Birthdays and stuff...

Well I am actually trying to write the final essay/final exam for my Old Testament  class, but I am very very distracted. Distracted could be an understatement. "Unable to concentrate at this point in my life" is more like it. I keep thinking about moving to Stillwater and what I will do this summer and then I think about what I need to do what I want (paint, sketch, sew, read, etc.), and then that translates into what I want, which has now become a birthday wish list, seeing as how my 21st birthday is a bit more than a month away.

For the record, I don't want to go get smashed with anyone. That is not my style. I want to go get sushi with a few close friends and have some good wine while flashing my "hey I'm 21 now" ID and not having to ask someone else to order alcohol for me. I am thinking that this summer will be full of cozy nights with wine and stars and conversation and movies and awesomeness.

Anyway. I don't want a lot. I feel like anything I want will be practical or enjoyable for a long time. These things include, but are not limited to: Large canvases for painting. Good acrylic paint. Brushes. Lots of wall space to hang the products of the first three items. The complete Harry Potter book series. Rope sandals. The magical ability to sew awesomely and an awesome (but cheap) sewing machine to go along with it. An infinite amount of time to go camping. The ability to make the sky clear on any given night in order to sleep under the stars whenever I am camping.

That's about it. Get moving, kids. You have til June 3.

Just kidding. You don't have to get me anything. =)

Yes, please.

In this this post, I expressed how restless and anxious I have become to leave Tulsa and move on with my life.

But as silly and girly as this sounds, I realized yesterday that I was really just restless and anxious to see this guy I have been dating for a couple of years. His name is Austin. He goes to school in Stillwater, so I haven't gotten to spend very much time with him for the last two years, excluding summer and Christmas breaks.

Last night we drove to Stillwater because I needed to pay the deposit to my future landlady and he just needed to go back for this week of school. Who knew that was exactly what the doctor had ordered for me? We talked and laughed and drank bad coffee from Starbucks and talked and laughed some more. After a night of cuddling, talking about this summer and the years to come when we will be actually living in the same town (WHAAAT?!?!?!), spaghetti, Parks and Recreation, and giggle fits where I ended up on the floor, I drove back to Tulsa in the rain, listening to Iron & Wine and thanking God for how wonderful my life is.

It's a good life.

Looking Forward

In two weeks (well, fifteen days to be exact), I will graduate from Tulsa Community College with an Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts. I will go to New York City for a couple of days with some good friends. I will move to Stillwater, OK to share a house with three other girls. I will start a new facet of my job at the Starbucks there. I will work full time for the summer and save money (something at which I have never excelled) for the school year. 

My mind has been swimming with all the possibilities. Change is so near I can taste it. I keep looking at things in my room, trying to decide if I will take this with me or leave that behind to be slowly processed into or out of my life. I have been choosing which books to take with me and they would already be packed away if I could find a spare box big enough. I have refrained from stripping my walls of posters and paintings because.. where would I put them? They would probably end up leaned against the wall, a few feet below where they had originally hung. 

But wait. I haven't graduated yet. I still have to finish these two weeks of classes. At this point, I am failing my Spanish 4 class because of various occurrences and happenings and I am not completely innocent of procrastination. According to my professor, there is still hope, so as soon as I hit the "Publish Post" button, I will be living and breathing Spanish in a desperate attempt to graduate and keep my Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society membership. 

My mind is constantly leaping forward to May 6, the day I walk with hundreds of other students, draped in a bright blue cap and gown, to receive my diploma, but I am constantly pulling it back to the present where there are still many loose ends flapping in the wind. If I do not attend to things in the present, I will be unable to attend to things in the future. 

God give me the patience to push through these fifteen days, which are coming to an end all too quickly, and have mercy on me and my Spanish class.  

Bleck.

For the last three weeks I have had a bit of a cough and runny nose, which I chalked up to the allergies and drought. Yesterday, though, I finally admitted that I am sick, but that might have had something to do with me feeling absolutely rotten. So now my sinuses are exploding and my nose is running off my face. 

