Robyn Takes On Thanksgiving

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving! Although Thanksgiving Day is officially tomorrow in the United States, students across the States have a five-day holiday. Besides, tomorrow is almost here! Liza, Delilah, and I were discussing this particular holiday and agreed that it is the most celebrated holiday in the United States. The other would obviously be the 4th of July but the 4th generally does not constitute a four- or five-day holiday along with a multitude of ceremonious celebrations attached. This discussion stemmed from Liza having to try to explain Thanksgiving to people while she studies abroad and having a hard time getting them to wrap their head around the fact that it is such a huge holiday. Delilah, of course, also had this issue when she studied abroad last spring in Germany. People just don't get how big Thanksgiving Day is for us Americans.
Firstly, Thanksgiving would not be complete without the food: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, casseroles, pies, and the list goes on. It is also a holiday that you spend with others. Usually Christmas or Hanukkah typically involve just close family or even extended family, and is a much more intimate celebration. Thanksgiving meals are spent with family but also family friends as everyone comes together and those that do not have a place to go otherwise are warmly welcomed around the table. And, most importantly, it is the holiday to be thankful for all of the blessings that you have in your life. Be thankful that you have family, albeit a crazy and hectic one, and be thankful that you have friends, even if you don't always see eye-to-eye. A saying my Mom used to tell me comes to the forefront of my mind on this holiday: "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet." Thanksgiving is just that-being thankful for what we have and being mindful that, even if we think we have it bad, someone always has it worse...

Robyn Takes On Clingy-ness

Clingy-ness, a horrific ailment that certain people catch that is terribly unattractive. I'd say it can very quickly become the reason any relationship hits its breaking point. Maybe its just that some people are on a spectrum of how much togetherness that they can handle from their potential significant other as they are getting to know each other and you really mesh the best with someone that is on the same level in the spectrum as you are. Like a rainbow, ROYGBIV, and I'm more of a V while he is more leaning towards R, if that makes an sense at all. As all of my rants, this one has a specific story behind it. I have enjoyed my time with Drake, but all of a sudden after only a few dates he wanted to be officially in a relationship already. It started right after our ice skating and movie dates. Although I can see how he might read things into this situation, I did not mean any overtures by our next outing. My brother, whom I have a semi-rocky relationship with, happened to come to town recently with a girl he has been dating. She is from this area and invited him home with her to her parents home. I barely ever see my brother let alone hear from him so I was shocked to receive a phone call from him right after my movie date with Drake. He told me he was coming to town that weekend and wanted to see me which, of course, I agreed to immediately. Later that week Drake wanted to go out again on Friday. This just happened to be the same evening that my brother wanted to go out to eat. Is it obvious what I did? Yes, I combined the two into one and so we went out on a double date.
It went well and we all had a great time, but I can understand how this was mixing signals with Drake who must have thought "Oh, she wanted to meet a family member already." On my side of thinking, my brother isn't exactly an accurate representation of my family as he tries his hardest to pretend he isn't part of it so I didn't think of it like that. When we got dropped back off at my apartment late that Friday evening, I figured Drake would head back to his place. Not the case. Instead he said he wanted to come up for a bit to "Sober up" (Yeah, okay, sober up. Side note but what guy would use that as an excuse? I had the same amount to drink and I was fine enough to drive even if I was slightly buzzed)...? And this is where we start to have issues. Not only have I spent three lovely days with you this week, which is enough for any couple who has been going out for a couple months, let alone two people that have only been dating for two weeks. But fact is, I just spent three days with you this week...hence I need some space and I've seen enough of you already this week. But he didn't pick up on the hints of, "Are you planning on heading out soon?", so he stuck around for awhile longer and over-stayed his welcome in my humble opinion. Then, when he finally decided to hit the road, he asked me the relationship question. I, in my buzzed and incredibly tired condition, was a bit startled by the question and didn't exactly know how to answer...and eventually just said "Yeah sure, I guess".
Bad idea. Next morning I checked my email and had an email from facebook awaiting me, asking me to confirm my relationship. Okay-seriously? Yet another side note but I'm not much into the facebook relationship statuses and announcing them to the world firstly, but secondly I feel like once you get to a certain age you get over the facebook relationship statuses in general. Or that it would be something you would eventually do after you've been official for awhile but by then it's no big deal. But maybe that's just me...but he is three years older than me so it flabbergasted me. And so I may have slightly hyperventilated because this is just too much. We've only gone out for a short bit and this is extreme. Not to mention that I got a text message shortly after this discovery asking if I wanted to hang out that evening...when I had already hung out with him three times that week. No, thanks.

