Things to be excited for…

It’s been a while now, huh?  More than a month, actually, and this is the first post of the new year.  Not much has changed.  I’m back at uni, working on my psych degree and studio art minor.  Classes are going well, professors are mostly stellar, the norm.  I’m taking developmental psych, cognitive psych, ANOVA/experimental statistics, design 1, and logic.  All in all, mostly major/minor specific.

It’s snowy here.  And cold.  But that shouldn’t come as any surprise to you (come on, it’s Kirksville; we wear shorts when it gets above freezing).  My friends and family in Saint Charles recently got a foot of snow, which pretty much makes it the first time that Kirksville had less–even if we’re only talking by a few inches.

But enough about classes and weather and cold!  There are marvellous things in which to be excited for!  New albums coming out this year, the marriages of both of my sisters, the tentative backpacking trip to Chicago, visiting family in Florida, and working at what is quite possible the best place in the world for three months.  It suddenly hit me today just how much is coming up within the next six or seven months.

Both of my older sisters are getting married: Joslyn in April and Jessica in August.  Joslyn’s will just include going home for the weekend, but I will have to get myself to Colorado Springs, CO for Jessica’s.  At first, my dad informed me that I would just fly there, but for the same price, I could give myself a multiple day vacation in Chicago and just take the train.  Sure, that’s an extra two days of travelling, hostel costs, food, et cetera.  But you know what?  I’m totally up for it.  My room mate and I started scouring the internet last night for train prices and hostels in the Chicago area and how to backpack your way across the country.  Now, I just need to present the idea to my mother.  That will be interesting.

Meanwhile, lots of new albums come out this year that I’m pretty darn excited about.  Florence + the Machine (whom I was gushing over a year ago), Kerli Koiv, Coldplay (about damn time), et cetera.  Loreena McKennitt and Robyn both just released new albums that I would love to get my hands on and might save as a special present to me for my birthday (or for getting through the semester, either one).

It’s strange to think that this semester will be done and over with in only three and a half months.  Come 6 May, and I’ll be back home in Saint Charles.  And on the 15th, my lease will start on the house that Jess, Noah, and I have up here in Kirksville.  I won’t be staying there for the summer, which leaves a bit of a waste in the rent that I will still be paying, but it will be fun to come up over weekends and start fixing the place up.  We’re pretty excited to get furniture and paint and mix-matched dishes into there.

Anyway, I hope that this was a sufficient update.  I’ve been working on another blog post for some time, but it really hasn’t been coming along well.  So this is my much more friendly alternate.

Keep it classy.

Missi

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A Year, 2010

Once again, I’ve nearly made it through an entire year.  As such (and to continue the tradition from last year), here are the accomplishments, triumphs, failures, and events that marked my past year.  Feel free to make your own to share!

• I made it through my first year of university at Truman, finishing off with a decent GPA and tons of friends to boot.
• Three and a half inch heels and four inch heels–I made them my bitch.
• I went on an aeroplane by  myself for the first time to visit my dad in Florida for two weeks, where I tried Sashimi for the first time (practically raw tuna with wasabi and pickled ginger), visited Key West and some other nifty beaches, and got massively sunburnt.
• If you caught that part about Sashimi, you’ve probably figured out that I became a pescetarian over the summer.  Half of my just didn’t care any more about avoiding fish while the other half just kept nagging about all of the great omega-3 oils and brain-helping nutrients.  This has allowed me to become pretty damn obsessed with sushi, by the way.
• I started a pretty shitty fashion blog about Midwest fashion.  Now that I have a new camera, I plan on taking more pictures for it, though.
• Which brings me to a creeper moment for this year: I definitely worked up the courage to ask random people to be models for my fashion blog since they were wearing cool outfits.  I’m actually pretty proud of myself for having the guts.
• For a failure, I definitely had a big falling out with someone who had been my friend, leaving us in some kind of acquaintance limbo.  And I’m not too proud about playing dirty and being really bitchy about it, but my life had gotten to a major point where I had to either step up or drop into obscurity, meek and silent as I get walked upon.  You all know I’m not really the type to allow the latter.
• I got a sewing machine!
• And I’ve sewed all kinds of really crappy things; mostly for work.
• Oh!  So, I got a volunteer job down on Main Street, Saint Charles at the First State Capitol State Historic Site in June.  I get to dress up in 1820s clothing, teach people history, give tours, work with kids, all kinds of fun stuff.  After a month and a half of volunteering, I managed to get a position with the Missouri State Youth Corps so that I could get paid for my volunteer work.  It’s been an absolutely amazing experience, and if all goes as planned, I will be working there next summer as well.
• Over October, my dog, Teddy, passed away after a year and a half of massive heart problems.  I had spent the entire summer preparing for him to pass away, which helped me when it actually did happen, but that doesn’t make it any less sad.  You probably already know that he meant a lot to me, but I don’t feel very burdened.  So that’s a start.
• My grandparents are still somehow making it.  My grandma was diagnosed with cancer last year, and she’s finally made the decision to quit treatment and just last these months out.  My grandpa, meanwhile, had a quadruple bypass that didn’t go as well as it could have, though he’s recovering now.
• The rest of the family is decently healthy (or at least in comparison to my grandparents), though there was a lot of tension when my brother was kicked out for his misconducts that he’d been warned for years to cease.  He now lives with my dad in Florida, which seems to be working out better for him.
• This past year, I’ve been building up a second family up in Kirksville (or at least it feels like that).  I signed the lease for a house for next school year with Jess and Noah, which is pretty damn exciting.  And we’re right next door to Ann, Ginny, and James, which means we’ll share a big side yard and have dinner parties.  Huzzah!
• This implies that I’m still friends with everyone up at uni, as well as some new folks.  I also finished up my first semester of sophomore year and started my new studio art minor.  It’s been really neat to see my artwork improve over the semester, and we’ll see how much better it gets by the end of next year.
• I went to Iowa for the first time.  No worries, it was as mundane as the sentence seems to convey.

