an all day seminar to attend. So it looks like Sunday is research day and my weekend is shot. Not cool, school. Not cool.