I rescheduled for the next day and told him I wasn't ready to be that serious just yet and left things at that. I had already promised to go to a big event with him later that week and begin to slightly dread it just because the clingy-ness was starting to stress me out. I ended up having a great time at the event but it was because I didn't spend the whole time with Drake. Not that he isn't a great guy-he's super sweet-it's just that this whole situation just sucks. Perhaps it's because he's in the military and they all seem to take their relationships full force and super fast, but I'm not that kind of person. I like to take my time...take two steps forward and three steps back, test the water a bit. And for me, because of how slowly I like to edge into things, it is only natural that clingy-ness from a guy I'm dating is unappealing and utterly unattractive.

I did, of course, discuss the situation with my Mom (which if you haven't grappled this fact yet, I'm fairly close with her), and she made the point that I would want to be with someone I really really liked that much. It wouldn't seem like they were clingy if I was really into them. And she's right. Maybe I'm trying to make something work here and force something that just isn't right. If it's a chore to see someone then it's not worth it anymore...I should want to spend every waking moment with the person if I was really super interested. And is that so wrong to want that with someone. How nice would it be to want to spend that much time with someone? Some people have that but I've seen so many relationships where I feel like two people do try to force something that just isn't working. But I can't help everyone and in this situation I can help myself...so hopefully everything will work out but I don't think Drake and I will be a match made in heaven by any means.

Delilah Takes on College Readiness

As I've mentioned previously, I work as a tour guide for my college's admissions department.  It's not a horrible job (I've had worse), but if I could, I would drop it like a hot potato.

Today I gave a tour of my college to about 15 8th graders, who were accompanied by a chaperone.  These kids were in middle school.  Middle school!!!  They came in a larger group, with a whole busload.  It felt really strange seeing a yellow school bus idling on one of the streets going through my campus.  That never happens.  Until today.  It was basically a useless tour, because these kids aren't thinking about college.  They aren't even in high school yet.  It was a freebie day for them.  It just felt super ridiculous, especially because the kids went to a school that was about 2 hours away, and they have a college closer to them that they could have visited.

I have a repertoire of things I talk about on my tours.  Most of the time the tours are only with one family, so I tailor it a little to their interests, but the basics stay the same.  I had to completely scratch that for this tour.  Middle-schoolers aren't interested in gen ed requirements, or the shuttle my school has during the weekends.  The details don't matter to them like they would a high school junior or senior.  Instead, I gave them a PG version of a "this is what college is like" tour.  I just felt silly the entire time.

As a side note, my school brings in a big name each year for a lecture.  They are usually in the arena of public policy.  We've had Benazir Bhutto, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter, etc.  Last year we had Sandra Day O'Connor speak.  When I touched on this, I asked the kids if they knew who O'Connor was.  I thought that I would probably sound patronizing.  None of them knew who she is, or why she is a significant figure.  I had to give a super short explanation of who she is, and why she is important.  I was and still am aghast.  They should know this.  I went to school middle school in Virginia (where my college is located), and kids take civics in seventh or eighth grade.  These kids were in the so-called "gifted" program.  They were a select, special group, which is even more damning.  These kids are America's future.  God I feel old and curmudgeony.