New Music for this Year (or at least music I was exposed to this year):

• Kate Havnevik’s Melankton
• Emilíana Torrini’s Love in the Time of Science and Fisherman’s Woman
• Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack
• Loreena McKennitt’s The Book of Secrets and The Visit
• ALL CAPS’ Bmin/E
• Amy MacDonald’s This is the Life
• Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs
• Broken Bells’ Broken Bells
• Coldplay’s Parachutes
• Florence + the Machine’s Lungs
• Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine
• Imogen Heap’s Ellipse
• Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me
• Joe Purdy’s This American
• Kate Miller-Heidke’s Curioser
• KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope
• Modest Mouse’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News
• Natacha Atlas’s Halim
• Patrick O’Hearn’s Glaciation
• Sigur Ros’s Takk…
• Vampire Weekend’s Contra
• White Lies’ To Lose My Life
• Yael Naim’s Yael Naim

New Books:

• Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Science of Social Influence
• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
• Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
• Dude, I can’t remember the last time I read a new book for pleasure.  Aside from text book reading, I’ve been chilling with the old favourites: Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress, Memoirs of a Geisha, Dragon’s Bait, et cetera.
• But, I’ve gotten into some web comics: Questionable Content and xkcd.

New Films:

• HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
• Love and Death (a quirky Woody Allen film)
• Troy
• Darjeeling Limited
• The Losers

I really haven’t done all that much this year aside from lots of music listening (shit son, way more than I thought after making that list), working my butt off, chilling with friends every chance I get, and finding some new hobbies (such as interior design/décor, art art art art art, reading webcomics, et cetera).  I’ve learned to love libraries and sushi and appreciate some of the people around me a lot more.  I hope that you all have had an interesting year with lots of learning and events.  Hope to see you all next year!

Missi

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One Day More

Well, time’s up.  Today is my last day of winter holidays before I go back to Truman, and the feeling is bitter-sweet.  The work load for the next semester is looming over my head, chock full of psychology (two classes), health (also two classes), physics, and German.  I’ve taken a look at the syllabuses already out, and they’re intense.  Looks like I got off easy last semester.  Go figure.

But, I won’t deny that I’m a little excited to get back.  For starters, I like the food there.  My family isn’t that vegetarian friendly in terms of what we have around the house, so I’ve been living off humus, bread, crackers, cheese, soy milk, and tomatoes for the past week.  Granted, I like all of those, but it will be nice to get back to lots of vegetables.  I’m pumped for the food.

And then, I’m also very happy to get to see my house again.  It will feel weird without Aaron there, but I suppose it will force me to actually make more friends.  Luckily, my other friends will still be there, and some of us may or may not go out to dinner on Sunday night since the cafeteria will not be open.

Driving back should be okay.  I’m going back up with Noah around nine in the morning or so.  That way, we avoid traffic and have plenty of time to unpack and relax before classes start.  The only thing that he won’t like about driving back is that we will be listening to my CDs and not his music (AKA: Lady Gaga).  The Zunes and iPods have no place in the truck since its stereo gets all messed up from the cassette used to hook up the MP3 players.

That brings us to what we will be listening to.  I’m thinking a healthy dose of Regina Spektor, Flobots, Florence + the Machines, The Strokes, and Enya. Okay, I may replace Enya with something else.  Maybe some Jack Johnson or Vampire Weekend.  But, all in all, I’m calling it a day for my music.  Relaxed and groovin’.  And absolutely no Lady Gaga.  It’s not that I have something against her, it’s just that she’s the only thing my friends listen to, and I’m a bit sick of it.  I swear, if I hear ‘Rah-Rah-Ah-Ah-Ah’ again…

Anyway, since I’m the queen of making lists and then ignoring them, I’ll make a list of everything that needs to get done today before I can leave tomorrow morning:

• Make some CD playlists.
• Actually unpack my suitcase so that I can repack.
• Do laundry.
• Help my sister pick out her wedding dress.
• Finish my purse that I sewed up over break.
• Actually pack everything hanging out in my room.
• Gather my physics and German notes from high school.  I think they’ll come in handy next semester.
• Sew up my skirt whose hem came out (sad day).

If you’re reading this, I hope that you too had a wonderful winter holiday and that work or school isn’t too dreadful.  Good luck in your studies if you are attending university, and good luck with this cold.  I realise that, should you be in Missouri like me, three degrees is a lot to put up with.  Especially with the wind.

PS: Florence + The Machine Review:

Completely awesome band that I discovered over break.  Florence Welch has a strong voice perfectly suited for her style of indie rock mixed with bits of soul and baroque pop.  It’s good to groove to or just to sit around and listen while reading.  If you listen to one of her songs, I recommend checking out Rabbit Heart, Drumming Song, or You’ve Got the Love.  Lucky for you, those are her singles whose videos you can watch on Youtube.

I made a lovely playlist on my iTunes with her, though.  It’s Florence + The Machine, Lily Allen, Marie Antoinette Soundtrack, Beirut, Emiliana Torrini, and Jack Johnson.  Sounds great to me, though a little schizophrenic.

Well, this is my musical gift to you, I suppose.  Enjoy, should you chose to listen.

(Side note: This band is not for everyone.  If you like indie rock, I think you’ll enjoy it.  If you don’t, well…)

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