Does anyone have some good chicken soup recipes or other sickness comfort foods? 

Spring! Glorious Spring!!!

Welcome to Tulsa. Home of the Tulsa Driller, Mayo Hotel, and the BOK Center. We have huge tornadoes and epic ice storms, as well as a wide, muddy stream known as the Arkansas River. There are delicious, indie, hole-in-the-wall coffee shops and diners, and this cute little mile of shops and restaurants known as Brookside. Oh, and when spring arrives, it's the most beautiful place in the world.

I'm serious. The trees explode into flowers, and the stark contrast of the light petals against the dark, naked wood is other-wordly. Crocuses begin to peep up through the brown grass and robins appear. The non-flowering trees grow fuzzy with tiny leafy buds. The sky is painted a brilliant blue. The grass slowly comes to life, a dusty hint of green becoming bright and dominant. People drive with their windows down and the sunroofs open, and they all look like this, dying to get a face-full of sun, wind, and fresh air.

Isn't it wonderful? What is your favorite part of spring? 

I admit.

Well okay... I might have skipped Spanish class today... And we might have had a test today...

But it's no big deal. My teacher is letting me make it up.

Life has been so stressful lately. It was nice to just cry to my mom and eat chocolate instead of sitting through three hours of fast-paced Spanish. I am counting down the days (31!) until I graduate and I am done with school for a bit.

What is your favorite kind of chocolate? Which is the best comfort chocolate? And other comfort food, for that matter?

Ohhh.

Pardon the unintended, far-too-long hiatus. There is something to be said for procrastinating on doing your copious amounts of homework during Spring Break: Don't do it. So, needless to say, the last couple of weeks have been non-stop. Homework, preparing speeches, helping my brother move into his super sweet apartment downtown, keeping up with my online Old Testament class. Oh and work. 

Speaking of work... Yesterday I went in at 10:30. At 10:45, the power went out. At 12:15, it came back on. So what were we doing for that hour and a half that we had no ability to make espresso drinks or frappuccinos? We cleaned. Ohhh did we clean. We were able to serve iced tea, iced chai, and iced coffee while we had it, by keeping track of what we sold and making change from the tip jar. Inevitably, people came in and asked, after we explained that we could not make espresso drinks because we had no power, if they could have a latte or a frappuccino, or if they could use the wifi. How many times did I say "Well that requires electricity, and we don't have it right now"? I have no idea. On the bright side, we got everything cleaned we could possibly clean, so our store is bright and shiny now. 

Last night, I watched a movie with some friends of mine from high school. The movie was titled "Devil", which I found to be all too appropriate. You might be wondering, "Why in the world would anyone want to watch a movie called "Devil"?" Believe me, I was wondering the same thing all last night while I was waiting for the Devil to appear over my bed, ready to cause my horrific death by some injury to my neck/throat. Brief synopsis: Five people get on an elevator in a tall office building. About twenty floors up, the elevator gets stuck. The lights begin flickering, and one by one, as the lights flicker off for thirty seconds at a time, each person is violently killed. As the story progresses, the police and fire department are called to try to rescue the people in the elevator, while the passengers are frantically turning against each other, trying to figure out who is killing them. One security guard, a Spanish Catholic, knows exactly what is going on: The Devil has taken human form and is one of the passengers, causing the lights to flicker and killing each person. Freaky.

 I went through various methods of dealing with my fear: closing my eyes so I couldn't see the Devil appearing over my bed, keeping my eyes open to convince myself that nothing was actually there to take my soul, praying out loud for other people, ect. There is a reason I don't watch scary movies: I can't sleep until the sun comes up. I know that this movie had a message of forgiveness, which was cool, but when you're drifting between the grips of sleep and wakefulness, you forget the forgiveness and manage to focus only on the scary devil person. If you can handle scary movies and you think this one might be good, go for it. If you can't handle scary movies, definitely don't try to handle this one.