Back to the subject:  I think that touring colleges in middle school is unconstructive, because it isn't even on their radar.  I gave a tour to a group of high school sophomores, and even that felt useless.  College is still two years off for them, and they didn't care.  Kids should be allowed to be kids.  Stop pushing them onto the "educational treadmill" so young!  They don't need to have the mentality that they have to succeed in middle school, so that they can do well in high school, and get into a good college where they will continue to succeed so that they can hypothetically succeed in life.  Let them worry about that a bit later, like sophomore year of high school.  These kids are going to get burnt out.  I'm burnt out on education, and I didn't start as early as they have.  I think these kids' school should focus on teaching them some basics, like who Sandra Day O'Connor is, instead of pulling them out of school to goof around on a college campus.

When was the first time people started talking about college with you?  Do you feel it was too early, too late, or was it "just right"?

Robyn Takes On the Weather

Ok, so I'm not really taking on the weather (although how cool would that be?!) but I am in a weather class this semester. It has been incredibly interesting, even if I wasn't and still am not thrilled at the amount of liberal arts general education classes I am required to take at my university. Still, there have been some interesting things I've learned this semester and with only a little over a week left in school I will be slightly sad to be done with the class (even if gen. ed.'s usually bring my GPA down-thanks a lot). A good portion of the class is just common knowledge because of what we are used to in our weather patterns but I did learn something new here and there that I thought was awesome. One in particular was lake effects (and yes, this may be common knowledge to those of you that live around the Great Lakes but it isn't to me). When the cooler air moves over water (which is warmer) it picks up moisture. In the Great Lakes this colder front comes from the Northwest and, after picking up the moisture, it dumps loads of snow on the South and Southwest shores of the lake. The neatest part is that you can actually see the cloud rolling towards you as it covers the city you are in with a blanket of snow as you can see in the video I attached Lake Effect in Buffalo, NY.
We also went over thunderstorms and tornadoes recently. And, through this, we discussed those crazy people out there known as storm chasers. They're very similar to the characters played by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton from Twister who, instead of like normal people who try to avoid bad storms, actually run towards them Storm Chasers. I had always thought this would be a fun thing to do but maybe that's just my love of adventure rearing its head. Then again, I've been one of those people who had a slight panic attack when I was in an airport in the Midwest. I was in middle school on a family trip and went to the restrooms where there were signs everywhere warning of tornadoes and reminding people to use the restrooms as shelters if need be. Oh yeah, that really cooked my goose. Perhaps storm chasing is not in my future but I can always live vicariously through others.

Delilah Takes on the Thanksgiving Movie Releases! Continued

So on my last post I wrote about Disney's Thanksgiving release, Tangled.  This post I'll be focusing on Screen Gems' Burlesque!

In my last post, I wrote about a couple of reservations I have about Tangled.  With Burlesque, I have absolutely no reservations.  I'm massively excited for this movie to come out on November 24th!  I may even go see it over Thanksgiving weekend, which I never do.

Here's the main reason why I want to see this movie: one word.  Cher.  I'm getting all shivery just thinking about it.  Seriously, I LOVE Cher.  She looks crazy good in the trailer.  She's 64!  And obviously I know she's had work done, but I don't care.  Haters stop hating.  I'm also interested to see how Christina Aguilera fares in her first movie.  Plus it's got Stanley Tucci!  Enough said.  Look how crazy exciting the trailer is:



You could argue that it looks like a mix-up of a lot of other movies like Chicago, Cabaret, practically any dance movie, with a touch of The Devil Wears Prada, and Coyote Ugly.  I still think that this movie is worth it.  Who doesn't like an underdog-succeeds-at-being-a-star-while-wearing-practically-nothing movie?  Plus Cher!!!  Not a whole lot of people, let me tell you.  If the trailer hasn't sold you, check out this clip:



How catchy is this song?  And I'm really not the biggest Christina fan, but she does a really good job on this song.  Plus you know Cher will have at least one number in it, if not more.  Also, from what I can see in the trailer, we get a guyliner-wearing (at least while at work) romantic lead in one of the bartenders, and maybe a bit of a love triangle/competition in Grey's Anatomy's Eric Dane (aka McSteamy)  I love guyliner.

Are you guys as big of a gushy fangirl of Cher as I am?  Are you excited for Burlesque, and if so, what element of the movie is drawing you in?

Delilah Takes on the Thanksgiving Movie Releases!

I've never actually gone to the cinema on Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm probably going to break that habit this year, because I'm beyond excited for two of the releases.  Both Tangled and Burlesque come out this year on November 24th!

I guess first I'll talk about Disney's Tangled, and then do another post on Burlesque.  If you've been living under a rock and need a quick synopsis, here's what I've gleaned from the advertisements:  A lovable, wanted thief named Flynn pairs up with Rapunzel and they madcap around on a search to solve Rapunzel's existential mystery all while fighting/avoiding the law and some unsavory types who are dogging Flynn.  It's computer animated, and will be available in Disney Digital 3D, depending on location.  Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore voice Flynn and Rapunzel, respectively.

 I'm feeling trepidatious about Tangled.  *Side note: My spell check keeps telling me that "trepidatious" isn't a word, or that it's spelled incorrectly.  Sometimes I want to punch spell check in the mouth*  When I learned a year or two ago that Disney was planning on doing a retelling of Rapunzel, I was pretty psyched.  Especially when I learned that amazing Disney animator Glen Keane would be involved.  Keane was a main animator at Disney during the "New Golden Age" in the 90s, and he was the lead designer on Ariel, Aladdin, the Beast, Pocahontas, and Tarzan.  He's one of my absolute favorite animators.

But I'm a little disappointed that the movie is computer animated and not the traditional 2D cel animation.  Keane has talked about how he wants to find a way to translate the personality of traditional animation (like in the Pocahontas wind scenes, where he smudged charcoal to achieve the blurred effect) into the more sterile computer animation.  I think Tangled will be interesting to see if he was able to move closer to this goal.  I feel that this story would have been a great traditional animation movie, and that it could have been interestingly adapted for a musical-esque great movie hearkening back to movies like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc.  Disney had a great "formula" back then, and those movies are classics.  It looks like they've kinda "Shrek-ified" the story though.

I'm probably over-analyzing this, but I LOVE Disney.  This is me keeping my Disney-craziness to an absolute minimum, like a dog on a waaay too short leash, with a squirrel right in front of it.  I can talk about Disney until the cows come home, and then a bit more.

Here's a great blog on the Art of Glen Keane.  It has a lot of the rough animation of his different characters, and it is a great compendium of all the different resources across the web.  Give it a look!

I'm reserving my judgment and have high hopes for Tangled.  I just wish Disney would make movies like they used to-- movies I can fall in love with.  Do you agree with me on bringing back old Disney, or am I being a stick in the mud?  Are you excited for Tangled, and if so will you see it on Thanksgiving weekend?

Liza takes on British students.

I need to start this out with a little disclaimer of sorts. I am not trying to simply put down the concerns of British students, but am just venting some frustration. Also, much of my information on the UK is based on conversations with British students. If it's wrong, please correct me.

As anyone who pays attention to the news will know, the UK's budget cuts will most probably lead to an increase in student fees. The increase will bumped the fees up from about £3,000 to a maximum of about £7,000. This is a big increase and UK students have every right to be upset. What I feel they have no right to do is A) complain to US students and B) argue with these US students. Why you ask?

1) US students already know all about high tuition costs. The US higher education system bankrupts it's students.  It is becoming more and more necessary for people to earn a high education degree in the US and generally the world, but the US system gives little help to students. Scholarships are available, yes. Financial aid is there, yes. However, neither of these is likely to cover all your costs unless you go to a public, in-state school and have a sizeable financial need. There is absolutely nothing wrong with public, in-state schools, but not everyone lives in a state with a university/college that will meet their academic needs. Not every state has a decent college--see Rhode Island. I'm also not trying to put down financial aid. I greatly benefited from government financial aid as an undergraduate and I would never have allowed myself to go to graduate school if I had not received aid as an undergraduate. My debt would have been twice as outrageous as they already are.

1a) £7,000 a year is still a lot less than many of our universities. Many universities cost well over $25,000 a year (including housing fees, but that still brings tuition to over $15,000 or so).

2) The British student loan system is nothing like the US's system. Even if a UK student is forced to take out student loans, they do no start paying it back until they earn a certain amount of money (£21,000 a year is the figure I was told). This is most certainly not true in the US. Student loans go into repayment 6 months after you leave school regardless of your employment status, let alone your salary. You can apply for hardship deferment, but this requires miles of red tape and they have every "right" to deny you this deferment.

I'm not saying that British students should just shut up and take this. If I could change the US system, I would. By all means, please fight for your future and the future of those that come after you. However, don't try to ram your problems down my throat. You shall not be getting any sympathy from this disgruntled American.

Delilah Takes on Her BAMF Nails!!!

Okay, I have a confession to make.  I'm sorta addicted to nail polish.  Seriously.  It's sick.  I read nail polish blogs.  There, I've said it.  In my defense, I polish my nails for a couple of vital reasons:
1.  It's a procrastination mechanism.  When I've got work to do, and I don't want to do it, I polish my fingers or piggies.
2.  It keeps me awake when I'm up late at night getting work done.  My thinking is "I can't go to bed yet, my nails will get smudged.  Oh well, might as well read Chaucer for tomorrow's class".
3.  When my nails are polished, it gives me something to look at when I get bored in class.  And that happens about 8 bajillion times in a class period.  I sit in my English seminar class for two periods of three hours a week, where we discuss works written by authors like Chaucer.  Not to knock Chaucer, because he's awesome, but a girl's mind wanders.  To my gorgeous nails.

So here's my current distraction, which I'm rather proud of:

So my nail shape looks weird here, but that's because my fingers are crazy weird

See? Nail shape doesn't look as strange here.  Look how sparkly it is!

I tried the gradation manicure from All Lacquered Up, and it worked!  I had a bottle of butter LONDON's Jelly Stroppy, and I layered it over China Glaze's Watermelon Rind.  Voila!  Magnifique, n'est-ce pas?





I'm just really proud of this because it took me awhile, and I'd never done something like this before.  I'm not super perfect with the polish, so it doesn't look super pro like others often have it.

I'm starting to get tired of my nail color choices, and I absolutely cannot let myself buy another bottle for a while.  So I'm trying new things to shake up my usual options.

It really is sick the amount of thinking I devote to my nails.  I could probably write the next great American novel in the oodles of time I think about my nails.  But I can't resist with nails like these!

At least I know I'm in good company.  One of my friends at my school has about the same level of obsession as I do.  We actually talk about nails.  The madness never ends...  And Robyn shares my love of colorful polish.  I always feel better when I see her because I always miss the rest of the triumvirate, and the girl is always rocking awesome nails.  Even traveling doesn't keep her from being polished.  She seriously bought a bottle of black nail polish in Oxford because she was polish-less.  I should have done that, because now she has an awesome little memento of our time there, because the chemist had their address on the price sticker. 

Delilah Takes on A Revelation

Okay, so this revelation isn't life-changing.  It's more an affirmation of a way I've been feeling for a very long time.

I work as a tour guide for my college, and one of my male coworkers commented that he'd had a couple of really bad days, and that his horoscope kept predicting them.  I was really surprised, because he's a straight college guy.  I don't think horoscopes are usually their main interest... I would say it's more like getting wasted on Natty Lite and trying to score with a chick.  I think that horoscopes are fun, and can sometimes give you some really good insights, but they aren't a given.  On paper, I'm a Virgo.  But in reality, I'm a Virgo/Leo born on the Cusp of Exposure.  I know I'm looking more and more woo-woo as I keep writing this, but stay with me.  Basically I was born close to the tail-end of Leo influence, so I'm a Virgo with Leo tendencies.  So a straight-cut horoscope for Virgo never quite gets it, and daily horoscopes are pretty useless for me.

I do think that the Chinese zodiac is actually pretty accurate, though.  I'm a snake. Sssss.  The same day this guy was talking about his horoscope, I checked my Chinese yearly outlook for a snake.  And I had a moment of revelation/confirmation.

My yearly reading was really depressing.  It read that "If you are a typical Snake, you can be quite at home with tending your own wounds and being your own best friend. That ability could be very useful during a year containing 10 unfavorable months. Neither the pace nor style of 2010 is likely to be conducive to your peace of mind."  At went on to say that my career was stalling and in a transition time, and that my nerves could get frayed by the stress I was undergoing.  With relationships, it said that friendships could be a great comfort to me, and that any initiative I would take would be worth it.

I read this and it really hit home.  I've been having a super difficult year.  I studied abroad in Wittenberg, Germany last semester, and it wasn't anything remotely close to what I'd hoped.  I knew that it was better to go into the situation without expectations, so I tried to keep it to a minimum.  I just really hoped that I would have a fun time learning and interacting with another culture.  Instead I got an inept professor, stressful class/internship situations, and lots and lots and lots of drama with the other students who also went abroad.  It was really difficult.  I cried all the time because I was so stressed out, and literally stuck with no real escape option.

When I got home for the summer, I had a ridiculous minimum wage job with horrible managers and a passive-aggressive coworker who tried to put basically her entire job on me.  My mother and I were having a lot of problems, and she said (and I probably did the same) a couple of deeply hurtful things to me.  Liza and I lost a very dear friend to bacterial meningitis, and her death spiraled me into mixed feelings of anger, sadness, and depression.  I think of her nearly everyday, and I feel her absence on campus.
 
It struck me that it talked about me being my own best friend.  A lot of my friends graduated  last semester when I was in Germany, and a big core of my friends are now gone.  The rest are scattered to the wind, and mainly live off-campus, while I still live on-campus.  It makes seeing them much more difficult.  Between busy schedules and a lack of response/caring I don't see a lot of my friends on a regular basis.  I didn't want to come to school this year.  This was on the tail-end of my friend's death, so it made the absence of all my other friends more poignant.  Liza graduated, and I was so used to seeing her almost everyday when at school.  I'm really a social person, and I love to surround myself with my friends.  I don't have much of a family, so my friends help fill in that place in my heart.  I still have the unfailing support of Liza and Robyn, but I miss seeing them both in person.

Right now I feel that most of my friends are kinda flaking out on me.  I'm tired of always having to take the initiative in the relationship.  It is really starting to make me question the nature of some of my friendships.  I've really had to be more of my own friend this year, and it is starting to wear and dispirit me.

I don't know if some of this is just due to the fact that my graduating college is looming closer, but I have a feeling it really isn't.  Yeah, I'm anxious about that, but I've honestly been avoiding the inevitable.  It's more the present that is really bothering me and getting me down.  Looking back on this past year, I've felt that most of the time I haven't been able to cut a break, and that horoscope really brought that home for me.

Robyn Takes On...Life? Relationships?

Sooo there's a lot to catch up on but most importantly of all, I miss Delilah and Liza. Thankfully I will see their beautiful faces tomorrow via Skype but it has been entirely too long.
On other fronts, life is pretty good. The GRE has been taken...and I'd rather not dwell on it too long. I'm just relieved it is over with. But I have to admit, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. Not saying that I didn't stare blankly at most of the analogies (which I was expecting to do so it wasn't much of a surprise), but it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I'm not sure if I'm going to take it again, but if I do at least next time will definitely be better because I will know what to expect.
And on the relationship/dating front, things are going well. Drake and I have gone out several times. We went ice skating earlier this week and last night I made him dinner. I might have had a slight panic attack earlier this week (which was a combination of my fear of dating, taking the GRE, and my classes all deciding to have a test/paper at the same time). So after I took a few deep breaths, had my Mom talk some sense into me, took a chill pill, and then I recovered a bit. It's all about the baby steps and I'm keeping that in mind as I venture into uncharted territory. Yes I may be scared shitless, but wasn't there that quote about nothing worth doing is ever easy.